This Week in Strategy: It used to be free to fill up your car tires with air, now it costs $1.25; You know why? INFLATION!
Hi Strat Pack,
Snow again? If you live in New York (as I do) the answer is yes. If you live in Texas the answer is also yes. If you live in Saudi Arabia, weirdly enough, the answer is yet again, also yes. And they say climate change isn't real.... In all seriousness, if you can, donate to a mutual aid fund in Texas (don't know where to donate? here's a list), there are a lot of people that really need help.
And regardless of what you think of the government of Texas, for example, remember when garbage human and Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick said that old people should be sacrificed so the economy can re-open faster? Or hey, Fuck You Ted Cruz. Where was I? Oh yeah, regardless of the actual pinatas that have political power in Texas, the people who need help the most from the snowstorm are also probably already being marginalized by many of Texas' regressive policies.
In other news, I have a confession to make. I signed up for Clubhouse. And in truth, it's not for me. I'm not saying it's not for you, but it's not for me. How do I know? Because I find myself having a lot more fun with the Clubhouse Bio Generator than actual clubhouse. And also because of this push notification:Dan Patrick said that old people should be sacrificed so the economy can re-open faster
How can THAT Grover be anyone but Grover from Sesame Street?! Seriously?
And that's why I don't like Clubhouse. While I don't care for other Grover, this Norquist Grover, if they want to have him on their platform, whatever. But Clubhouse, it seems, is filled with the kind of people whose default Grover is not the adorable muppet from Sesame Street—incidentally someone I would love to have dinner with. And that is not for me.(Please click on the link for no other reason to validate that I found a meal related Sesame Street Grover clip for you. Also it's honestly gold)
End on a positive. Ok ok ok. OH! Remember that 90 year old guy who placed an ad in the Wall Street Journal dragging AT&T because he only had 3mbps DSL and it sucked? Well who says advertising doesn't work! Only one week later, the guy, Aaron Epstein, has AT&T fiber service with unlimited data and advertised speeds of 300Mbps in both directions. He even got a call from AT&T CEO John Stankey. Now that is an effective campaign. We should all aspire to hit these kind of results.
And NASA's Perseverance rover landed on Mars yesterday! In honor of it's successful landing, it did what we all do: Tweet asking us to follow it! (Of course I did). Best of luck to this plucky anthropomorphic robot with it's own twitter account.
Alright, stop messing around trying to cobble $10,000 together for an ad to petition Bill Gates for a microchip-free Covid vaccine (Good luck!). Let's jump right in.
The one thing to read this week
1) What would David Bowie do? Advice from a Starman [The Big Issue]
(ED Note: Does this have anything to do with advertising? No. Does this also have everything to do with getting to better work as a planner? 100000000% That's a lot of percent)
Times are tough right now. If you’re looking for a guide to help you through, how about David Bowie? That’s right – David Bowie.
We knew Bowie as a global superstar, and arguably the coolest man on the planet. But behind that façade he was a shy, isolated young man who struggled to connect with other people, or to understand his place in the world.In difficult times, what can we take from Bowie’s philosophy that will help us deal with life’s challenges? Here are a few tips…
1. Celebrate small triumphs
Bowie’s most loved song – “Heroes” – is on the surface the story of a burgeoning secret romance; but when Bowie discussed the song he said it was really a song about “facing reality and standing up to it” and about just getting on with things “from the very simple pleasure of remaining alive”.
When life is as tough as it has been recently, it can be helpful at the end of the day, to take a moment to recognise your own everyday heroism in dealing with life’s challenges, and also to send a message of support to others who have proved themselves to be everyday heroes for you.
2. Have your own tea ceremony
Bowie said that he became much happier “once I learned about simply enjoying the process of living”. A regular visitor to Japan, Bowie frequently met with Zen masters and appreciated their simple wisdom.
We have all sorts of ideas about Zen; but arguably Zen practice is best summed up by the master who said: “When you’re hungry, eat”. But don’t we always do that? No, we eat and check our emails; eat and watch TV; eat and catch up with social media; eat and read a magazine.
Perhaps you’ve already tried a bit of mindfulness, but found it hard to stay in the moment; or perhaps you just got bored. The easiest and most enjoyable way to be mindfully in the moment, is to practise mindful eating or drinking. Try making a cup of builders’ tea, or fancy coffee, or whatever your beverage of choice might be, and just drinking it – while not doing anything else.
Ten minutes to really savour the taste, the comforting warmth, the aromas, and the peace. When you start thinking about other stuff, focus your attention back on the liquid in the cup. Mindfulness and ‘me-time’ combined.
