The Human Spark: Why We Need Dyslexic Thinking in a World of AI-Driven Advertising

If you walk down the street or use social media, you'll see a lot of AI-generated ads. DALL-E 2 and Midjourney allow for creating volumes of polished marketing visuals that kind of look the same. Way too many brands are eagerly lapping up these cookie-cutter AI aesthetics to plug budget holes in their campaigns.

Composition VII, Wassily Kandinsky, 1913, for its time completely non-linear, unconventional thinking

Some have started sounding the alarm about this developing trend. Artist and photographer Sougwen Chung recently said, "I encourage you to continue making works that only a human could make. The world needs your anomalous spirit." She believes that human artists should lead innovation instead of relying on AI tools to produce unoriginal content.

The issue was a big deal at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. People debated whether using AI-generated art in marketing was okay. Festival founder Robert Redford commented, "When I see these perfect machine-made pictures, I think something's missing...the wonderful imperfections of humankind."

 But in this stampede towards AI-generated advertising, we are losing something profound - the human spark. Those gloriously weird, illogical, and downright inexplicable flourishes that set human creativity apart. AI infiltration can homogenise advertising into an army of the bland. I passionately believe we must fight to keep human idiosyncrasies alive.

 Logical machines fundamentally lack the ability to think dyslexically. AI is constrained by rules, datasets, and cold calculus. In other words, it is neither friend nor foe, it’s just maths. It cannot escape the bounds of its training or imagine concepts outside its programming. But human cognition has no limits. We make illogical leaps, forge new neural pathways, and see things no algorithm would conceive.

As Einstein said, “Creativity is seeing what others see and thinking what no one else has ever thought.” Human creativity defies rational explanation. It is untamable.

 Unfortunately, many current AI creative tools reward conforming to the norm, not breaking free. They analyze thousands of images to detect persisting styles and themes. Output originality is actively discouraged. What you get is a pastiche of familiar elements, remixed ad infinitum. Homogenization prevails. 

But look at artists like David Shrigley. His crude, satirical drawings are childlike and warped. Or Matisse’s surreal dreamscapes. Or Frida Kahlo violating anatomy to evoke emotion. Their art arises from nonlinear thinking that no AI can replicate. We need this spirit of human eccentricity and imagination to permeate advertising.

So how do we inject that irrational spark back into brand marketing? First, by valuing dyslexic perspectives in creative teams. The most innovative ideas come from neurodiverse minds who see the world differently. Individuals with dyslexia often possess greater creativity and lateral thinking skills. They should be empowered to follow their unconventional instincts from an early age. Not excluded because of a lack of mathematical prowess.

Human artists collaborate, and then AI can be used sparingly to enhance their vision. Technology should enhance human creativity, not replace it. Without a guiding hand, AI easily descends into repetitive tropes based on what came before. But human imagination gets bored with similarities and seeks the new. 

This is why we should always focus ad concepts on storytelling that surprises. Machines struggle to convey innovatively intriguing narratives or make viewers feel joy, sadness, and tension without resorting to what has gone before. While AI is great for cranking out visuals, humans have a monopoly on resonant messaging. Stories speak to our souls.

Popular culture, rejecting previous years of perfect image now embraces imperfections. The wabi-sabi (侘寂)aesthetic finds beauty in imperfection. But AI seeks endless technical refinement, stripping away flaws. Rough edges, irregularity, and chaos open creative possibilities. Agencies and Brands should encourage a culture that values being a bit odd, instead of just focusing on making AI content efficiently. As futurist Kai-Fu Lee said, "To make something new, your mindset has to be a little weird." Innovation arises when marketers embrace the counterintuitive and make space for human strangeness, supported by AI.

 In advertising, we stand at a precipice today. One way leads to more automation, AI-created content, and less human marketing. But there is another route. One where technology takes a backseat to imaginative human expressions. Where dyslexic thinking reigns. And where brands embrace the counterintuitive, the weird, and the downright bonkers.

The choice is clear. Do we want advertising ruled by cold, conformist AI algorithms? Or energized by the electric human spark? The irrational human spirit that brought us Picasso’s Cubism, Banksy shredding his own art and the musical idiosyncrasies of Little Simz- creative leaps no machine could conceive.

 Dali said it best: “The only difference between myself and a madman is that I am not mad.” In advertising, we really do need more Madmen. (But this time, maybe skip the three martini lunches) We need the mad who are unafraid to be eccentric, make illogical connections, and revel in cognitive dissonance. As AI proliferates, we need the most creative human minds to the fore. The neurodiverse, oddballs need to be supercharged with the aid of AI. Brilliance will arise in the unpredictable spaces and tensions between man and machine. 

So in this age of artificial intelligence, let us champion radical human creativity. Embrace what makes our cognition untamable. And fill advertising with the electric, inexplicable human spark. Yes amplified by AI, but steered by humans from start to finish.

Reshaping the working week

It is clear to many that the shape of a typical working week has changed. Considering the vast amount of recent insight into the effects of WFH v Onsite, much produced with once in a generation scale sample sizes. We now know in-office, Monday to Friday, uniformed timed regimes, with associated commutes, are not only unproductive but damaging to individuals' mental health but also detrimental to the recruitment of the brightest minds. Summarising some of the great ideas currently in circulation, Inc HT to @stevenbartlett. I have been looking at the new shape of the working week, especially looking at the creative industries. 

Monday. In-person, catching up and planning work ahead

Tuesday. Hybrid, focused on pursuing, developing, and delivering.

Wednesday. Remote, A day of admin for both home and office. Solitary moments that allow critical creative thinking time 

Thursday. Hybrid, another day of focused work

Friday. In-person a day to review, showcase and celebrate

Saturday/Sunday. Unstructured time to recharge and reconnect with self, friends and family

I feel the new working week is a balance between onsite in-person collaborations and remote singular endeavours. A recent scientific study using MRI scans has shown online ideation sessions hamper our full cognitive abilities. One of the authors Melanie Brucks of Columbia Business School said

‘...videoconferencing hampers idea generation because it focuses communicators on a screen, which prompts a narrower cognitive focus. Our results suggest that virtual interaction comes with a cognitive cost for creative idea generation….’

