NORTHERN PLANNER

There is possibly nothing less disruptive than saying you want to disrupt something.

Every category wants to disrupt. Every start-up is a challenger. Every leader wants to behave like a start-up.

Everyone wants to break the rules. Which means breaking the rules has somehow become one of the rules.

It reminds me of non-uniform days at secondary school. Nobody wore the uniform. Yet somehow everyone turned up looking remarkably similar.

So maybe strategy needs to be a little more devious. Not dishonest. A decent human being should generally try to play fair. Brands should too. But playing fair doesn’t mean playing exactly the game everyone expects you to play.

Sometimes the cleverest thing you can do is bend the rules a little.

This is where I struggle with disruption.

It’s one of the most overused words in marketing, and it doesn’t get people, real people.

Human beings quite like novelty. But we hate change..

We like discovering a new restaurant. But it pisses us off when they move the milk aisle.

Brands are part of this.

Let’s get real, most of lives are built around autopilot: habits, shortcuts and familiar things that mean we don’t have to think very hard.

Human nature doesn’t like disruption. Yet every brief tends to start with it.

People don’t want disrupting. They have stuff on.

So maybe when every brand is trying to disrupt everything, the genuinely unconventional strategy might be to fit in.

Make something easier. Feel familiar. Turn up at exactly the right moment. Remove a decision rather than create one.

That’s devious strategy. Taking the route people aren’t expecting. Even thought they should.

It could mean not looking like advertising at all. People have become really good at avoiding it.

If something looks like an ad, there is a reasonable chance a thumb will have moved past it before the logo appears.

So perhaps don’t make something that looks like an ad.

Make something useful.

Entertaining.

Interesting.

Something people might actually want to spend time with.

That’s level one deviousness.

Level two is behavioural science.

All the Richard Shotton you probably read but never use.

It was all anyone talked about for a bit, but no one used it much.

And now it’s out of fashion, it’s time to strike.

There may be something more cunning still. Stop obsessing about finding the product truth.

Or the brand truth. Or the cultural truth.

Few products are really different. Let’s be honest, not enough brands are.

So teams spend weeks looking for differentiation, distinctiveness or meaningful difference that isn’t really there.

Some of the greatest advertising never bothered.

It just executed the shit out of the obvious.

Or tapped into something everyone knows but doesn’t bother to use.

In human behaviour.

Stella costs more, so it must be good. .

Reassuringly Expensive.

Whisky is about success, but young people can’t afford a house, well done for hanging in there.

Keep Walking.

Sport makes us feel better about out very average lives.

Just Do It.

Even more devious stuff from Toyota.

A fast car?

You could get there too early.

A nice car?

A car to be proud of.

Bloody obvious, but it’s the idea, not the truth. Not quite made up, but not ownable or cultural.

I know there is more behind these, but the devious planner doesn’t let the truth get in the way of a good argument.

No brand onion required.

And then we come to authenticity. And Purpose.

People don’t require culture to be literally true (brand comms is part of this).

It doesn’t need to be real. It needs to feel true.

Relatability is not reality. No soap opera is real.

Advertising has always worked somewhere in that gap.

It exaggerates. Dramatises.

Reframes.

So instead of:

How do we disrupt the category?

Ask:

What’s the cunning way through this?

What rule is everyone following that we don’t actually need to?

What apparent weakness could become a strength?

What are people already doing that we could make easier?

What are competitors desperately trying to say that we could avoid saying altogether?

What obvious truth is sitting in front of everyone that nobody has thought to make interesting?

What if, rather than forcing people to change direction, we simply moved with them?

None of this is particularly grand.

That’s probably why I like it.

Strategy takes itself very seriously.

As do most brands.

Frameworks.

Transformation.

Disruption.

Category redefinition.

Occasionally even a North Star.

Devious strategy feels more human.

Notice what everyone else is doing.

Notice what people actually do.

Then find the little gap between the two.

And sneak through it.

Because when everyone else is trying to overturn the table, sometimes the smartest move is simply to reach underneath it.