On my new journey to work I keep seeing an ad for a drink that proclaims “don’t act your age; defy it”.  I wonder if it is aimed at me, (though it might be that I am not in the desired target market.)  I am certainly not defying my age.  I am revelling in it, and the new opportunities that I am facing.  A fresh start, with the experience I have accumulated one way or another over my years in this business, gives me energy and a platform for the future.

I’m travelling into London now on the Underground Northern Line from the same tube station that I travelled from on my way home from school.  Many many things have changed.  The Northern line, with all its quirks, has not changed at all.  And the tube stop is so identical that I keep having a sense that if I look hard I will see my teenage self jump on the train, loaded with books and latin homework.

So much is different.  This is true for all of us of course, as the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus put it: “No man can step in the same river twice”, both because the river moves on, and because we all change too.  

If you are wondering whether to make a change, my answer is go with your gut instinct.  Plans and lists of pros and cons get you so far.  Following your gut is crucial.  The important questions to know about are not to do with status or even the role.  The ambition of the business, and the culture of the leadership team are the things that matter.  With the help of LinkedIn you can get a sense of both.  Don’t be fooled of course by posts written by a team of virtual or real assistants.  Look for statements from the heart, about business preferably as that is where you will be, rather than about family, pets or charity walks. 

After 34 years at one organisation, albeit where the agency changed and my role grew and evolved, I have gone through sensory overload in the first few weeks.  The sense of Belonging in a new agency however could not be stronger – I have been made very welcome, helped certainly by knowing some key people already (great to be back working with Steve Allan), but equally due to the warmth and acceptance from my new colleagues.

I have a lot to learn in my new job.  As I am endlessly curious this is not a chore, but exciting and a stretch outside of my previous comfort zone.  But what are we here for at all if not to learn, grow and develop.  

In media, in advertising, the old certainties are being dismantled daily.  Not by opinion formers (although there is some of that), not by new platforms with an ambitious growth budget (although that is true too).  By people, by audiences, by new truths, new heuristics and new provable data and evidence fast overtaking the old and familiar.  People are defying stereotypes.  Brands will thrive that do the same.  Not by throwing out the old trusted playbooks, but by adapting, experimenting and updating them. 

The chief economist at Allianz, and president of Queens College, Cambridge, Mohamed Abdullah El-Erian said recently: “Rules built for yesterday can inadvertently get in the way of growth”.  

Norms of yesterday are the shifting sands of today.  I might have changed jobs for a fresh start, but we are all facing a time of change.

In a high performance business, whatever your team is called, it is also the team that helps clients’ business growth.

In a discussion about the parlous state of the National Health Service in the UK, one commentator remarked recently that nothing would change until every government department understood that it was also the department for health.

The department for education: also the health department because nurturing children to better physical and mental health would ultimately benefit us all.

The treasury department: also the health department because in eradicating child poverty everyone’s ultimate outcomes are better.

The department for levelling up: well obviously.

And so on.

Similarly whatever team you work in at an agency you are there to help the client’s business achieve its objectives.

The influencer team: also not only there to create influencer campaigns, but there to help make the product or brand grow.

The search team: also not only there to navigate the intricacies of the new search economy but there to grow the product or brand.

The creative team: also not only there to win Lions but there to make sure that people buy the product or brand.

And so on.

It of course helps if team leaders focus on this, and on how they can work together across departments to deliver the best outcomes.  It requires putting the customer or client first, over and above department needs.  

The UK Government Digital Service (GDS) was set up to do just this for government services like applying for a passport, or driving licence.  Before the GDS each government department ran their own websites and tended to fill them with content that was rich in colour and slow to load.  Rather than be utilitarian to what the customer (ie British citizens) needed, the websites tended to be designed to drive the reputation and interests of the particular department.  The GDS’s priorities changed this radically.  They revolve exclusively around making digital government simpler, clearer and faster for everyone.  Anyone who had the experience of queuing up at a post office in the old regime only to be told that you hadn’t filled in your form properly (I was once rejected because my signature went inadvertently over a line), or waiting for impossibly long load times for the website, will appreciate the revolution that GDS created.

Fostering a good culture within a particular department or team is important, and making this inclusive and diverse delivers best outcomes.  Making sure that this team spirit is not at the expense of other teams in the agency is vital to overall success. Putting the needs of the customer above the immediate kpis or ambitions of the department leader is paramount. 

Guy Kawasaki has written that there are two types of businesses.  The pie eaters and the pie bakers.   The pie eaters take the view that there is a limit to resources, and that if someone else eats some of their pie, that they will suffer.  The pie bakers are happier to share the pie, and take the view that they can always bake another bigger pie.  

There is only one way to deliver growth in this scenario.  Be a pie baker, and understand that whatever your team is called, and whatever your title is, you are there to help bake bigger pies, and grow the clients’ business, not simply deliver your immediate objective.  This requires looking up from the department you find yourself in and taking a view of the wider world.  Every team needs focussed time to work on immediate objectives and actions, but it is never too soon to look over the box you are in and think about your impact on the whole.

At its simplest any strategy is a longer term view of a plan, a way of achieving a longer term objective.

Of course that isn’t enough.  Anyone can write a longer term view.  What you need, (or otherwise what’s the point?), is a winning strategy.  And a winning media strategy will contain three elements:

• A simple diagnosis of what is going on.
• A strategy or system of winning against the competition.
• A plan or set of actions that carry this out.