Which is balanced by a recent ONS report showing that of those now working either fully or partially remote the key benefits were positive mental health and work-life balance.

So balancing in person with remote is important. Equally so is the ring fencing of thinking time. Its vital for our brains to have moments to gather all the inputs and just ponder what if?

For years educationalists have spoken of the power of wait time in building higher cognitive learning. The renowned psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi talked about the social dimension of the solitary moment and its importance in the creative process.

Cristina Garcia co-author of California’s new four-day working week bill, summed up the mood for change; “...We’ve seen over 47 million people voluntarily leave their jobs for better opportunities. We’re seeing a labor shortage across the board from small to big businesses……And so it’s very clear that employees don’t want to go back to normal or the old way, but to rethink and go back to [something] better.” 

It might seem obvious, it was after all written by a management consultancy, but McKinsey wrote in their future report

‘...People who live their purpose at work are more productive than people who don’t. They are also healthier, more resilient, and more likely to stay at the company.…’

How to survive a career creating mayhem. Lessons from a long life in advertising

Let’s talk about money, honesty and temptation. oh, and also the impossible.

It’s 2012, a hot summers evening. The London Olympics have just begun and I’m taking a bow in front a stadium full of people going nuts, while being watched by a worldwide TV audience. I vividly remember thinking at the time, what the feck am I doing here?

I got there because I did what most people won’t do. I said yes to an outlandish, bonkers idea and found a way to make it work. Predictable, defined options always lead to dull and bland situations. And I hate those.

This is the key lesson I take from my decades working in the advertising industry. Invest time in the seemingly impossible. Something I literally learnt from my very first opportunity to work in this industry.

Admittedly I had something of a head start working in Advertising in the 1990s, I was a white male, middle class, had been to university and was living in London. For those not in the UK its worth pointing out 80% of our advertising industry is based in London, but that 87% of our population isn’t.

But I didn’t mean to get into advertising. It was never a potential career goal. I spent my college years training to be an Industrial Designer of consumer goods.

Having arrived in London from University and failed to get any meaningful or lasting employment a recent friend was a Creative Director at Saatchi & Saatchi and he offered me a role as an art director. It really didn’t make sense to me I had no training in advertising or understanding of what an art director was.

It’s because I’d encountered what the tech entrepreneur Paul Graham calls domain experts and the importance of their crazy ideas. His point is that experts from one area proposing an idea for a completely different area, however outlandish, may be on to something as they are responsible people and have overcome their natural instincts not to look an idiot in proposing their crazy idea.

The guy who got me in at Saatchi’s convinced management that the weird bloke with a portfolio full of product designs would add greater depth to his creative departments thinking.

Your rational mind will talk itself out of applying for loads of great jobs because it’s not an obvious fit for your talents. Don’t be rational, avoid the obvious. You are a unique creative thinker. Your best roles will be the ones that at first appear totally wrong.

We do need to talk about money.

At some point someone is going to approach you offering an inflated salary. I once moved jobs purely for a stack of cash and a statement title. Blinded by avarice I didn't take time to value the role I was currently in. Something you really need to do on a regular basis. A calm head would have spotted I wasn’t worth the amount being offered. The company hiring me was a plc with troubled shareholders who needed calming down. Rather than fixing long-term corporate issues they went for a quick solution and made headlines with a new Creative Director. They didn’t really want change and after 18 months we parted company. Another learning from this is that in general, institutional, shareholder run creative enterprises will always disappoint imaginative thinkers.

Talent is valuable; you deserve to be paid well. Just not bribed.

While the industry is home to a disproportionate number of fakers, charlatans, and borderline psychopaths. Very few are actually criminal. My luck was befriending one that was. Sharon Bridgewater was sentenced to five years for stealing £2.4 million pounds from my agency[1]. But this was six years after she had joined us. The problem for so many successful young start-ups is you never get the chance to take a breath and really come to terms with your change in status from hopeless dreamer to an actual successful business owner. Responsible for your teams livelihoods, payroll and office rent.

After the event. Realising I’ve been a total mug, weighed heavy. The past will haunt you unless you work at it. MRI based research[2] recently published in the journal of neurology uncovers how a lack of disassociation of the past is a key factor in insomnia disorders. Whether it’s a bad word with your boss, a lost pitch or simply an act of gross stupidity you have got to work at putting it in the past. Your brain will not do this on its own. Hence the MRI insights. Christian Horner who runs the Red Bull F1 team talks about indulging in 24 hours of purging pain after things go wrong[3]. Dwelling on every detail. Wallowing in the misery. By doing so nothing is left hidden. It’s not that you then don’t talk about it. You disassociate yourself from it and place it in the past. It’s happened, it’s what you used to do. Much like you do in addiction therapy. 

Speaking of which. I’ve learnt a lot about temptation.

The industries obsession with late nights, glam parties and sudden success has side effects, not least being offered copious drugs or at the very least your body weight in free booze. It really does not take long to replace the hard to achieve high of selling brilliant new ideas, with the outright easy high of intoxication and the resultant self-delusion. 

While our industry has made great strides in improving welfare concerns. You have to remember it's coming from a very low base. So, your number one concern must be for your own health. 

The benefits of taking a break are immense, an opportunity to do so should not be passed up, however left field. – A job ad to perform at the Olympics is not something I was looking for. But this one was from Danny Boyle, The Director of Trainspotting and Slumdog Millionaire. This was an expert in imagination and if he said anyone could perform at the Olympics. As bonkers as it sounds, it was worth a go.

