An International Smoothie

Changing Strategy

Indeed. Picture courtesy of Chris Radley.

One of the few good things about having time off while you wait for people to heal is the opportunity for introspection it provides you with. The rare relief to take a step back and think about what you're adding to what you do.

This time off coupled with PSFK's excellent series: Spur from Redscout (brought to my attention by the super smart Gareth Kay) have meant that yes, I've been thinking about stwategy. 

When I first started applying to agencies, it was deemed I was "too unorthodox" and thus wouldn't be a good account exec, and because I didn't go to art school or have a partner, it would be impossible for me to have a creative thought. So almost by default (or maybe by blogging) I was branded (get it?) a planner. I was pretty damn happy because while some of the smartest and most generous people I'd met also happened to be planner/strategy types, the vast majority of them didn't fit the image that was being projected of the account planner. Regardless, I hoped I'd be able to absorb some of that collective and individual awesomeness by osmosis.

Imagine my surprise then, at the identity crisis and the need for validation that permeates through vast chunks of the strategic community with frightening regularity.

Brand, channel, engagement, immersion, emerging media, technology and many more that I can't remember. All these words are prefixes to strategy, to planner. And I believe all are wide of the mark. 

Then there are the plannery things that are to be done. Drink tea, wear a cardigan, buy suitably plannery glasses. Call yourself a geek, stare out the window, be disparaging in equal amounts about your useless account management and egotistical and petulant creatives. 

Read Stephen King, romanticize about how you would run the agency, obsess over the perfect proposition, make sure you remain 'strategically aloof' in meetings so your impeccable strategic nous cannot be questioned. Sit in your ivory tower with other planners and propagate rampant intellectualism. 

Use big words when smaller ones will do. Talk about doing powerpoint a hell of a lot.

Stop. being. a. douchebag.

We bemoan the fact that our clients are trapped in antiquated models of media and thinking, yet we restrict our own job descriptions with the same philosophy. 

The suits 'do', the planners 'think' and the creatives 'draw/write'. 

What if I want to think about something, sketch a crude solution, talk to the creatives and muck up a concept and present it to a client at the end of a weekly status? Is that cool? Will we, as individuals and a collective industry survive? WILL THE CLIENT BE OK WITH IT?!?

I had the pleasure of lunch with Paul Isakson just before Christmas last year and he said a ton of smart things, one of which I remember being:

 "I stopped caring about being a planner a long time ago". 

And then it struck me. The people who are the best at marketing strategy are the ones who really don't care about planning. They just solve problems.

It's something Eaon and I wrestled with at Geronimo while coming up with what we called an innovation brief. There's a real need to break out of this "Client must brief us before we can think about something" mentality that plagues the industry. If I was a client I'd be disgusted if the company I hired to solve my communication problems only thought about something when I told them to. In fact, if I didn't get proactive solutions from my agency, I'd fire them and hire somebody who would.

We figured out that essentially, our job was to identify business problems and then create solutions for said problems that were contextual, culturally relevant, rewarding and engaging for people. And then impress upon our clients the need for that solution. So that's how I define what I do. Job titles be damned.

The masses of poor quality work we see and the repeated marketing-related disasters that crop up in the trade rags weekly are in my opinion, more of an indictment of the strategic community than any other. Aren't we supposed to be the ones hired for our saber-sharp intellect? Because let's be honest, we're not here because we look good!

I think there are some broad areas that we can improve to be better (insert your choice of flavor here) strategists.

1. Understand the individual pressures of your colleagues' and clients' jobs and then impress upon them that you're not there to show them up intellectually, but to make them better at their jobs. You should want them to be valued, get promoted and to get recognized for their achievements just as much as you want those things for yourself. Measure what you do by what they are held accountable for. You'll never have an 'irrelevant' idea again.

2. Immerse yourself in humanity (it's the best phrase I could come up with). We aren't burdened by budgets or studio deadlines, so we should (as I believe was the point of planning in the first place) take time to read, watch, listen and understand everything about the world in which we live in. Not the office, not the post/zip code, not the city. But the world. What are people's cultural references? Why? 

