This Week in Strategy: How much does it cost for a pirate to get his ears pierced? A buck-an-ear!
Hi Strat Pack,
What did the pirate say on his 80th birthday?? “Aye, matey.” You'd think a Pirate's favorite letter would be RRRRR but it's actually P. Without P, they would be irate. Ok. ok. ok. Enough pirate jokes today.
I cannot stop thinking about this video:
Feynman basically created the field of quantum computing and won a Nobel prize for his work in quantum mechanics. He was, quite simply, a genius. This video is so incisive, and cuts to the core of what we as planners do: ask why. The quote from the video that i cannot get out of my head is so simple, and so hard to answer: "The problem when you ask why something happens, is how does a person answer why something happens?” You have to know what it is that you’re permitted to understand and allow to be understood and known, and what it is you’re not.
If you've got 7 minutes and 33 seconds check out this video out. It's great.
Speaking of quantum mechanics, this absolutely kills me:
Alright, stop messing around trying to figure out how many plates I've broken in the last six months. Let's jump right in.
The one thing to read this week
1) Mad Men. Furious Women. [Zoe Scaman - Substack]
[ED Note: Please read this entire article in its entierty. It is difficult to read, very raw, and very real. And if you don't believe the article, you only need to peruse the comments to see men try to deny Scaman's own lived experience. It's wild. And ultra fucked up, and unacceptable.]
Insidious misogyny differs in many ways from its overt counterpart, but its most important and devastating distinction is its lack of data and therefore the seemingly insurmountable challenge of making it both visible and tangible, because how can we fix something which we can’t see?
The numbers we’re used to examining, such as the number of women in agency leadership, the number of female creative directors, the number of female graduates entering the workforce - are all great when it comes to monitoring representation, which is critical, but they do not and cannot track the abuse which takes place behind the scenes.
Why? Because no one asks and no one tells.
In 2017, Victoria Brooks, the VP of Bloom (a network for women in advertising) created the ‘Booth Of Truth’ outside their inaugural conference in London. The booth was a small space for women to go, to write down their anonymous stories, which would then be shared and discussed in a session on the day called ‘Confessions Live’.
What followed was an outpouring of harrowing and horrific experiences with women sharing tales such as:
“I arrived in London for my new job and the CEO said: when are we going to fuck? When I rebuffed him, he said: why did you think I recruited you? For your excellent strategy?”
And…
“My old CEO asked another member of staff if he had ‘been through me’.”
But most telling was one card that simply read:
“Any woman who dares to speak out will never work again.”
And herein lies the awful and agonising reality - we are utterly terrified of what will happen to us if we share our truth.
In 2016, The 3% Conference surveyed 600 women across the US for their ‘Elephant On Madison Avenue’ report. They found that over half of the respondents had been subjected to an unwanted sexual advance, 88% of which were from a colleague, 70% from a superior and 49% from a client. Only 1 in 3 filed a complaint.
In addition to overt harassment, the majority of women surveyed reported dealing with subtle conscious and unconscious bias on a regular basis.
In a first-of-its-kind 2018 survey in the UK by TimeTo, the ad industry body that was set up after #MeToo rocked the world, 41% of respondents said that they’d experienced sexual harassment and/or assault in their place of work (i.e ad agencies) but of those, 83% had not reported it.
And that’s because 82% claimed their harassers and abusers were senior to them, with bosses and managers as the most common perpetrators. In open-ended questions some respondents described the involvement of senior management in covering up sexual harassment cases, while others highlighted their role in encouraging staff to flirt with their clients or customers, or to put up with unwelcome attention in order to win or retain business.
And again, you may think this is a thing of the past, but 69% of those involved in the survey had experienced harassment within the last five years, while 28% had experienced it within the last 12 months.
Just six months ago, an ex-colleague shared with [Scaman] that she’d been forced to attend a client party in New York alone by her boss, despite raising her concerns with him about that specific client’s behaviour towards her previously, sharing that she felt unsafe and uncomfortable around him. Her boss told her to ‘suck it up’ and that if she had to ‘take one for the team’, then so be it.