Even if it did mean a patchy freelance income to fit around a year of unpaid rehearsals. But this was totally off-set by escaping from advertising to live hand in glove with a bizarre collection of people whose only commonality was having time on their hands; the unemployed, contractors, the independently wealthy and recently retired. Collectively they gave me a whole new perspective on life

So, I’ve learnt the joys of embracing the seemingly impossible option

The rather painful effects of forgetting not everyone plays nice

The skills needed to put badness in the past

And the importance of focusing on your own well being

[1] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9406913/Female-Walter-Mitty-accountant-swindled-2-5million-living-Spain.html

[2] Haunted by the past: old emotions remain salient in insomnia disorder, Rick Wassing, Frans Schalkwijk, Oti Lakbila-Kamal, Brain, June 2019

[3] https://www.thehighperformancepodcast.com/episodes/christian-horner

Could the elderly revive city centres?

My new hometown of Sheffield is one of many cities coming to terms with the closures of big retail chains. Recent news of John Lewis pulling out of its iconic landmark building in the town seems to be a tipping point. How to address the seismic change in the usage patterns of legacy city centre architecture?

NORD Architects A/S - Hejrevej 37, 2. - 2400 Copenhagen NV Denmark +45 3369 0908

Much has been written about the advantages of the change of use from retail to residential. Originally focused on a younger demographic as the infrastructure needed is cheaper. But recent studies have looked at bringing younger families in from the outskirts, which is tricky on a number of levels. From childcare to car usage.

What I’ve not seen before is an experiment happening in Denmark of bringing the elderly to live in the centre of a new development. A collaborative project from locals NORD and London firm UHA. I really like the whole landscape solution to create an integrated community.

Here in the UK, the pandemic has exposed how rubbish our care home system actually is. There have to be smarter solutions. Taking bold steps and reimagining city centre use to also include increases in elderly residents is the type of lateral thinking cities need.

The primary benefits are combating loneliness and social inclusion. But there are many others. Access to transport and health. Plus the ease with which simple design interventions can adapt a cityscape to not just cope but welcome an increase in older residents.

 It turns out others have had the same idea. All the way back in 2012 Elizabeth Burton, professor of sustainable building design and well being at Warwick University talked about the advantages of locating older people within cities. Pointing out in The Guardian at the time that the problem with our habit of housing older people outside cities is that.

“‘…the countryside is the last place for creating the inclusive accessible environment that older people need with access to highly specialised hospitals and care…’”

— Professor Elizabeth Burton

 Just over a year ago Phil Bayliss, chief executive of Legal & Generals ‘Later Living’ division said his team was looking at increasing city centre footfall by adapting some of their buildings for elderly use. What we really need is a working case study that elevates the theory to reality. My new hometown could be it.

Sheffield has a fairly unique city geography. Surrounded by seven hills. Anywhere you go outside the city centre involves going up a steep hill. Its part of the culture of the place from ‘The Full Monty’ to the Arctic Monkeys to include struggling up hills as a metaphor. However placing the regions elderly residents outside the city instantly creates challenging transport issues for year-round access (it snows up north, a lot).

 I really do believe the collapse of traditional retail and the effects of the pandemic create a once in history opportunity to reimagine what we do with legacy cities like Sheffield. Bold action could create a wholly new type of inclusive urban society. A living city full of contrasting cultures. Built around the needs of the many. From the few years I have spent living here it feels a very Sheffield thing to do.

Advertising and morals, we do good?

“What’s the difference in working on tobacco, gambling and booze? -surly nothing?”

— Lisa Gills / WildSquirrelRec

A much visited advertising debate was reignited the other day on Linkedin. Should you work on brands in categories that can cause harm? Due to vast profits from human weakness tobacco, gambling and booze brands spend a lot on advertising. Should you take up the offer? because in the past many did and created award-winning campaigns.

Clearly in light of how Advertising has had to take a very long hard look at its past practices and behaviours. Such debate is yet again very timely.

Lets start with enjoyingment. Our job at its most fundamental is to unlock human desire and engage emotions. Sure you can pick and choose your area of work. But you can't ignore base elements of what makes human, humans.

From the earliest evidence in Mesopotamia, mankind sort intoxication and enjoyed waging. A good society is one that protects its most vulnerable from the worst excesses of its own desires. Be that driven by corporations or kings. Prohibition manifestly does not work. But democracy does. With very few exemptions we all desire to do good. As such educating and nurturing good behaviour that benefits all should not be hard. There is amble talent within this industry to do so. Just less of it in national governments to effect real change and protect their own populations in meaningful ways. Whether through education or whole life fulfillment.

I have spent a lot of time working on booze and gambling brands. To work in advertising is to except human desire for what it is. Your options are how you choose to influence it.

Using celebratory to build populist trust is not new, just really difficult to pull off

Both the US and UK are using A list celebs for new Covid messaging and weirdly in both cases the results are actually not a cringe fest. The US goes full Hollywood where as the UK plumps for a simple two shot idea done inhouse by the NHS.  This latter film I feel will carry more weight with its audience. The American work is part of a wider ‘Mask up America’ campaign from the Center for Disease Control with this spot created by Warner Medias own creative teams using their extensive back catalog of famous films. The idea being digitally adding masks to famous clips where as NHS England has Michael Caine acing Elton John in an audition for a vaccine commercial. The NHS spot features rather brilliant writing by Stephen Pipe including a superb exit line. Like I said I think the context adds to the effectiveness of the message.

Advertising, swearing and dangers of identity

https://www.sweathead.com/blogs/podcast/i-dont-know-who-i-am-when-an-advertising-career-loses-itself-philip-slade-strategy-consultant

I was asked a simple question. An open goal of self-congratulation. But I fluffed it wide into banality. Bugger. It’s not the first time. I’ve done it. Ducking the chance of bigging myself up, because it just felt wrong. I’m not a careerist just inquisitive about tomorrow. Often forgetting about the need to nurture today. Clearly not American in approach it is indeed rather English.

Context. I had been approached to appear on a podcast I really respected. Mark Pollard is a super bright strategist who runs the Sweathead community for creative thinkers in the advertising industry. Across various platforms, events and his podcast he comments on the world of advertising from a planner’s viewpoint. It’s career pitfalls and learning’s from around the world. Mark asked me on his show to talk about my experience. Previously at his prompting I had shared a brief summary of my past online. The key things I had learnt from what appeared to others, at least, a tad unusual. To me less so, as it seemed normal at the time.