The world has never really seen the mass migration that the past 2-3 generations experienced and there is no such thing as a homogenous culture (apart form perhaps some advertising agencies staff). Whether we like it or not, it's our job to know about Lost, Twilight, Microsoft's next operating system, Mass Effect 2, Avatar and High School Musical 3, American/Pop Idol, Big Brother, what Hugo Chavez is doing in Venezuela, Dan Brown, the resurgence of the fixie scene, the situation in Palestine, what our budget deficit is, house prices, what's on the front page of the Enquirer / Daily Mail, how factory strikes in China may constrain laptop production this year and so on and so on. 

Being a sponge means when it's time to distill our thinking down to that one perfect point, we have all the raw materials we need to make that point an absolutely bone-crunchingly "Boom" point.

3. Quickly move to a place where we begin to get uncomfortable again. Shake it up. Do what you haven't done. Defy convention. Break some rules. Ask for criticism. Ask to work on the most difficult piece of business in your company. Ask for forgiveness and not for permission. Inject some passion and lava back into our workplaces. Don't let the accountants win. Everyone knows a child who always asks "Why?" until you get to a point where you just say "That's how it is!!" and the kid shoots you a look where he knows you're trying to stop the conversation. Be that kid and never stop asking why.

4. Take interest in seeing things through to the end. And figure out how you can help. It's completely alien to me how someone could 'hand off' a brief and then see it next when something is presented to a client. Being well versed in all things tech is pretty damn crucial here, to help you stay ahead of the curve as well as help you get ideas to clients quicker, get approval quicker and get to market quicker. "But you'll step on creatives' toes!!" I hear some people saying. I'm not saying do their job, I'm saying help them do it better.

5. Don't constrain your and your company's ambitions by thinking only about client communications. Please, it's only been said a gajillion times. Make things and make things happen. And make it amazing.

There are more of course, and I'm probably off-target with a lot of what I've written, but that's the comments section and y'all are for :)

Let's make strategy awesome again.

Making It Matter

The power of what we do. Image courtesy of emmapebble

I've had a lot of time recently to think about family. And given the particular hand that fate has dealt my family, who apart from myself are all doctors, my thoughts have turned to medicine. Medicine is one of those professions where those on the outside wax lyrical about the nobility that accompanies the pursuit of one's income, but those within the profession often become jaded and the pursuit of saving lives often takes a back seat to administration, KPIs and trying to get out the door at exactly 1700 when a patient walks into the clinic at 1655.

I was discussing this with my brother (who's just about to finish med school) when he made a couple of points that have in the last couple of days really started to resonate with me, given where I think we should be headed as an industry and what I want to do with my career. He told me about this 'Careers in International Medicine' workshop that he went too (you could say the international smoothieness runs through all the Ismail veins) and how he was told by a bunch of people that when you finish med school, you think you can save the world one patient at a time. After a few years you think it's field work in nations with less developed healthcare that will save the world, you soon realize that aid is all about money, and therefore all about governments giving money. But politics is a dirty game, and he was told politicians really only answer to one thing, and that's mass communication. Or more accurately, the pressure that mass communication can put on them by giving the masses information that the politicians may not necessarily want in the public realm. Readers from the UK will know that the MP expenses scandal is a perfect example of this. All this has got me ruminating on communications and the role our industry can play in doing amazing stuff.

It's easy to lose focus when we're being pulled to two extremes, the pressure of having to produce creative that will eventually entered into award shows that never matter and are presided over by failed directors, artists et al; and the pressure we face when forced to increase sales year-on-year that sucks any kind of innovation or intellectual enthusiasm out of our work.

Having a job where we have input into how businesses behave and communicate in in the 21st century is an immense responsibility given the challenges we face as economies and as a collective humanity. To waste that opportunity by chasing frivolity or mechanical efficiency would be a massive shame.

The future of communications isn't Twitter, or the internet or whatever else banal trend watchers would have you believe. It's doing something worthwhile for a person or people, be it education, providing a service or removing a barrier that stops them doing what they want to do in their day to day existence.

It's that simple.

Sometimes it's easy to lose sight of that, the vast potential we ignore on a day to day basis, so props to my little bro for reminding me how fortunate we are, and why this really matters.

Pitchin' Ain't Bitchin'

Pitchin can (and should) be fun. Image courtesy of MerelyMel

I've only really worked in advertising for a year and have only been on the planet for a quarter century or so, so basically I'm wrong. A lot. Having said that, I'm 94.565215% sure that the way ad agencies/idea factories/new wrapper for same old candy approach new business is amazingly archaic.

