NORTHERN PLANNER

According to Adam Smith, suddenly achieving blazing success can actually be the route to misery. Not is the praise from your peers less than sincere, as the green eyed monster takes hold, the established players in the elite you’ve just joined do not always welcome upstarts.

Now, this is of course true, envy is intrinsic to human nature, as is group think and snobbery (inverted or not). I think this comes down to how you meet your success. With humility, gratitude and never false modesty. There’s nothing worse than seeing someone change over night. You know who you are.

But then, you have to question the ones who have been left behind, or those in the higher echelons the person has joined.

Those left behind can let envy consume them, or they can be inspired into pushing themselves a little harder. Human societies have always had elites, some would argue that the cult of the celebrity enables us to dream of being as wealthy and glamorous as them. Watching Michael Phelps in the the pool makes me want to work on my freestyle.

And, of course, elites need to close ranks, otherwise there’s nothing special about them, but without the possibility that the lucky few can join in, the lower orders eventually rebel. From a sociological point of view, that’s why actors and rock stars are so potent for capitalism, in theory, anyone could do it. Talentless celebrities like Jordan and other reality stars are even more useful, you don’t even have ti be any good at anything.

And anyway, you should always welcome new additions to the tribe, the diversity will make you stronger.

So there you have it, success can be dangerous for all, but the bit I find interesting is the role of emotion within this. No emotion is bad, it’s how you use it. If you’re other half was never a little jealous when you flirted with someone, would you really feel loved? Without envy, would you ever be inspired to surprise yourself? Without fear of challengers, would you ever push yourself to stay ahead? 

I’m sitting alone the Breakfast Club in Soho.It’s the first time I’ve been in here without the coffee morning/planning cabal type people, which feels a little strange, but good strange, it’s quiet and, on your own, this is a good place to sit think and reflect (the carrot cake is beyond reproach too).

Soon I’m off to one of those IPA events full of earnest, slightly scary Unilever type people, I’m sure I’ll learn something, but you can guess where I would prefer to be.

All I have is a notebook, a pen and a relatively decent book on what makes ideas sticky. The phone is off to conserve power and the laptop is kaput (forgot both chargers). And it’s a joy.

Time to slow down, think properly about one or two things. No need to talk, no need to answer persistent emails. Sometimes it’s the little pleasures that you really savour.

Then I walk, I don’t run, to where I need to be. Others are hustling past me, some fizzing with purpose, others needlessly impatient. Time has slowed down for me, everyone is else is a blur, like those stop motion films of clouds hurtling across the sky.

I’ll be them again in a few minutes but for now, it’s nice to exist in different dimension to every one else.   

I’m a fan of Jeremy Bullmore – not least his agony column in Campaign. His ‘why is an insight like a refrigerator is pure classic genius. But I did disagree with something last week.

The subject matter was proprietary brand models, good/bad/how do you manage do get good thinking when you’re wedded to a process and tick box? Now for the record, I’m not the greatest fan of fixed process and models, but I also believe some sort of framework for your thought process can be useful, most of all when you’re starting out.

But the general rules of developing strategy are pretty universal I think, maybe with a modern emphasis on finding out what people are interested in more rather than assuming they’re sitting waiting for your selling messages.

Put simply, delve into the consumer culture, delve into the brand /product /service culture, find the connection. A more detailed way of looking at stuff can be found here if you’re interested.

Anyway, back to that Bullmore column. I kind of agree that few agency brand planning tools are really unique, but I really didn’t agree with the assertion that all are merely there to enable execution tweaking which was his take.

Take Brains’ , sorry, Maurice Saatchi’s One Word Equity –  I hate it, I don’t agree you can always shove all the nuance of a brand into one word. BUT, it’s an attempt to frame all brand thinking well before execution and do something appropriate for the messy media world brands inhabit.

Take TBWA’s Disruption, I’m saying for a moment that just being different is enough (and it’s more complex than that anyway) but still, it’s a way of thinking that can get to the heart of the business model, even before brand frameworks.

Now, Mcann’s demand chain IS bobbins, that’s as generic as they come.

I guess what I’m saying is that models and stuff have a place, some do exist as ‘ad tweakers’ but some are sort of useful, and work at the level of brand frameworks. And I’d take any agency over horrendously overpaid brand consultancies any day. 

Even more contentious, what’s wrong with ad tweaking anyway? I’m not sure that the quest for the big idea is always the best approach. There’s plenty of great brands that do what’s right for right now, and let the little stuff build up to richer picture, a little like Pointillism I guess.

Tone of voice doesn’t get into briefings and strategic development enough, and it sort of should. Come to think of it, I’m all for something that helps us develop the most appropriate way in, but that wasn’t the point so I’ll end it here.

(can you tell I have time to kill on a train?)

Mark Foster will be swimming at the Olympics at the grand old age of 38. As someone beginning to grudgingly give in to the gradual, inexorable decline of his body, I find this inspiring. Not least his assertion that you should stick to what you’re best at.

On the other hand, this is an article about running a 100k race. Profound in many ways, it suggests that the author only had so much running in him. This kind of thing always makes me wonder, is this the case for all of us? And how much is this psychological v physical.

Thinking about creative people, there seems to be a pattern where they burn brightly for a period, before going into a gradual decline- still brilliant but never matching the heights of their pomp.

As far as the physical stuff goes for me, I bitterly regret the things I’ll never know about. The cartilage in my left hip has worn away, so I can’t run for more than twenty minutes these days. I’ll never know how a marathon feels, how I could handle an iron man triathlon,  I can’t even find out if I can beat my 10K best time. This means sticking to swimming, tennis and cycling, which isn’t too bad I suppose. I’m thinking of trying some cycling challenges next year, 50 mile races or something.

Nike and Federer do Kato v Clouseau.

If you haven’t seen this film, hire the DVD, buy it, you need to see it. Too many reasons to go into, the acting, the taught script, the way Havier Bardem manages to become a human Terminator – you believe he can’t be stopped.

But the thing that most grabs me about this film is the way it works after you’ve seen it. It’s enthralling to be sure, but it finishes and then a little later you start thinking, then a little more..and you cannot stop going back over the film, getting more depth, making more links. It just gets better the longer it is since you watched it. Is that an example of deceptive cadence?

Now consider ads and stuff, how they have to compete with popular culture now they cannot interupt. How many ads make you want to think and discuss like that?

Marcus is back.

Someone I know was the last boyfriend of a lovely girl who came out a month after dumping him. Made him question himself.

Not in that league this, two agencies I used to work at are on the ropes. The first has a credit crunched bank as the biggest client, the second basically mis-managed itself into a fire sale and finally liquidated a year or so after. I’m crossing my fingers for other past employers.

Joking aside, I’m not sure how I feel about the one that has just been forced to close it’s doors. I had a mixed time there. Some great memories of some good people are mixed with some less cherished ones. One one hand, the recent news is laced with subtle trace of Schadenfreude (can’t be arsed to spell check that).

But then, this was a lot of people with jobs, debts and families. And the place had a once proud history, I learned a lot there too. I’m where I am now because of bad things there as well as good. Hard to complain at that.

I’m not sure how to feel. Sad though.