But the interview didn’t go as planned. We went down a bit of a dark hole. What worries me is on 3 or 4 questions I gave pretty rubbish answers that won’t help anyone. I did have experiences that include great life lessons for others in the industry. I just didn’t explain them very well.

So in a classic case of the use of advertising to rewrite history for the sake of a better brand image. I will go again.

Mentors.

I was asked how in the early years of my career I had got jobs that I didn’t have the experience or qualifications for. On true reflection the answer is I was taken on by people who could see a bigger picture of potential. Andy Blackford was a Creative Director building an integrated team at Saatchi & Saatchi he didn’t worry that my portfolio was full of student industrial design projects or that my professional career so far included a short lived stint at Smash Hits magazine clearly as a result of a blag.  What he saw was passion for new ideas. Andy went on to run multi award winning creative departments across London for the likes of: Arc, FCB, Grey etc. always with the same hiring philosophy. Odd balls will win out. I have been lucky to work with Andy at various points in my career. He started and mentally maintained me in this business. I owe him a lot. As I do others who believed in me enough to humour my wilder excesses and keep me in paid employment. The very strong lesson learnt was the power of finding and nurturing relationships with mentors.

Dyslexic planners, not a punchline but an issue for some

For some, there are real tensions in developing planning’s core skills.

There is a ton of stuff to read yet doing this quickly with full comprehension takes you time. Being part of a fast-moving discussion troubles you, as formulating your ideas, however genius they are thought of later, seems to take longer than others. And to cap it off organising your time has never been a key strength. But on the upside, you are a visual thinker who can ace lateral thinking. Working your nuts off for it, you find speaking and writing for an audience a joy. Can you still be a complete planner? Yes, but you are a planner with the added bonus of dyslexia.

“For many dyslexia means your spellings are a bit rubbish. But this is a ‘surface symptom’ of a much more complex situation.”

Dyslexia is a neurodevelopment condition, which results in an uneven cognitive profile of contrasting abilities, quite often manifesting in extremes. First highlighted in Europe during the 1880s but for decades thought of as a deficit in education. A medical explanation gained ground in the 1960s but became known as ‘the middle-class disease’ as affluent parents sort a diagnosis to explain the poor performance of their children. For the UK it wasn’t until 1987 that the British Government recognised the condition but it took until 2009 for them to define it.

“‘...the middle-class disease...’”

A tad late to the party but welcome all the same. Britain’s Direct Marketing Association in 2020 issued guidelines to its members about guiding the careers of those with dyslexia. Katherine Kindersley co-author of the report said ‘Dyslexia is a ‘hidden’ disability. It can be hard for managers and colleagues to understand how demanding, time-consuming, and tiring it is for a person to work as expected’ But as the guide sets out these are the employees who will excel in lateral thinking and innovation, have excellent practical skills and entrepreneurial traits.

“‘Dyslexia is a ‘hidden’ disability. It can be hard for managers and colleagues to understand how demanding, time-consuming, and tiring it is for a person to work as expected’”

— Katherine Kindersley : https://dma.org.uk/article/dma-talent-dyslexia-employer-guide

The combined effects of oddball cognitive abilities and the white, middle class, mean that Britain’s modern advertising industry grew from legions of dyslexics. Most of these people have now gone and the industry is now run with new values. Appraisal metrics that punish the different because their performance is ‘uneven’. ‘They didn’t get through all the background material'...(I sent last night) or '...he didn’t say much during the brainstorm....’ How many brilliant young minds has this happened to while struggling to get through their early years in planning?

For the planning industry to develop we need to be nurturing young minds capable of extraordinary problem-solving abilities. Coupled with a flair for actually explaining their thinking in public. Nature has gifted us a head start in the weirdness that is the dyslexic mind. More fool us if we fail to accommodate the kooky skill sets of such people.

>>>Saw this great Dyslexia PSA from Wendy Eduarte <<

Reading is a cognitive process of decoding symbols into meanings. For a dyslexic person this essential necessity becomes a difficult process to digest, sometimes ending in frustration. This animation touches on the anxiety of growing up with dyslexia. Thank you to Maria Jose Monge for her testimony. Design and Animation by Wendy Eduarte Song by Kosta T - выходной

British drinking culture vs Covid19

“Covid-19 may achieve what pressure groups, lawmakers, strikes, depressions, and terror have all failed at. Change British drinking habits. This could have a dramatic effect on how booze brands advertise in the future.”

On the evening of the 4th of June 2017, a group of terrorists attacked London’s, Borough Market. A popular location for nighttime eating and drinking. It was a warm summer night and the area was packed with drinkers thronging the streets. As news of the attack quickly spread, panicked revellers suddenly dropped everything and began sprinting away from danger out into the London night. Of all the many terrible images from that evening, one stood out as it raised a smile in amongst the pain. It was flashed around the world as a symbol of British fortitude in the face of danger. In a crowd running for their lives, one man stood out. He was carrying a full pint of beer, managing to both run for his life yet not spill any of his precious drink. To many, this came to symbolize a nation refusing to admit defeat come what may. Many on social media made the same point. It didn’t matter whether it was a Nazi, IRA, or ISIS bomb nothing would come between a Brit and his pint.

Yet Covid appears to be doing just that. Widening an already emerging split between those enthusiastic drinkers and the growing majority of occasional and non-drinkers. The knock-on effects in everything from popular culture to brand advertising could be profound.

“From the 1884 Fenian bombing of Londons Carlton Club onwards, misguided fools have attempted to change the behaviours of the country by striking at the core of society. Our drinking culture. ”

Popular culture in the UK is so often linked to drinking themes. Whether it’s popular TV soaps and films set in iconic British pubs or issues of binge drinking. The latter a net result of generations being brought up in a society conditioned to drinking between narrow set hours of opening and closing. It was hoped the 2005 relaxing of Britain’s arcane 1914 licensing laws would help ease our speed drinking culture. However, even the Governments own think tank said the results have since been shown to be ‘mixed’. Professor David Nutt, One-time government chief drugs advisor. Said alcohol was cumulatively the country’s most harmful drug, yet at the same time, in societal terms, it’s most beneficial.