This is happening regularly and it’s happening now, but the culture of shame, silence and the utter lack of recourse forces women to suppress these stories, to keep their mouths shut and to try to carry on as best they can.
This pattern of dehumanising women and dismantling their spirits has consequences. Not just those that end up in courts, pay outs and exposés, but those that are akin to ‘death by 1,000 cuts’. It splinters [women's] energy, breaks down bodies and forces many to take a path that feels unavoidable - that of having to give up and bow out entirely.
Continue reading here
2) THE WOMEN WHO BUILT DDB, 2: Paula Green [Dave Dye - Stuff from the Loft]
[Dave] loves the art direction of the Avis campaign, but I love the thinking behind it more. The Volkswagen campaign may be more famous, but in terms of thinking, I prefer Avis. Come to think of it, what is the idea behind the Volkswagen campaign? Hundreds of great one-offs unified by a great (and breakthrough at the time) tone of voice.
‘We’re No 2, so we try harder’ positioned a company, inside and out, getting employees to work harder and the public to root for them.
No mean feat. Who could fail to empathise with the truism that if you’re not the biggest, richest or most famous, you have to try harder?
Everybody loves an underdog.
Paula Green wrote it, describing it this way “We were really creating an operating manual for the company, saying you had to give customers a clean car, windshield wipers had to work, cars had to have a full tank of gas.” Many in the agency objected to the idea, feeling that No. 2 was a put-down, so Green sent the researchers down to airports to get feedback on the ads. They came back to report that 50% of people thought that No. 2 meant “not as good as.”
That kills most campaigns.
But Bill Bernbach piped up “What about the other 50%?” and the campaign ran.
(It’s a great reminder; we aren’t seeking broad agreement that a campaign is ok, we’re looking for a small constituency to fall in love.)
Here are two of my (Jordan's) favorite excerpts from an interview with Paula from Japan's Idea Magazine, 1970. Click through to read more and see some really fucking good work that Paula made.
Do you think talented writers can write good ads anywhere?
No, I do not think a talented writer can do a good job regardless of the agency.
They can only do as good a job as they’re allowed to do.
They may fulfill their agency requirements, but that’s not the same as doing the best they can do.
It’s very frustrating to know you can do something and not be allowed to do it, due to client or agency pressures.
And that’s why, when hiring people, we ask them to show us what they wanted to do but was not accepted.
It allows us to judge how far and how brilliantly they had thought, what they could’ve done, not just what they’d been allowed to do.
We think that is very important.
By the way, I think the copywriting should not be called copywriting.
It’s an unfortunate title.
I think you first must be a thinker, a thinker about the problem of selling.
Then, when you can really put that into words, then you become the person who puts the words of the idea down.
Too many people think that to be a copywriter they simply need to be able to write clever and bright words.
That’s not the case.
Our sole purpose is to sell.
First you have to be a salesman.
You have to have good merchandising and sales concepts.
Good psychological insights and motivations.
When you can put good words to them, then you become a so-called copywriter. I think many people get misled.
They think if they can write, they can be an advertising copywriter.
I do not believe that.
How do you lead and teach your young writers?
Let me see, I hope I encourage them to be fresh and bright and to face the real problem of the assignment, not to face the problem they prefer. I think the most important problem in growing up in this business is “are you dealing with what the problem really is” or do you say “I don’t like that problem. I’d rather do this.”
I really do not know how I teach.
I hope with enthusiasm and a firm viewpoint, but not dogmatic, and by being very demanding.
I like preciseness. I do not like vagueness. I like clarity, I like simplicity, I do not like cleverness for the sake of cleverness.
I like clear-minded people who have a mind of their own; open-minded at the same time.
And this is a hard combination to find.
