It’s been a while…apologies. But today I wanted to share a very interesting and relevant article I read in the NYT Sunday Business Section—specifically “Corner Office,” which interviews business leaders (some names you may recognize, others not) and asks them about their earliest influences, early leadership lessons, what they’re looking for when they hire and what they tell recent college grads. They are all uniformly enlightening.
Today’s piece profiled Dion Weisler, the Chief Executive, HP, Inc. And he mentioned a management technique that he finds especially useful: the three waves of innovation. It’s based on surfing (Weisler grew up in Australia). The first wave is the one you’re currently on, say, your core business. The second is the waves that are coming—which do you choose. That usually has to do with growth. And the third is “what all great surfers do…go home and pull the weather reports and figure out when the next big one is coming.” In other words, predicting trends that you can get a jump on. Or as he calls it “pure invention and category creation.”
In a sense, all creatives are surfers. The first wave is our every day work and that can be challenging enough. The waves that are coming are your dreams and goals. Which offers the greatest personal, professional, psychic growth? And then, the third wave…reinvention. We’re all on the look out for the next “big one,” the big idea that can change our world.
After all, what is creativity but another word for innovative thinking?
I am forever indebted to Dion Weisler for this powerful metaphor. I hope you are too.
Like the current administration, advertisers sometimes stray into a world of alternate reality. Maybe they think we won’t recognize it for what it is (i.e. we’re gullible) or they feel the production values of their communications–beautifully and expensively rendered–will overwhelm the message. Or the messenger.
Two new spots come to mind. The first, “Go Boldly,” shows scientists doing lifesaving research against the backdrop of Dylan Thomas’s “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night.” It’s stirring, it’s inspiring and it makes you want to run out and buy pharma stocks until you realize that the sponsor of this fine ad is, in fact, America’s Biopharmaceutical Companies a.k.a. PhARMA, the wonderful people who brought you thousand-fold price increases on those very same lifesaving drugs. Just because they could. If there were a black box warning for advocacy comms like this it would say: “Use with caution. Side effects include headache, nausea, dry mouth and bankruptcy. Do your research and don’t be fooled by a name change, however anodyne it appears.”
Another wolf in sheep’s clothing appears in “Energy Tomorrow,” quick paced with great graphics demonstrating all the ways oil runs (literally) the world– from science to cosmetics, automotive engineering to art. Pretty cool, huh? Then you read the fine print and learn that the marketer who’s “powering past impossible” is none other than the American Petroleum Institute. Who knew?
There used to be retailer which claimed that “an educated consumer is our best customer.” Though the company is now defunct, the truth of that statement remains. Our world requires ever more vigilance in being informed and upholding the truth. Big Oil and Big PhARMA undoubtedly do great things, but in reality, they are not the best thing since sliced bread.
In politics, in advertising and in life, beware of the big lie.
And for marketers and their agencies, the Superbowl is one of the greatest. Big money, big egos, high stakes and occasionally high art.
This year, it was #SuperBowlSoPolitical. Instead of frat humor, we saw (for the most part) bigger, topical truths told with intelligence, emotion, cinematic production values and sly humor, specifically:
Coca Cola(an encore performance from 2014) and Airbnb, celebrating what already makes America great: multi-culturalism.
Last night’s Golden Globes were good for the soul. (For charity’s sake, we’ll overlook the bizarre schtick perpetrated by Sofia Vergara, Goldie Hawn and Amy Schumer.) Moonlight and La La Land deserved their honors and I hope that we as a nation deserve the inspiring words of Viola Davis and Meryl Streep. They are the healing we’ve been waiting for since Election Day.
The commercial canon was exceptional too. Herewith my faves:
L’Oreal Rosy Tone Moisturizer. When Queen Helen speaks, we women listen. A lovely homage to age and beauty. Yes, “we’ve still got it. And we’re still worth it.”
L’Oreal Match 33-Shades Foundations puts identity politics in its prettiest light, celebrating the multi-culti, multi-hued and multi-gendered real world we aspire to inhabit. https://ispot.tv/a/A8Zf
TurboTax rescues horror-film stalwart Kathy Bates from a houseful of creepy un-dead children. Can Intuit rescue us from the new administration as well, I wonder? https://ispot.tv/a/AmlI
Cheerios is all about love. And what’s more lovable than funny baby videos. A delight. https://ispot.tv/a/AN_C
Every year, the date takes us by surprise. On September 11, we honor the memory of the innocents killed on that day (and since) and the two beautiful buildings whose absence still leaves a hole in the heart of New York 15 years on.
