The mediocrity of middle distance insight
Twyla Tharp is one of America’s greatest choreographers. In a long and prodigious career, she has created over 130 dances for her own company as well as for the Paris Opera Ballet, The American Ballet Theatre and the Royal Ballet. In 2003 she committed the secrets of her creative success to paper in a powerful...
The power of powerful creative vehicles
Recently I have got really interested in the concept of creative vehicles. Indeed I wrote about them for Campaign magazine in a piece about how much I hate the word ‘branding’. By creative vehicle I think I mean a repeatable approach to communications that builds fame for a brand. The thing that your brand is...
Monopoly, the commercial dividend of powerful brands
My favourite episode of South Park is ‘Gnomes’. Not only is it properly funny, if you like your humour puerile and immature, but it also holds a small cautionary tale for marketers. ‘Gnomes’ tells the story of a gang of animated garden ornaments that live beneath South Park and steal underpants while its residents are...
In praise of passive planning
One of my favourite ads of all time is Honda Grrr. A Wieden & Kennedy classic, it’s still fresh and powerful a decade on, albeit the subject matter is a little out of time, as we tend to frown upon diesel these days. As much as the work is lovely, it’s the planning that I...
Orthodoxy is toxic
All my heroes are equal but George Orwell is more equal than others. I’m not taken to affection for old Etonian propagandists, after all there are enough of them stuffing the country up at the moment. But I make an exception for George. You may love him for his life-long opposition to totalitarianism but my...
The real genuis of ‘and’
There is one word the advertising industry really hates. In this word lies the root of all perceived evil. It’s only a little word but its sends shivers down our collective spines. The advertising industry hates the word ‘and’. Instead, if we are really honest, we much prefer the word ‘or’. We tend to be...
No more ‘millennial’ twaddle please
Peter Mead, the co-founder of Abbott Mead Vickers, had a profound dislike for one particular word. An old school ad man from a modest background, Peter had huge respect for the ordinary people that bought his clients’ products. And as such, he absolutely hated those that worked for him calling people ‘punters’. It wasn’t quite...
The year ahead in planning
Ok so its March and this is rather late off the rank. But better late than never. It just means we have 9 months not a year to sort this stuff out. If 2016 taught us anything, it is that prediction is pointless. It may be desperately tempting, it may feel like a commercial imperative,...
Have we reached peak purpose?
It’s quite possible that 2016 marked peak purpose. The year in which the idea of corporate or brand purpose reached its zenith from which its grip on the collective consciousness of the business world may slowly wane. You see purpose has a rather patchy rep. For every Unilever, celebrated for their commitment to both corporate...
The seven deadly sins of planning
Recently I was asked to talk to the Open Strategy Group about planning bad habits that should be addressed in 2017. And so I aimed off at what seem more to me as sins than simply bad habits. The seven deadly sins of planning. Here is the slideshare from the event, each point illustrated by...
Anxiety maketh the planner
“Let’s face facts, Perce”, as Edmund Blackadder was constantly saying to his hapless companion, the division of labour in advertising agencies borders on the bizarre. In no other industry is the thinking, creating and doing delivered by different people, with different titles, often in different departments. You don’t see the farmers, the architects or solicitors...
Stand up for strategy
The work, the work, the work. That’s the mantra by which we live and die in advertising. Good agencies are measured by the work they win and the way that they work. But great agencies are always measured by the quality of the work they make. CDP, BMP, BBH and Mother all brought innovation to...