3) Don't get sucked into a vortex of mediocrity [Praveen Vaidyanathan - Linkedin]
via Micah Walker, Creative Director, W+K, Fallon, Bear Meets Eagle On Fire
4) Department of Great Work
A Parkland Victim's Dad Tricked A Former NRA President Into Speaking At A Fake Graduation [Buzzfeed News] Instead, the 3,044 empty seats represented the students who did not graduate this year because they were killed by gun violence. Change the Ref, an organization founded by Manuel and Patricia Oliver, whose son Joaquin “Guac” was killed in 2018 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, held a fake high school graduation for what they call "The Lost Class" of students. "Ironically, had the men conducted a proper background check on the school, they would have seen that the school is fake," a Change the Ref spokesperson said in a press release. From Leo Burnett
Adidas Launches World's First Ever Liquid Billboard [Little Black Book] Adidas unveiled the world’s first ever liquid billboard in Dubai, in line with the brand’s recent debut of its inclusive swimwear Collection. The first-of-its kind stunt celebrates adidas’ drive to offer a wider choice of technical apparel for athletes everywhere, simultaneously inspiring confidence in women and building on its commitment to make the future of sport as inclusive as possible. From Havas Middle East
Juvenile Transforms ‘Back That Thang Up’ Into Pro-Vaccine Anthem ‘Vax That Thang Up’ [Rolling Stone] Great work? Absolutely! Juvenile has reworked his 1999 classic “Back That Thang Up” as “Vax That Thang Up” as part of a new campaign by the dating app BLK to encourage people to get vaccinated against Covid-19. “Vax That Thang Up” is as delightful and ridiculous as one would hope, with Juvenile, Mannie Fresh, and Mia X expounding on the importance of getting vaccinated if one wants to enjoy life’s most refined pleasures. “Girl you look good once you vax that thang up,” goes the hook, “You a handsome young brother once you vax that thang up/Dating in real life, you need to vax that thang up/Feeling freaky all night, you need to vax that thang up.” From agency Majority
Ad of the Day: DDB Sydney and Volkswagen turn driving nightmares into horror movie posters [The Drum] While gearheads may dream of a relaxed cruise on the open road, the reality for most drivers is more stressful. According to DDB Sydney, 79% of Australians experience some kind of anxiety around driving. And 59% of drivers fear parallel parking, worrying that they will hold up traffic or ding another vehicle in the process. That insight has led to the agency’s latest campaign for Volkswagen, which reimagines carriageway conundrums such as merging on to the highway, navigating vast roundabouts or emergency braking for pedestrians as slasher film posters. Not sure I'd call that an insight but its still great creative. From DDB Sydney.
McDonald's Fryquently Used Promo [Ads of the World] Every social media and system software on the planet (IOS, Facebook, Android, Google, Twitter and WhatsApp) used the same inspiration to create their fries emoji, McDonald's fries. To celebrate World Emoji Day we invited people to make this emojis, “our” emojis, the most used ones. All they had to do was put them at the top of their Frequently Used List, send us the evidence and win real and delicious fries. To achieve this, the send button had to be pressed a lot, and it was, +650.000 times to be exact. Really fucking smart. From Orson Costa Rica
5) Platform Updates
TikTok’s catfish problem is worse than you think [Vox] Everyone who uses social media inherently portrays a certain version of themselves while omitting the rest; playacting is the essence of the internet, to the point where, one might argue, our ideas about truth and authenticity are meaningless, or at least grossly incapable of adequately describing what’s going on. Still, it’s become easier than ever to assume an almost entirely new identity online, without regard for the consequences such behavior can cause.
Head of Instagram says Instagram is no longer a photo sharing app [The Verge] The message that Instagram is sending is clear: it no longer wants to be thought of as the “square photo-sharing app,” as Mosseri puts it, but instead as a general entertainment app driven by algorithms and videos. At the moment, though, it’s vague as to how Instagram plans on doing that — and whether it’ll be improving and innovating on features popularized by apps like TikTok or just making something with a few Facebook-y tweaks.
Pinterest Bans All Weight Loss Ads [NPR] "A lot of people are facing challenges related to body image and mental health, particularly as we're emerging from COVID restrictions," says Sarah Bromma, the company's head of policy. "People are now feeling added pressure to rejoin their social circles in person for the first time in a year." Pinterest is not the only company to restrict weight loss content. Both Instagram and Facebook clamped down on ads for "miracle" diets and weight-loss products in 2019, but Pinterest is the first to ban these ads completely. It's an expansion of Pinterest's existing bans on ads containing before-and-after weight-loss imagery, weight-loss procedures and appetite suppressant pills. Ads promoting healthy lifestyles or fitness services will remain.
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