One time, we were doing a pitch at GGT.
Mike Greenlees was in full flow, presenting the agency strategy to the client.
Pretty soon, Mike Gold would be doing the media, then I’d present the creative work.
The trouble was, there was an awful lot of banging coming from the roof above.
We tried to ignore it, but it was getting louder and louder.
Everyone was getting distracted.
And the client was listening to the banging instead of listening to Mike.
The room we used for pitches was the entire top floor of the agency.
It had a great view over Soho.

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There’s a Zen story of a debate between a senior monk and a novice.
The novice isn’t too smart and has only one eye.
To avoid embarrassment, the Abbot tells them to have a silent debate, in private.
The subject was to be ‘Buddha’s Sublime Teachings’.
After a few moments the Abbot saw the monk walking away.
He asked him how the debate went.
The monk said “That is a very clever novice, he beat me.”
The Abbot asked him what happened. Read more »

Recently, I had a good example of what’s wrong with how we do what we do.
I was talking to a production company about how could we get the cost of our ads down.
Their producer told us one of the biggest costs was approvals.
She said “We have to send you pantone references for every little detail and wait ages for approval.
Multiply that by everything that has to get approved and, while we’re waiting, we’ve got animators, designers, model-makers, all standing around.
We’re paying them the same rate as if they were working.

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The words most of us want to hear at the end of a first date are “Do you want to come in for a coffee?”
Now, of course, you don’t actually want a coffee.
And, in fact, coffee isn’t actually what’s being offered.
This is an example of the difference between ‘marketing’ and ‘marketing comms’.
There’s what you actually want (marketing).
And then there’s the language you use to get it (comms).
They are not the same.

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