3. Begin your journey of self-discovery
Looking back on his years of Buddhist study, Bowie said that one of the most important lessons he had learned was that “looking for the source of one’s own being becomes important. And I guess that’s been my own personal journey, trying to sort out where my spiritual bounty lies, where my thread to a Universal order lies – and that can become a life search.” Indeed, it can; but although it sounds daunting, that’s no reason to avoid it. To begin this vital work of self-discovery, set aside a week, and at the end of each day, finish the following three sentences.
Today I most felt a sense of purpose when…
Today the most meaningful thing I did/said/was involved in was…
Today the most meaningful thing I observed someone else doing/saying was…
Write down why you felt the sense of purpose and why the event was meaningful. Then reflect on how you’ve chosen to define purpose and meaning – and what that says about you.
4. Embrace your shadow side
Bowie came closest to the mental health crisis he feared in 1975 and 1976 while living in LA. His weight plummeted; his drug use escalated; he began to experience hallucinations.
He recovered not by running away from his negative thoughts and feelings, but by confronting them. He described the process like this: “I stripped myself down, and took myself apart layer by layer.”
He knew very well that psychologist Carl Jung exhorts us to embrace our shadow side. If we try to push difficult thoughts and feelings away, they come back stronger. If we can stay, however briefly, with these difficult moments then they can naturally flow through us, as our emotions are meant to.
Try allowing your love to be bigger than the negative feeling. It sounds a bit woo-woo, doesn’t it? But just try it. When you encounter sadness, anger, worry, fear, simply place your hand on your heart and be aware that the love you have within you is greater. Try this with milder emotions. If you find your emotions are overwhelming, move on to the next tip.
5. If you need help, ask for it
For Bowie 1990 was a crucial year. He fell in love with Iman. And he asked for help: he began attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings to finally deal with his drink problems. The lesson here is that even superstars need support sometimes, so you’re certainly allowed to seek help.
When the world is in the middle of a crisis, it’s easy to think that your own problems are minor because “other people have it worse”. But if you’re struggling, tell someone. These days, there is no longer stigma around mental health issues or addictions. So if you need help, ask for it.
2) The ‘safest’ ads are at greatest risk of going unnoticed [Richard Shotton - Marketing Week]
This is an oldie from 2018, but it's been on my mind a lot recently.
Marketers, like all humans, believe everyone is as interested in their work as they are, leading to ads that fall at the first hurdle by taking it for granted that they will be noticed.
Prioritise being noticed above other goals. If you fail there, everything else is academic. The ‘spotlight effect’ is the idea that we believe we’re the centre of attention far more than is the case. “Whether making a brilliant point in a group discussion, contributing to a successful project or executing the perfect jump shot on the basketball court, we sometimes find that the efforts we view as extraordinary and memorable go unnoticed or underappreciated by others.”
Marketers are extremely prone to this effect. There’s a tendency to overestimate people’s interest in our brands. Perhaps because we’re so interested in the minutiae of our brands, we assume others share that enthusiasm. Psychologists call this the ‘false consensus effect’, the finding that we overestimate the prevalence of our own behaviours and views.
This overestimation of the level of interest manifests itself in ads being created that take being noticed for granted – copy that fixates on the second-step problem of perfecting its message rather than the first-step problem of grabbing people’s attention. That assumption is misplaced. Data from Lumen shows that only 9% of digital ads are looked at for more than a second.
So, what should you do? First, prioritise being noticed above other goals. If you fail there, everything else is academic.
Second, apply the findings of von Restorff, who 80 years ago discovered that the best way to be noticed is to be distinctive. Despite this finding being well established in psychology, much advertising slavishly abides by category conventions. That mimicry comes at a cost.
According to Vic Polkinghorne, founder of creative agency Sell! Sell!: “What might seem like a safe choice in the confines of a boardroom will most likely be a waste of money when it’s out in the real world. Advertising that feels safe or familiar is actually quite risky – there’s no ‘safety in numbers’ when it comes to advertising. If someone else is doing something similar to what you’re doing, or looks or sounds like you, you’re both in trouble.”
Your task is to identify the formulaic rules of behaviour in your category and smash them.
3) Quick Hits
This week let's focus a bit on mental health, burnout, and semiotics
Resilience Is About How You Recharge, Not How You Endure [Harvard Business Review] The key to resilience is trying really hard, then stopping, recovering, and then trying again. This conclusion is based on biology. We often take a militaristic, “tough” approach to resilience and grit. We imagine a Marine slogging through the mud, a boxer going one more round, or a football player picking himself up off the turf for one more play. We believe that the longer we tough it out, the tougher we are, and therefore the more successful we will be. However, this entire conception is scientifically inaccurate.