Apart from the obvious fact that the vast amounts of money spent on pitching for what is usually at least a 2 round process have to be written off using the profit gained from existing clients, there is the inevitable (manufactured) drama and intrigue  ("Who else is ptiching? Oooh do we know anyone at that agency? Do you think we can find out what they're thinking about?") along with the (very real) head in hands type of stress that pitching for new business brings with it. The drawn-out process also often sucks any kind of bold thinking out of an idea as you look at it again and again and again and again and slowly turn it into a Powerpoint/Keynote bohemoth that bores everyone to tears.

Then there are these pitch brokers that have sprung up out of nowhere, who clients and agencies hire to find the best agency for them / to polish an agency's image. How in the name of anything that you hold sacrosanct can you expect a company to believe that you as an agency will be able to transfer their products/services into effective communication when you hire SOMEONE ELSE to do the same for you? It's beyond insanity. But it happens all the time.

In every corner of the process there's smoke and mirrors, it's something Eaon and I have talked about for a little while now, mainly out of the frustration we've had in convincing clients who have seen Geronimo as a DM agency (which it was originally) and said "Yeah we love it" to a fistful of ideas we've presented and then promptly turned to another shop to execute. Which they've done badly.

The straw that broke the camel's back for me was when we pitched to a potential client who took our idea and then appointed another agency, who mangled it beyond belief (I know because as a customer of said consumer electronics company, I received the communication). I considered naming and shaming the douchebrand, but their 90% plus fall in profits made me think I don't think I could really do any more damage. Karma baby, gots to love it.

So it made me super-happy to read Mike Arauz's post about a (new) new business model for digital agencies, which had a lot of stuff we had thought about and nice incorporated some of Iain Tait's 10 Reasons.. post from 2 years ago. Both have some really compelling reasons why and how every agency should really figure out a new way to get new business, particularly pertinent given that we live in this increasingly joined up world with everyone knowing someone who knows that someone. And all that.

So rather than putting my version of what I think an agency should do. I think I'll just do it. And if works then awesome, and if doesn't then it's just another thing I'll have been wrong about.

I just bought This Pitchin' Is Bitchin' and have a couple of ideas that I'll be putting into action next week. Any pitches that Geronimo is involved in will be detailed there (because the faux secrecy that surrounds pitches pisses me off) and all the proactive pimp pitching tactics that I come up will be there also.

Let's get this sucka started. Boom.

The Only Choice

Fork in the road, image courtesy of i_yudai

I think it's safe to say that recent events such as JWT shutting its Chicago office and the very quiet breakup of Enfantico (in stark contrast to the pomp that greeted the birth of the agency of the future) should only serve as further warning to advertising agencies and indeed marketeers that those who continue to put their fingers in their proverbial ears about the changes in our business do so at their peril.

Gareth has very neatly drawn a spot-on comparison between the changes taking place in the music industry and how we in the communications business are faced with quite a simple choice - perhaps one that some of us have already taken, but still a choice that needs to be revisited with every piece of work that we put our name to.

What do you want to do?

In my mind there are really only two answers to the question, and the answer you take will essentially decide how you and your company, your clients and co-workers will fare in today's world. 

Do you want to make money and beat the dying horse or do you want to make a difference in peoples' lives? 

One will lead to other but one will lead to bland, boring communications that will continue the cycle of pitch, relax, ignore, lose business and re-pitch that so many agencies are stuck in. 

Now we all know this isn't 300, The Last Samurai or Braveheart - we're not doctors, we're the scum of the earth, perhaps part of the most distrusted business in the world. But I still mean make a difference, be a positive force of change. And it doesn't have to be a huge difference, but something that makes the experience truly differentiating and tangible.

Frankly I'm tired of looking at proposals that have USPs galore that would look just as valid if they were produced by companies x, y or z. To steal a line from Hugh Macleod and repurpose it, it doesn't matter what your product does, or more importantly what you say it does - what matters is what people do with it. And what they do with it is where we, as marketers in an amazingly interesting time can channel and play a part in.

