Belief is our killer app
Tribalism has got an awfully bad name of late. Built on identity and identification, it has a noble birth. But the problem is that tribalism simply cannot stop itself from creating an environment and adherents that dislike, demonise and ultimately attempt to destroy those outside or against their creed. And so, tribalism has become a...
Advertising only ever works by consent
All of a sudden, the world of marketing has got very polite indeed. For years we have taken absolutely no notice of whether people actually want us to communicate with them and instead have deluged their letterboxes and inboxes with communications, willy-nilly. And then overnight, four letters that sound like the acronym for a former...
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...
We need to think more about advertising
Adam Lury, one of the founders of the late, great and greatly missed HHCL, is perhaps one of our least recognised planning legends. The exponent of a radical approach to strategy that helped make the agency’s work so distinctive in the 1990s, like many great planners, he was also immensely thoughtful about this business. Adam...
Why hire an advertising agency?
David Ogilvy famously asked clients of his agency wanting to write their own work, “why keep a dog and bark yourself?” Half a century later it appears that for some clients the answer is “who needs a bloody dog?” Which brings us to the thorny question of why use an advertising agency at all. One...
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,...
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...
Remain was advertising’s lowest moment
This is an article I wrote for the second edition of the New European. The New European is a fascinating publication, it was set up from idea to first publication in 9 days. It’s kept its costs very low and exists to serve the 48% of people that voted to Remain. It will disappear once...
Adland’s dangerous addiction to awards
The advertising industry has a serious problem with addiction. Addiction to awards. Everyone in adland loves a good award. Used recreationally they can be fun, illuminating and uplifting. Sure the people that you get the awards from can be rather un-savoury, but as long as you keep the habit under control awards do no great...
Most advertising is rubbish, that’s what I like about it
And so it begins, another year at the coal-face of global advertising. And a moment to reflect on why I keep at it after all these years. Why commit myself so wholeheartedly to a profession legendary BBH planner Jim Carroll, recently described as “a trivial career for serious people”. Of course there are a host...
Ad blocking is our fault
I have never understood the belief that advertising dollars should follow people’s time. The assumption that if people spend 50% of their time some place or other means that 50% of the advertising budget should go there too, seems to me to be arrant nonsense. This is despite the fact that it is an article...
In praise of Dinosaur planning
The greatest insult you can throw at someone in this industry is that they are a dinosaur. Being a dinosaur not only implies that you are slow and stupid but also that you are in imminent danger of being wiped out by an asteroid or similar calamity and not before time. That’s the narrative of...