But time really was called on bar culture this year. When for the first time in history, Britain’s pubs closed their doors for months on end. Lockdown has now forced a re-evaluation of everything from the ‘when’ and ‘how’ we drink to the type of venues we want to do it in. This year has been about adapting our culture in ways that may never go back to what was before. Crisis coping like virtual pub nights over video links will certainly fade. However, a number of surveys point to the reluctance of the majority to return to all of the behaviours of the past.

“Through strikes and famine and war and peace Englands never lost its thirst for a pint”

There have been some temporary social distancing measures that may be hard to back away from. Cities with centuries old street layouts. Seeking to reopen bars, have had to consider pedestrianising some streets and set aside bans on outdoor drinking. Something campaigners have urged for years. Westminster Council in London who look after the vibrant streets of Soho. Have long resisted all attempts at opening up the area to street drinking. Now they have been forced into embracing such moves to help save the economy of the area.

Data from Nielson shows Brits consumed 1.3 billion litres of alcohol during the first 5 months of lockdown, which was almost half the 2 billion we drank at the same time last year. While the volume has gone down, the value has gone up. Brands in the standard categories have had pretty much no increase, especially beer. Premium brands in all drink categories however have seen a disproportionately strong rise in sales. That is except champagne, which saw a £9 million decline for the same period last year. Clearly a nice bottle of wine for tea is ok, but cracking open a bottle of bubbles is not fitting in with lockdown living.

There has also been a huge rise in alcohol delivery services. Often in bulk; boxes of 48 330ml cans and 5-litre mini-kegs suddenly popular. Often by suppliers who have never been in the market before. Many craft breweries have pivoted from trade sales to direct to consumers to keep their businesses afloat. While just after the start of lockdown, searches for beer delivery increased by 100% by the time some bars started to reopen in early July searches had dropped by 50%. It’s interesting that the highest increase in searches was from Northern cities, areas not traditionally served by delivery start-ups. So again in a post Covid world, there will be a huge new body of consumers very adept at home stocking premium booze without recourse to the grocery channel.

“But this was more a reflection of changes in the values of society rather than a rejection of the pub.”

In the past decades, British drinking culture had seen changes. The Office of National Statistics reporting that the number of pubs had declined from 52,500 in 2001 to 39,135 in 2019. But this was more a reflection of changes in the values of society rather than a rejection of the pub. Many of those venues closing served bland drink selections, in pretty grim suburban environments to a mainly older, white, male-dominated audience in parts of the country with a rapidly changing demographic.

Within large thriving urban centers like Manchester and Liverpool. Bars and cafes with drink licenses were thriving. Serving an egalitarian audience seeking a wide choice of drinks especially embracing new and upcoming brands. This to include a selection of low-and-no-alcohol options. A category currently seeing huge innovation and a large number of product launches from 0% beers to spirit and wine alternatives. CGA insights last year published a report into the UK’s low-and-no alcohol sector. Pointing out a sales rise of 48% with one in three adults ordering such a drink in a bar during the last 12 months. Valuing the UK market at £60 million.

Before lockdown began it had already been reported that for various cultural triggers; social shaming, the cult of the body, etc., we had a new generation growing up who did not uniformly seek alcoholic intoxication in public as a right of passage. Indeed health care professionals were much more worried by increases in at home drinking amongst the over 50s. Brands were worried by the under 25s lack of regard for the drink choices of previous generations.

“1 in 5 now said they were drinking less. Countered by the 1 in 3 drinking ‘slightly’ more.”

Lockdown has galvanised many casual social drinkers, those who said they only drink when out with friends. To either greatly reduce or stop altogether choosing alcohol. Backed by insights from the charity Alcohol Change UK who said 1 in 5 now said they were drinking less. Countered by the 1 in 3 drinking ‘slightly’ more. The latter group pretty much exclusively in the +45 age bracket.

So Covid has indeed accelerated both an age and behaviour split across the nation. Will these new habits continue? The Health Behaviour Research Center at UCL published a study in 2009 that showed it took from between 18 days and 8 months to embed permanent new routines into people's lives. Depending on the complexity of the task. The researchers found that most new habits like going to the gym took just 2 months of repetition to change long term behaviour. The British public has been adapting to their new drinking behaviours for coming on to 5 months now.

From the 1884 Fenian bombing of The Carlton Club in central London onwards, misguided fools have attempted to change the behaviours of the country by striking at the core of society. Our drinking culture. Through many, many bloody incidents of carnage in the decades since. Very little changed. But an invisible virus has spread across the population and appears to have broken a link in the heartland of the nation's psyche.

For brands seeking to engage consumers by reflecting society's values and interests, this is troubling. It will take bravery, innovation and great creativity to overcome. Sadly something that the advertising industry, following Covid led historic levels of redundancies, has in short supply right now.

These things I know

Life experiences from a career winging it in the advertising industry

Being in the creative industries pretty much guarantees you won’t be able to follow a predetermined career game plan. Instead, opportunity and temptation will come at you from the most random corners.

I wrote about my past. I reflected on choices I made in the hope that maybe some others might not make the same mistakes as me.

Writing it I discovered that I had a story to tell that went beyond a simple career resume. Publishing it online made me realize that actually people did get something from reading it. In fact, its been the most popular thing I have posted online this year.

I now know that not only can I help people with the stories of what I have learned but that I should expand on this theme. So much more of what I have done was left out. I know this will be of value as I have started to get involved in online mentoring sessions. I have found that many more stories from my past and recent present have been useful in advising others on how to prepare for challenges in their lives

So the future challenge and my new mission is to write this collection of stories into something useful. Something that can be read enjoyed and acted upon. There is no future other than the one you create, but listening to a variety of advice including the mad ravings of someone like me helps in making sure when you do write your own future it at least has a half chance of turning out pleasurable.

https://www.slideshare.net/piehead/these-things-i-know

I thought I had done enough

Way way back as a teenager I was captivated by the rebellion of punk music and dived deep into it. The clothes, behaviours and attitudes. I didn’t understand or really initially like reggae music. But it seemed so part and parcel of the punk scene I worked at trying to understand it.  At the time we lived in a comfortable middle class village on the south coast of England. I had no experience or understanding of black culture. But I liked the Clash’s cover of Junior Murvin’s ‘Police and Thieves’ I loved the subtle anger within it and thought I ‘got’ what was behind black music. I thought I’d done enough.