There are countless examples of products which were meticulously researched by bored focus groups eager to grab their money and run, painstakingly targeted to a perfectly segmented consumer and in the end the people who most eagerly partook in the purchasing of said product were completely different, if not diametrically opposite to the unholy target group. TGI or no TGI, products like the INQ phone, the entire SUV segment and some would argue even Viagra didn't end up as the companies that make them planned. They were embraced by people with specific interests. And I think that to disregard these communities of purpose and solely turn to often outdated and flawed data is a classic recipe for failure. Our focus should be on finding people who give a shit about something that we can tie to our product and then give them something that makes their day to day life more entertaining, more useful, more meaningful. And then telling them about it.

Some might say it's simple, or common sense. And it is. But it's not being done. And that's fact. Work is getting worse, we cling to our gems of effectiveness (whatever that really means) amidst increasing piles of work that is churned out and logo-swappable (take the logo away and put a competitor's logo on, can you really tell the difference?). Or we blame clients, as if years of being yes men and women has nothing to do with it. One of the most liberating things for me coming into this business was being told that it was my job to do what was best for my clients, not necessarily what they wanted - mediocrity has crept its way into the grand majority of our organizations, mine is no different. And really the only way out of it is to drag our organizations out of this cycle by doing it ourselves. I've given myself until the end of this year to prove to myself that I can do it - otherwise it's just noise. 

Ways of working may be too ingrained in many people to change immediately, what do you then? I'm pretty sure that this isn't the right way, but this is how I'm trying it now:

1) Take cookie cutter work and throw it out: If any client briefs come in that contains words such as 'generic' or 'based on' - throw them out. And give them an alternative that works. Make sure it works :)

2) Do something small for a client, maybe something they're scared of doing - something they said they wouldn't do. Do it without asking, don't tell anyone and if it works tell them, if it doesn't, no-one will know anything.

3) Have no ego. Please, please, please, forget the importance of job titles, of how much you make, of and awards. Industry-wide circle jerking may have its place, but is now the place for it? If you do truly great, truly paradigm shifting work then they will come. Oh and if your agency is in the habit of doing scam work, punch whoever is responsible in the mouth (Take note Y&R India and FP7 Doha). 

4) You have to understand how your company makes money. There is a school of thought that silos every department, allowing them to work supposedly more efficiently - I don't think that you can claim to address anyone's business problems if you don't know how your business makes money and the problems it faces in doing so. For example if your agency has a yearly lease of £4,000,000 there are some serious decisions you need to make about how feasible it is that you can ever be more than just a "doing it for the money" outfit. 

5) Never disregard the experience you have at your disposal. I love the phrase "The old cannot kill the young forever", but it doesn't apply here. To say that I, with 2 years of marketing experience (barely) can solve my clients' communication dilemmas flying solo is ludicrous and hugely debased, you take the good from everyone. Don't burn the building because you don't like one room. 

6) It's in everyone's interests for everyone to do great work. This one is obvious, but I'm still astounded at the insecurity-driven crap from some people pointing out the failings of agency x or y. It's a little callous to rejoice in the demise of any agency. I would love to see a so-called traditional agency really grab the bull by the horns and create paradigm shifting work, because it will start convincing the masses of "me-toos" in adland to try the same. Just as the abstract and pointless dribble of bad work is bad for us, work that makes lives more meaningful is good for all of us.

7) Change the way you acquire new business. This is a separate post in itself (one I probably won't get round to) but there are so many holes in the proverbial vessel of new business that it's unreal we still pursue this as the only method for getting new clients. Find a new way. And tell us all!

8) Remember the power of 1%, do something small, but do it everytime and it will become a beast.

9) Volunteer, volunteer, volunteer. Maybe as someone quite new to the comms business this is easier for me, but any opportunity to showcase your thinking and to add some flava to work should be embraced wholeheartedly. This does a few things: it shows you're not all bluff and no stuff (you have to back the talk up with the goods) and it will win you the respect of your peers, something that is vital in fighting mediocrity. 

10) Ask yourself if you want to make money or to make a difference in peoples' lives. As Paul says, the future of marketing is doing something for people. If you're not prepared to embrace that, not only are you making the wrong choice, but it would probably be better if you find another way to make a living - chances are you may not have a job in advertising for a lot longer. 

And why would you be in advertising for the money anyway? The pay sucks!

Migrating

Pouring a new rainbow. Pic from Art in Crystal.

I've been thinking about doing something with the design on An International Smoothie for a while, and after fiddling with Blogger's dials for some time I got a little frustrated with not being able to have pages for certain things, and some general niggles that aren't really that much of a big deal but over time become monsters.