The Olympics are upon us. Which means inspiring athleticism, inane and offensive commentary (I’m talking to you, Al Trautwig) and testy technology. And, like all destination TV events, commercials. Lots and lots of commercials. (Is it me or do the pods seem excessively long?)
Still, attention must be paid. Herewith my medalists so far:
Gold: Dick’s Sporting Goods seems to have taken Carl Sagan’s words to heart with a visually arresting spot featuring the precious metals (and mettle) in all of us.
Silver: Michelob Ultra celebrates #Rio2016 with a hilarious mash-up of golf and futbol.
Bronze: The “anything you can do I can do better” prize is awarded to all the many marketers recognizing girl power in every field.
Lead: The biggest loser (for me, anyway) is GE, which seems to have fallen off the podium of creativity and good taste with its odd and awkward campaign, “Sarah.” What is this about? An important story is buried under cringe-worthy set-ups featuring a young engineer and her apparently on-the-spectrum brother. Why?
One more week to go and then the other games—the presidential campaign—begin in earnest. I’m rooting for the Giant Meteor.
In my other life, I’m a health coach focusing on women, weight and self-esteem. It helps that I was once a fat girl so this is not a theoretical exercise or cool “encore career.” It’s personal. Which is why I love these spots from Dove (“My Beauty”) and JC Penney (“Here I am”) celebrating body positivity and self-acceptance (if not pride).
We’ll know we have finally advanced as a species when love embraces all of us, including ourselves.
Fashion is having a kumbaya moment. From shoes to cosmetics, designers are celebrating the many hues of nude. Now, Naja has introduced Nude for all, a collection of intimate apparel in seven color options–from palest beige to very dark. All designed to enhance their wearer’s shape and body positivity.
Founders Catalina Girald and actress Gina Rodriguez wanted to create fashions that went beyond a pretty face and traditional lingerie model’s body. It is a brand with a strong point of view and reason for being. “There is nothing more encouraging than seeing the outpouring of love and necessity for inclusion. Not just in the industry, not just in our schools or workplace, but in our own journey of acceptance. To be seen, to be included, to be represented, to be uplifted, that is what this line is all about. Now we all get to go nude,” Rodriguez explained.
What Naja and other enlightened companies are saying is: diversity is beautiful. Candidates, take note.
I work out a lot and I’m a big fan of health trackers. But even the most slothful won’t be able to resist this delightful spot, appropriately titled “Dualities,” for the Fitbit Blaze. (Full disclosure: I’m a loyal Fitbit wearer.) From the music (Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’s “Little Demons”) to the action (a series of compellingly seamless match dissolves), the watch demonstrates in heart-pumping living color how exercise enriches even the most basic activities of daily living. The very definition of product as hero(ine).
AND TIED…On the other hand, there’s this, the very essence of a not-good-for-you food. Calorie content aside, was it really in the brand’s best interest to stake its intro on a confrontation between police and a civilian? With all the recent stories about tragic encounters, the spot screams “too soon.” Not to mention, unfunny and tasteless.
Art is not for the timid. Neither is (re)branding. Both provoke intense reactions and when the brand in question is an iconic museum, everyone’s a critic.
The Metropolitan Museum has—for a variety of reasons (new leadership and an expanded footprint among them)—decided not to leave well enough alone but to reinvent its much beloved logo. Launched in 1971, it is itself a work of art, with graphic elements combined in a harmonious whole, hinting at the art and architectural treasures residing within. It was a distinctive and much-desired marque.
But time marches on and the Met’s new administration wanted something more modern, more encompassing, friendlier and accessible. And it chose Wolff Olins, the design firm behind the controversial London Olympics and Tate logos, to refresh the museum’s identity.
Like the philistine who says, “I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like,” I loathe the new logo. It looks like a car wreck and the introductory ad appearing in today’s New York Times is equally a mess. Pretentious, inelegant copy and a layout with all the visual appeal of a letterhead.
Wolff Olins surely knows better than anyone the worth of a brand like the Metropolitan Museum—the values it embodies, the stories it tells and the promise it makes to its patrons. This rebrand upends all of that. It is a sacrilege and a slap to the face of a great institution (and the people who love it).