I thought I had done enough when I then became an ardent supporter of Rock Against Racism, wearing the iconic badges, putting up posters, going to the demonstrations. I saw evil in the right wing groups like the National Front. However  I also knew of people in our friendship groups who clearly did not. I’m not sure I did anything about that.

I went to university in Sheffield, a multi ethnic postindustrial city in the north. It was the first city I had ever lived in. I could now see and experience first hand what prejudge and disadvantage was. I joined demonstrations, signed petitions and made posters for various causes. I thought I had done enough. But I don’t think I ever spoke up or certainty didn’t take any action over the glaring disparity between the ethnic make up of the city and that of the predominately white student body.

My career has been in advertising. An industry struggling to come to terms with its past behaviours in light of the #MeToo movement. But now is also looking sheepishly at the Black Lives Matter debate as they are the people who influence the population but are very much not representative of that population. In my time in this industry I’ve worked for international agencies and been co-founder of three start-ups. I thought I had done enough, as I was an ardent advocate of placements, grad schemes and mentoring to help those outside the University system to get into our industry. But Looking back I never went outside my comfort zone, I never took any action to positively address the imbalance of people of colour in my departments.

During the recent protests following the appalling but sadly too frequent death of another black man in police custody. I raged on social media and posted likes for many of the emotional posts. I thought I had done enough.

There are many resources that in light of current events have been widely shared to read, listen or watch to improve your understanding of where current anger comes from. Doing this is really good for society. But it alone is not enough. You should speak up. If like me you work in business you must actively change your hiring processes and promotion procedures to help address years of white privilege. You must embrace fully ethnically aware mental health initiatives. In reality, this should not be hard. But history tells us it has been in years gone buy. I know, I was part of that, I thought I’d done enough but I had built confidence in an image of myself being anti-racist when in fact I was being a passive conspirator of keeping the status quo of racial divides. 

I thought I had done enough. But I have not. We all have not. It’s just too damn easy to do nothing. Active determined action is not an option or a high-minded dream of the few. It is a basic necessity of a humane society. Britain is multicultural which is a good thing. What it is not, is a fair society for all. This is a very bad thing but it is something we can change. Why we don’t is because too many think they have done enough. Said enough, but it’s not enough.

I will now actively now do more, will you?

Lock down mind cramming

Like many other Planners filling their enforced extra time at home. Currently overloading with watching, reading, and listening. Thing is when we all get out if you thought we were annoying in the use of obscure or random references before Covid-19, man oh man, just wait. I must have racked up at least a year’s worth of random inputs in the last few months inside. I’ve become a coiled spring of the most lateral, mind bogglingly bizarre facts, quotes and statistics. Weaponised with renewed editing skills. The next thought piece you ask of me will smoke

“Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary”

— Ceil Beaton

Nothing moves forward without disappointing some from where it came from

““...Making music specifically to please fans can be patronising and exploitative. Challenging music, by its very nature, alienates some fans whilst inspiring others, but without that dissonance, there is no conversation, there is no risk, there are no tears and there are no smiles, and nobody is moved and nobody is affected!””

— Nick Cave, The Red hand Files, Jan 2020

Don't fall for the conspiracy chic

I’m a planner, I read, lots. It’s the job. Recently I’ve become fascinated by the best seller lists in non-fiction. There’s appears to be a rather prescient theme running through all the titles; the world is shit here’s how I/you can deal with it. It’s like an end of the world self help group reading list.

 The titles sort of divide into two camps. One, the voices of the hidden. Stories from the unseen struggling in a world of chaos; The Secret Barrister, Tales from a Junior Docter Then there are the evangelists of self-help offering you salvation from a world in chaos. ‘The subtle art of not giving a f*uck’’ ‘Surrounded by idiots’

 So why all the doom and despair?

 I’m sure its not escaped your attention, globally and parochially here in the UK; the current outlook is less than chipper. Politics appears just made up as it goes along without a care for truth or expertise. Legacy businesses are struggling with technology and ‘value engineering’ i.e. ‘can you do it cheaper?’ Plus we appear to have truly screwed the environment in which we live. Interesting too that the drug of choice right now is Ketamine or as The Cut magazine recently wrote it’s the party drug for the end of the world. The perfect match for today’s dislocated youth.

 But is there more to the perpetuation of doom? Many current populist political leaders are leaning on the hidden enemy troupe. Spelling out to their supporters that the reasons behind current woes are ‘those over there’ a nebulous hidden force at work in the shadows. A collective of many whether its generically ‘the media’ or a cabal of billionaires. It’s a convenient narrative to have in popular culture as it detracts from what really matters. Genuine changes that help mankind.

 This kind of conspiracy chic is interesting as it’s currently the 30th anniversary of the Berlin wall coming down. Which brought to an end the epitome of what a real conspiracy culture can create. Erich Honecker’s East German regime was built on and maintained by paranoia of hidden enemy’s. Even to the extend of children informing on their own parents. But unlike today’s leaders flirtations with conspiracy themes. In East Germany it became frighteningly real. People died, mainly trying to escape from the terror.

 So yes it does matter, fuelling a conspiracy chic has consequences. Clearly it also sells a lot of books. But can we rise above this or maybe it’s as fruitless as Elton John attempted to get his record company to do something about the wind outside his bedroom. A long held urban myth that he delightfully confirms as true in his scurrilously brilliant memoir, Me. Currently sat at the top of this list of books I’ve been talking about.

 Look your world may seem a tad grim right now, but in most cases its not, made up as it is, of a stack of artifice that has been generated to serve others. Head up to the light and consider what you can change. Oh yeah and don’t forget to register to vote. Now that really matters.