During my recent bout of manflu whilst plumbing the depths of self-pity, I decided to move blogging services. I'd fooled around with Wordpress.com before when AdLads was my home on the dubyadubyadubya but hadn't taken the plunge with Typepad. I did some reseach on going down the self-hosted route but soon realised at this point I don't want to be doing wordpress/movable type things.

So Typepad it is. I'm still figuring out how to do the nice visual things and direct links to posts are broken right now, which sucks...but I think this is going to be a more flexible spot for me. So excuse the boxes and stuff, I'll pimp it up real soon.

Peace.

The Power of 1%

I doodled without thinking. And for once it wasn't utter nonsense. Almost.

In the mess of personal brands, social mediaphilia, and the rise of the web 2.0 douchebag - those of us in the comms industry all still have a job to do. And I was reminded of this over the last coupe of days by a combination of my own doodling, Charlie's DMs, Johnnie's excellent blog post, Kedar's tweet, the fallout of what seems to have been a diabolical attempt by the IPA to organise a forum to debate where the industry is headed and a segueway into Taoist Buddhism with Eaon.

There is a propensity to sit back and lay into the way things have been done, be it media agencies and their 'cost-effective' purchasing of media space, traditional advertising agencies and their 'stick it on Facebook' mentality or digital agencies and their 'TV died a while back, anyone who doesn't believe it is a dinosaur' evangelism. The list of things that aren't working is as long as it is broad, with even now former leader of the United States featuring prominently on many selections. We blame smaller budgets, smaller days and countless other people and things for why we can't get stuff done.

As practitioners of awesomeness, frustration can set in at the way things are being done, and if left unchecked can eventually lead to a negative mindset that is poisonous, first within ourselves before eventually spreading to everything we come into contact with. If you feel that you're the only one fighting a battle, eventually you get sick and tired of everyone else not doing anything and eventually give up. For that reason and many others, it's now more important than ever to re-appraise the way we affect our work environment.

And because I love lists, here are some thoughts.

1) Keep Churning
Wikipedia tells us that we live in the Information Age so let's get hunting baby. Mark only reinforced to me yesterday the unfortunate blog circle jerking that we can fall prey to if we read the same people's thoughts all the time. The same stuff circulates in our brain and our writing becomes self-referential and utterly dry.
Like water, we gots to keep running to stay fresh. We need new ideas, new points of view, new interesting stuff to stimulate us more, play devil's advocate to the way we think and push us further. Do a Twitter search of something you're interested in/topical and get down with whoever's discussing that subject. Switching commutification methods from stinky cramped train to airy and slower bus has finally allowed me to get my podcasts on as well, which has been awesome - subscribe to my boy Clarence as a start for something that's an original flavor formation (that's his term - but it's awesome, so I'll use it just this once). It's great to stop staring at a screen, sit back and zone while someone lays out their point of view.

2) Find the Gems
There are some kung-fu crazy people out there who are just as frustrated as you with the way things are going, we need to find them and learn from them and grow together. Last night I left work with a dude who I'd talked to only a couple of times and after we went our separate ways 15 minutes later I knew that there is so much I can learn from him, and I had no idea of it at all. Pockets of awesome people are everywhere, it's up to us find them and get better.

3) Be a Real Person
Charlie told me a while back that making people fall in love with you (so to speak) is the most important thing about the world of work. I totally agree. For someone to go to war with you, they have to want to do it because of you as a person. On your worst days, be as you as you are on your best, it's never easy but nothing worthwhile ever is.

4) Remember the Power of 1%
Not every idea is going to make it, it's sad and unfortunate but it's life. We have to stop sulking, get over it and remember that moving ourselves, our colleagues, our clients or our organizations along even 1% is winning. If we keep winning day by day, we'll break through whatever is holding us back from where we want to be.

5) Be the Change
It's cheesy to say it, but again it's true. There are so few people who will suck it all up and stick their neck out for the sake of doing something they believe is amazing. Call it leadership, charisma, the Obama gene or whatever you feel like calling it, but that is the quality that will let you put everything together and be brave enough to challenge the status quo that has been proved to be leading us down the wrong road. We all need to brave enough to walk the talk.

Mr B. Hussein Obama said something during his inauguration that we should all take heed of

"People will judge you on what you can build, not what you can destroy"

So let's be the solution. And remember, fortune favors the awesome.