The woman – whose name was Bev – said, “Craig, the hardest things in the world are being unique and having your life be a story. In the old days, it was much easier, but our modern fame-driven culture, with its real-time 24-7 marinade of electronic information, demands a lot …
Nobody likes being sold to. Being sold to reduces that chances that you’ll actually buy. So creative teams that urge account people to “sell” their ideas are misguided as well as patronising. When it comes to helping great work see the light of day, the role of smart account management …
In the name of “doing the right thing” many clients run their pitch processes on a “level playing field” basis. It is good that they care about doing right by the pitching agencies – many don’t – but that care is misdirected. A level playing field approach means that all …
Professional golfers are more likely to hit a hole-in-one than mere mortals. But it’s still a relatively rare occurrence. Because there are so many things that can prevent a hole-in-one from happening. It requires skill and luck. In fact a hole-in-one is a minor golfing miracle. Great creative work that …
Clients all want their content to “go viral”. There are some obvious recurring properties of content that actually does “go viral”. But, when push comes to shove, there is still a tendency to excise those very properties from ideas and content. This is due to a natural risk aversion on …
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsRpXZML5YU] I watched the R/GA presentation on The Way Forward for agencies in the same week that I’d presented to the marketing department of a famously engineering-led company. In both companies the people who make the giant leaps, whilst all around them are taking small steps, are the engineers and …
There’s a track on Public Enemy’s 1991 album – Apocalypse 91 … The Enemy Strikes Black – called A Letter To The New York Post. Said newspaper had printed an article about PE rapper Flavor Flav allegedly beating up his partner, without (allegedly) checking its facts first. Rather than suing, …
My mother is a very bright, competent, entrepreneurial woman. But, when I was younger, she used to embarrass me in shops by acting all helpless in order to get served more quickly. She’d stand in the middle of a department store holding the item that she wanted help with in …
As a ‘traditional’ television advertiser, faced with… Media fragmentation. Ad zapping technology. …you’d think that a logical response would be to… Explore alternative marketing communication models. Make ads that people actually want to watch. Well I tell you now, the latter of these two options just ain’t happening. Not based …
Fewer, bigger stepping stones. The secret of a good presentation. Each stone should be a big, significant, memorable point. And what carries the leap between each one is the personality, the enthusiasm, the storytelling ability, the belief, the intensity, the passion of the presenter. This way the audience has the …