Stunts with a heart of gold

Huddersfield Town managed to provoke  a wide-ranging debate on social media last week with the unveiling of new kit with a ludicrously oversized sponsors logo. Clearly all was not as it seemed, it was indeed a prank courtesy of shirt sponsor Paddy Power

Paddy Power did something shocking and after the initial outburst reveal it’s an outrageous stunt (with a heart of gold ‘Save Our Shirts’). Well it’s not a new headline is it? Paddy Power have been at this game since 1988 but in terms of stunt advertising you probably have to go back to 1870 and PT Barnum, notorious for countless pranks to get people talking about his brand. It was his idea to walk elephants unannounced through mid-western towns to drum up business for his circus.

Many years later in the late 1980’s Crispin Porter + Bogusky adapted an elephant as their logo and the mantra of ‘Walking an elephant through town’  in other words what’s the cultural shift, the talkability this idea can generate? No surprise it was their London office that was responsible for so much of Paddy Powers break out work; Rainbow laces, Tiger Woods sky writing and Chav Tranquilizer at Cheltenham races to name but a few.

On the face of it staging a prank has appeal, it can be a fast, cost effective way to get your brand talked about. But just because you can, does not mean you should. A mantra true of so much in life, but when it comes to stunts in advertising often ignored. There have been great pranks, that gained attention and drove brand value, but and it’s a massive but, for every great one there are countless tone deaf, unfunny acts of desperation. NatWest and its Mansplaining Mr Banker from May of this year certainly comes to mind.

So, what makes a good marketing stunt if its not budget? The key thing is trust. From the from the brand owner to agency to general public. No one wants to be taken for a mug. Illusion and deception have been part of human society since time immemorial. But brands are built on ever more fragile consumer trust. Knowing  the true extend of your audiences’ relationship with your brand is key. But so is the relationship between agency and client. While Paddy Powers Huddersfield Town stunt may well have been planned months in advance. It’s rare, normally the opportunity for a stunt is very in the moment which means standard sign off processes have to be accelerated. Which is normally impossible unless brand and agency already trust each other and know each other’s boundary’s.

Finally, it should go without saying but unless you invest in the time and effort to nurture creativity all will be lost. Having seen first-hand the creation of some of Paddy Powers campaigns, what appears to be a spur of the moment stunt, is the product of extremely talented, senor people working extremely long hours sweating the detail to get it right.

Finally, is the ‘Save Our Shirt’ campaign with Huddersfield Town and now Motherwell FC any good? While for the football teams it’s a win, loads more preseason publicity than their budgets could have hoped for. For Paddy Power being an outspoken brand in a category facing growing criticism of its prominent shirt sponsorships the idea of championing ‘unsponsoring’ is a smart move and potentially has a life much bigger than a one-off stunt. Like the afore mentioned Rainbow laces campaign to tackle homophobia in football, what was a one-off stunt in 2013 is now an annual event. Maybe over and above all the manufactured fuss with Huddersfield’s fake sash the notion of ‘unsponsoring’ by a gambling brand may just be the real deal.

‘Crossing the Streams and the impending death of affordable choice’

It’s all happening in streaming right now, Loads of new services, from the likes of NBC and HBO, rumours of a Facebook service, Amazon launching a free ad supported product as YouTube offers a ad free premium service. While in the wings Apple gets ready for a world wide launch of its streaming service, while not up to Netflix standards Apples rumoured budget for original programming is in the low $ billions. I can see the drive by the studios. Why share profits with the likes of Netflix when we can ring fence our content into our own world, with our own ad revenues, it’s just that the small matter of poor customer satisfaction does creep in a tad.

The recent activity in streaming services reminds me of the early days of MP3s around the time of the iPod3 launch, 2003, remember? ‘In Da Club’? ‘The Cheeky Girls’? No? anyway what was happening at that time was a proliferation of download services, some ad funded, some clean. The reason so many didn’t make it was under funded, rushed services leading to a combination of clunky UX and limited content selection. We are now witnessing a similar headlong dash into streaming rich media content. I do shudder slightly when NBC claim they can harvest $5 a month ad revenue from its users, potentially because they are still struggling with the menu system and click on an ad by mistake.

Sure in time like the multitude of music download sites of the past, there will be mergers and consolidation into a market leader who can afford to develop the UX and buy original content, but that will take a few years yet. In the meantime the consumer is left with a multitude of fee based options and an ever more desperate advertising model behind it.

2019 seems to have been the year we lost the wonder of pretty much all the content we want in one place. Toggling between Amazon and Netflix is just about ok for most but once HBO, Disney and the others all pull their content off into closed worlds, what of affordable choice? Sadly that looks to be sooo 2018

Broken banking a perfect fit for a broken society

What is the value of a bank brand in 2020?

With few exceptions the banking industry appears to be finding it increasingly hard to come to terms with the prescience of start-up FS brands like Starling and Monzo. Kantar recently released a report that said traditional high street lenders had lost a collective £1.6bn in brand value over the last 12 months. This is a big figure. Especially when you consider it means the eight biggest banks in the UK declined by an average of 7% in 2018. This was once a category built on a reputation of an established name backed by grand buildings and the endorsement of grand parents or similar figures of note with grey hair and wise words

But it can’t be so simple that the upstarts have turned people’s heads with brightly coloured cards. When Kantar results were published the tone of much coverage, especially that by the traditional FS media was that the new players like Revolut, Monzo and Starling were in some way to blame, that it was their fault. That is really odd, true some of the upstarts have been guilty of questionable marketing; Revoluts rip-off Spotify campaign, which in their own words featured stats ‘we just made up’ was pretty poor. But there is more going on to explain the big banks troubles.

What most of the new brands offered was a human faced service. But this is often the case for any well-funded disrupter in an established category. Attack bloated established competitors with fast customer service and a humanised tone of voice. This is a tough one for the banking industry as with the clear exception of First Direct most UK banking customers think the service they get from their bank stinks. That fact remains even after multi-million pound rebrands and relaunches. Most UK consumers don’t value bank brands.

