IS THIS REAL LIFE OR IS THIS JUST FANTASY?

I’ve been staring at a blank page for half an hour or so with that Queen song ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ drifting in and out of my mind. I don’t know the answer. We’re living in limbo and it’s very strange.

Will I ever wear a tie again? Will I ever wear a suit again or will I, in rebellion against dress-down-coronavirus, start to dress like a dandy – velvet suits, jazzy waistcoats and cravat? Perhaps a monocle. And certainly a cigarette holder? Dare I take up smoking again? Balkan Sobranie, naturally, if I do. Somehow or another I feel the rustling desire to make a dramatic, rebellious statement.

Watching television has been depressing. Terrestrial TV has run out of ideas. Has run out of ideas. Repeat that. And again. My splendid 98 year old mother in law laments the omnipresent Poirot and his blasted little grey cells and Midsomer murders…”I saw them all the first time and I didn’t much like them then.”

But it’s the tragic low budget, low-idea ads that are the worst of all. I spent twenty, happy years in advertising alongside or in competition with legends who created glorious advertising like that for Sainsburys, the Economist, Heineken, Carling, Araldite, Nike and Heinz. 

There is so little I like now. Back then clever people wrote great jokes or sumptuous ideas and film makers like Alan Parker, Ridley Scott and others then turned them into magic.

There was an exception recently for Brut. It’s amazing that this strong smelling lotion is still around. It was something we, at our agency, once advertised. The male perfume – “the great smell of Brut” – was launched with advertising featuring Henry Cooper. So we proposed creating new advertising to bridge the gap since it had been on TV with the theme: “Henry’s back with the great smell of Brut” featuring Lenny Henry. The client abruptly rejected it. Only now do I think it was because Lenny is black. 

That was 30 years ago. Brut is back on TV with hard man Vinnie Jones saying with a scowl in effect “stop poncing around with this glitzy ad you idiots it just smells good”. At this point a voice says “here’s the horse” and on walks a white horse to Vinnie’s disgust. There are advertising men through the ages who’ve wanted to get an irrelevant horse into a TV commercial and in lockdown it’s happened.

What will the high street look like when the shackles are removed? Well, expect an instant horror show of Poundland’s and Charity Shops but then a reinvention, balancing functional online with theatre and romance. In the rather tragic story of Mr Selfridge we saw a retail magician at work. What we shall need are magicians, impresarios and jugglers who create appetite appeal to seduce people who then buy online. Mere boring online will lose out as Apple brilliantly showed in their sexy Apple stores.

The hunger for fantasy and excitement is pent up and huge. The opportunity is for showmanship and pzaz. Curiously the desire to go out and shop “using real money” is acute. Restaurants that manage to charm and create that “let’s have another drink" ambiance will thrive.  Hurry back Corbyn & King. 

Real life we have learnt is rather dull. We are mostly sensible and rule abiding but at the back of our minds is the urge from time to time to be a bit naughty, to do something impulsive and delicious. Deliveroo and Amazon are the least naughty, geekiest operations I know.

Time soon to let our hair down.

Tequila!

A TRUE STORY OF CREATIVITY

I was asked to talk to a group of small businesses in Lewes. If you haven’t been to Lewes go there. It’s perched on a hill which runs down to the River Ouse, the fragrant scent  of Harvey’s the Brewery suffuses the place with its antique shops and organic cafes. Once upon a time Oxford was like this, reflective and inward looking. At night Lewes quietens as its inhabitants go indoors to pubs and dining rooms and talk, drink and think. The architecture is Elizabethan in part, unlike its rowdy brother Brighton with its Regency look-at-me white stucco. Lewes is alive with a sense of rebellion, independence and talent. Home to Glyndebourne, musicians and craftsmen it’s one of those places that remind one why Britain is so extraordinarily rich and stable a country.

So there I was in the genial Con Club, sun shafting through the windows. As I started, my key theme being you should tell people about how good you are and be assertive - because you are your own salesforce, I reflected on the irony.  There I was an ex-Ad Man who’d worked on big budget commercials, talking about why marketing on a shoestring was so wonderful, a bit like a chef talking to hungry people about dieting.  Yet I learned so much from them and about their businesses and felt humbled as, following my advice they expressed themselves vividly, confidently and with passion about their products and services.

A carpenter who talked of his love of wood and his passion for working it, another saying he loved what he did, really understood it and had an absolute certainty of success, another who talked of the joy of transforming people they taught, another of the sheer pleasure of giving pleasure in her B&B (I want to stay there) and another who talked about photography with an appetite that’s rare and an ability to project magic - “at my best I do photographs that knock people’s socks  off.”  It was a morning of passion, insight, self-belief and colour. They all, when it was drawn from them loved what they did. Life was a formula balancing passion and pragmatism; a compromise between art, joy, a story to tell and paying the bills.
I learned  small is really beautiful. These were people who lived, breathed and spun threads of love around what they did. They used all their senses not just their left brain. From Pilates to theatre to arts to caring I heard great stories, people describing change as though it was fun and normal.

Respite from writing my book? Yes but also an education in the terror and the ecstasy of being your own person not an employee. I hope I boosted their sense of being special and helped them become a bit more marketing assertive. These were great storytellers when unleashed. And that‘s the best marketing tool of all.

Some of the slides from my presentation are included

LESSONS OF HISTORY AND HOW TO SURVIVE

Last week I did a keynote speech at a Brighton & Hove Chamber of Commerce event on the HSBC report on the Super Cities of the future. Brighton was one of these and I was asking the audience of 100 whether they thought there might be a symbiotic relationship between the thriving arts scene in Brighton and the booming SME, entrepreneurial community in the city. I noted the HSBC were very impressed by the rebelliousness and individuality of Brighton and observed it was “the UK capital of deregulation.”

Which takes me to Tunis, Cairo, Sanaar, Amman and so on. As I type this the violence in Cairo has worsened. So rebelliousness, deregulation and, even, revolution is in the air throughout the world.

Dictatorships and dynasties are doomed.

The voice of intelligent people is being heard and is organising itself through willpower and technology. Governments are discovering that mobile phones are more potent weapons than tear gas and guns.

Talking to people at that Chamber of Commerce event about networking and now reading the news about Egypt has finally persuaded me that social networking is much more important to our world than I’d been acknowledging.

Here are the top ten tips from Brighton this January for being good at Twitter, Blogs, Facebook or whatever.

-    Talk about what really interests you not just about what you do
-    Be curious about the world and ask questions
-    Be a Renaissance person, a polymath, a person with wide interests
-    Be yourself – be true to what you believe
-    Make friends don’t just regard the network as business forum
-    Get into your local universities and find out all the good stuff they are thinking about. Ask and you’ll be surprised how open they are
-    Be positive – look for the good things - don’t just be judgemental
-    Don’t live in anyone’s shadow – be your own hero
-    We live in a world of conversations not orations
-    Spend 20 minutes a day on social networking

It’s time more of us were talking to each other and being active in our lives. As Thomas Jefferson said “a little rebellion never did any harm.” And there’s never been a better time to rattle the cage.

See you in cyberspace.