The very lack of a recovery period is dramatically holding back our collective ability to be resilient and successful. Research has found that there is a direct correlation between lack of recovery and increased incidence of health and safety problems. And lack of recovery — whether by disrupting sleep with thoughts of work or having continuous cognitive arousal by watching our phones — is costing our companies $62 billion a year (that’s billion, not million) in lost productivity. External recovery refers to actions that take place outside of work—e.g. in the free time between the workdays, and during weekends, holidays or vacations.” If after work you lie around on your bed and get riled up by political commentary on your phone or get stressed thinking about decisions about how to renovate your home, your brain has not received a break from high mental arousal states. Our brains need a rest as much as our bodies do.
If you really want to build resilience, you can start by strategically stopping. Give yourself the resources to be tough by creating internal and external recovery periods.
How semiotics drive workplace culture change during the pandemic [London School of Economics Blog] Signs and symbols can be used internally in organisations to establish cultural values and norms. For years we have been studying the ways semiotics can impact organisational outcomes by informing mindsets, beliefs, and behaviours — all key components of workplace culture. We’ve found that when used right, signs and symbols can serve as management tools that not only instil cultural norms, but also re-instil them on a daily basis. They lead to behaviour change.
[The author] also recommends businesses send their employees physical objects or signs for their at-home workspaces. Even something as seemingly trivial as a paperweight or small framed image to put on a desk can have these same kinds of effects.
Of course, the messages conveyed through semiotics cannot exist in a vacuum. They only serve to instill values if the company itself lives out those values through daily behaviours. But as long as employees see their organisation “walk the walk,” they’ll start to experience the intended workplace culture as second nature — and the business will nurture the lower-stress culture employees need at this tumultuous time.
4) Department of Great Work
McDonald’s overhauls packaging with “playful” redesign [Design Week] Designs for the new packaging features simplified illustrations relating to each food item, displayed on boxes, wrappers and cups. Packaging for fries, however, remains in its classic red and gold colourway. For example, the Filet-O-Fish sandwich box uses pared back blue waves, while the Big Mac box depicts a cartoonish version of the sandwich. Does this beat Burger King's redesign? It's less comprehensive (doesn't change the logo) but package for package, McDonald's might win out. These look so good. From design consultancy Pearlfisher
A perfect planet? Why the BBC hijacked its own billboard by setting it on 'fire' [The Drum] The BBC Creative team destroyed its own A Perfect Planet billboards to illustrate humans’ destruction on Earth. The campaign actually had its beginnings in November, starting out with a seemingly innocuous set of posters for the earth science show. However, at the end of the series, the billboards started tearing apart to reveal a more detrimental side. Fish, for instance, later became plastic bottles, and a tree with a monkey became part of a burning forest.In one site, the billboard has been designed to make it look like it has been set on fire to boldly illustrate that wildfire destroys habitats – a performative stunt that works in a similar way to BBC Creative's award-winning Dracula billboard. Very smart use of OOH. from the very good BBC in-house creative shop.
Phillips’ Believes You Deserve a Good Poop in Frank New Spots [Little Black Book] There's something to be said about honesty. And lets be real, good for them for saying poop in a nonchildish way in a commercial. 'You Deserve A Good Poop' promotes an experience that is gentle, and maybe even a little satisfying. Using relaxing imagery and a soothing, straight-talking voiceover, the campaign surprises viewers with an aspirational take on a subject typically surrounded by stigma. The campaign repositions Phillips’, a challenger brand, as the go-to for relaxing, well-deserved poops.From Energy BBDO
Volvo - "Volvo Blind Spot Billboard" [Adforum] Volvo built its blindspot technology into a digital poster on one of the busiest parts of Brussels. The poster alerts both cyclist and motorist to one another’s presence, as well as showing the distance between them. It adapts to day and night, providing optimal visibility as well as demonstrating the effectiveness of the technology. On this street, it was as if every car was a Volvo. From FamousGrey Brussels
Bud Light Brought The ‘Real Men Of Genius’ Guy Back To Celebrate Tampa Bay’s Super Bowl Win [Uproxx] As always, the voice over is terrifically weird — “Gronk once again caused opponents to ask, ‘How will we defend ourselves if our planet sends more like him?'” From, I assume, Wieden+Kennedy
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