The very thing that made the big banks so valuable, is the one thing that now makes them so vulnerable. Their traditions and part within the old order. The current climate of mistrust in institutions only goes to further weaken the banks new advertising, it’s not the message. It’s the product truth. Monzo and the other new banks, are not more valuable brands because of feature superiority, they win because they are not perceived to be part of the enemy.

But does this matter? is it just a natural resettling of value in an always on digital world? Underpinned by the fact, the traditional lending banks are not losing stacks of customers. Switching bank brands is after all something very few of us actually do. Many may open second or third accounts. In the UK we average 2.4 accounts each. But actually, leaving one bank brand for another is only done by 1.4% of us last year.

We will see more banking advertising with customer service claims at the heart. There will be more start-ups. But trust and brand value are unlikely to go up. It’s not about brightly coloured cards or epic TV spots. The core tenant of the category is just not liked. I mentioned before First Direct. For 30 years this HSBC owned outlier brand has been consistent in the way it talks and behaves, standing as it always has, as a customer centric entity first, bank second. Banking just different. Its customers have also been consistent in voting it best for service year after year. Recently awarded yet again Best Buy status by consumer champions, Which magazine.

So maybe the perfect bank for 2020 is an established bank after all. Just one that does not behave like one.

Agency of the present (ish)

I’m annoyed. I’m reading another article speculating about the shape of the Agency of the Future

It was back in 2011 at Cannes that Will.i.am stated “Ad agencies are yesterday”. With it, along with troubles within WPP, it appeared to kick off a tsunami of articles and endless debates on the ‘Agency of the Future’. With the seismic shifts in the agency landscape recently I would have thought we’ve sort of done this now, but the debate continues in some quarters as this week in Cannes, Microsoft are sponsoring yet another ‘Agency of the Future” debate.

You can’t help feeling this has become a bit of a race to the middle, a blanding out of advice from group think. The same quotes and insight; How much the consultancies are spending on buying agencies, success stories of in-housing. Crippling costs of staff and office accommodation in London. I think people get it. The advertising industry has changed.

But what remains is our core purpose, to sell to distracted audiences. We do this, when at our best, with emotive ideas that stir the soul. Tolerating uncertainty through internal navel gazing, devalues the potential for creativity. This is not a time to leave anything to chance.

That’s why I really think it’s time to talk about the Agency of the Present. Right here, right now, are waaaaaay too many clients in fear of their jobs, desperate for some kind of result. Famous brands are in creditors meetings almost daily. These people are not seeking another debate, they just need fresh creativity, engaging ideas backed by skills that can predict and measure results, they need all this now.

I offer nothing new other than what was, and should always be, our mission; nurture great talent, tolerate the random, champion amazing work. Go home on time.

EMBRACING CHAOS Or the search for humanity in the spaces we inhabit

At the forefront of place branding we’re seeing an interesting trend emerging. The celebration of the human desire for the unexpected. The need for an emotive layer in our automated worlds.

The impact of this on large scale branded developments in highly populated urban areas is fascinating. There’s a perception that many city developments are pristine but sadly, soulless spaces.

The new Kings Cross development in London, is centred on Europe’s biggest new public space, Granary Square. The developers went right back to ideas first promoted in ancient Rome. They believed a city should provide inspiration and wonder, with the unexpected around any corner. This strategy means the plans of the development are literally reversed, with the public areas being planned first. Local people were invited in, encouraged to linger and be entertained. It allowed people to establish a sense of space and identity, anchoring them and their needs to the place before fitting commercial properties around it. Costly, but the under-pinning theory still works the best. Placing people first. 

Geographer Bradley L Garrett wrote in The Guardian, “The problem with these developments is they lack that kind of energy. They feel too monitored, too controlled.”

The geographer David Harvey said, “The freedom to make and remake our cities and ourselves is…one of the most precious, yet most neglected of our human rights.” 

Constant change, exploration and progression is demonstrated to those few experiencing a fully self-driving car. People commented how it was terrifying initially, but within 15 minutes it became numbingly boring. The same can be said of our surroundings.

We are adapting to our changing cityscapes with remarkable ease. We really don’t want the expected. Our emotions demand spontaneity for a reassurance of reality. Research by UCL and Otto von Guericke University prove our brains respond to the novelty of situations by exploring, in search of a reward. It’s well documented how shoppers speed up when walking past blank facades. So it’s not just architecture, it’s the pulse of people on the street. The environmental psychologist and neuroscientist Colin Ellard recently wrote about humans feeling happier, more comfortable and more productive within cityscapes offering novelty and impulse options.  

This is not an invitation to simply reflect a happy, smiley world. 

A smiling image in an ad is now considered fake. The upshot of this? The stock photo libraries like Shutterstock are reporting a doubling in demand for images showing ‘sadness’. Even ‘fear’ is being selected almost twice as often as ‘surprise’. A not-so-perfect world is the new perfect world. Highlighted as supermarkets are now championing ‘wonky’ fruit and veg.

An identity that evolves and involves the user.

But what does this mean for the spaces we inhabit, both digitally and in the real world? Whether we know it or not, we need the odd bump in the road. Constantly looking for the unexpected, to experience the new. Be it a random Instagram, beguiling outdoor banner or a public space with the most bizarre pop-up that disappears 48 hours later or an identity that evolves and involves the user. The psychologist Danial Goleman said, “Emotion plays a powerful role in our lives and has gained significant attention as a priority area of study in interaction design.”

Consumers will enthusiastically spend money in a place or at an event that promises ‘managed’ versions of the unexpected.

It has been shown that increased loyalty and productivity come from environments that facilitate the needs of social and physical group dynamics. It’s no wonder that immersive experiences whether dinning, theatre or film are so big right now. The engaging promise is of a layer of humanity and a little managed chaos added to the experience. 

This element of spontaneity is what we’re searching for. Online or in the real world. It’s what is driving us to rethink how we brand the locations and spaces we visit and live in.

By embracing the joy of human chaos we will make our public spaces more interactive, fun experiences and their online presence more inspiring and enjoyable.