Let’s use an example that the writer Richard Rumelt explains in his  book Good Strategy, Bad Strategy.

At the Battle of Trafalgar the English Navy led by  Admiral Nelson was outnumbered by enemy ships.  A traditional sea battle in the 18th century meant the opposing forces lined up against each other and fired until one side won.  Nelson’s diagnosis was that this meant that his ships would be sunk if he followed this conventional approach.  His strategy in this situation was unexpected and indeed unheard of. Nelson decided to use his existing resources to surprise the enemy.  His plan was to drive his ships in a wedge shape through the opposition line up, attack from the rear and win a place in history, and in Trafalgar Square in London on top of his eponymous column.  He took out the competition by breaking the conventional rules, by using his resources available in a focussed and flexible way. 

This strategy resonated with me when I read the description for the first time, because it is similar to the very first media strategy I created.  One of my first planning accounts was Maxwell House coffee (which was big in the UK in the 1990s).  My job was essentially to plan the TV campaign, and I was taught to do this as follows:  Every month we ran about 400 television ratings, with ups and downs for seasonality, programme choices, regionality etc dependent on audience insights and growth opportunities.  I was excited when the client commissioned an econometrics project on effectiveness, it was my first experience of this. 150 slides later I was as disappointed as the client with the prognosis.  The research agency had concluded that it didn’t matter how Maxwell House spent their ad budget.  The only thing that impacted on sales was what Nescafe did with their advertising.  

The client wasn’t happy.  I however started thinking about what I could do about this.  My diagnosis of the data from the econometrics was different from that of the research company who had essentially said that there was nothing we could do to win.  We were month after month lining up against competition that had more resource.  The competition that at that time was running at 500 television ratings a month with a Nescafe ad, up against a  Maxwell House ad at 400. My diagnosis was that we needed to disrupt this face off.  So I adopted the Trafalgar strategy.  The media strategy that was developed was entirely based on beating the competition –  So the strategy became overwhelming the competition instead of following them.  Instead of a plan of 12 months of TV at 400 ratings a month, which was not cutting through, we instead ran 1200 ratings in one month each quarter.  And it worked.

 A good media strategy is not about just about efficient reach and following the rules of the category.  It is about cutting through and beating the competition.  Which might be about breaking the rules of the category. 

Just as a sea battle now is not based on sailing ships, a media strategy is not based on TV ratings. 

A media strategy must be rooted in genuine audience insight, that acknowledges the reality of how people watch, listen, interact in media.  Media is not just about reach. It’s about shopping, dating, gaming, socialising, influencing, self-affirmation, interacting, and researching. And about reaching people with brand communications in the broadest sense, and yes ads.  A good media strategy will create a framework for all the ways we can now communicate and deliver competitive advantage for the brand. 

The old rules that are based on past behaviours and average behaviours for the category will not suffice.  A winning media strategy will be directional for all aspects of the communication plan.

A media strategy should interact with, affect, and drive, feed and be fed by creative and data strategies (what do we want to communicate, what data do we need, what can we find and what will it do for the brand).  It will go beyond reach to set parameters and priorities for media planning in each available channel from retail media to CRM, from Connected TV to the Piccadilly lights, from search to social.

With my “Trafalgar” strategy I found the signals in the data from an econometric study. Today there are signals everywhere in data. Finding these, interrogating them at a granular, forensic, level and constructing a way to win is the core of a good media strategy.

I was a judge this year, of the Glass Lions category, which meant that most of Cannes experience was about the jury room.

Everyone that I know that has judged, always talks about how wonderful the rest of the jury are, and I can report that my jury were more than wonderful.

We were judging the category that celebrates culture shifting creativity.  It recognises work that addresses issues of gender inequality or prejudice, ideas intended to change the world.

Jury president, the inimitable Cindy Gallop, had served as president of this jury in its inaugural year a decade ago.  This particular award was set up with the intention and hope that it would become redundant, because the world would become a fairer place.  So far, it seems as though it is more needed than ever.

Our jury included a mix of people from around the world.  Maiko Ota, ECD Hakuhodo, who brought her translator.  KR Liu, global head of disability innovation at Google, who brought a distinct and important perspective on accessibility in the work we reviewed. Ren Rigby, who has their own design agency Proto, and who has recently transitioned.  Raphaella Martins, Creative X manager at Meta in Brazil who brought her 2 week old daughter into the jury room.  (Olivia had her own badge and I look forward to her returning in a couple of decades perhaps and winning her own Lion).  Nayla Tueni is ceo and editor in chief of Annahar Newspaper, which has its own heritage of award winning work, defending freedom of speech.  All the jurors were exceptional, shout out to Suresh Raj, Pia Chaudhuri, Koo Govender. 

Our chair Cindy instructed us to be skeptical about claims, and look for evidence of real change.  Our panel was an object lesson in mutual respect, divergent opinions, strong evidence based arguments, open mindedness and decisiveness. 

Our shortlisting process was rigorous, but the judging process was at another level.  For Glass (and Innovation and Titanium) the shortlisted entries are presented live, two presenters, ten minutes of presentation and ten minutes of q + a.  This phase was extraordinary, and in every case our minds changed, in one way or another, because of the presentations, and the answers to our questions.  The judging sessions are open to delegates to watch, and I will certainly be attending them if I am fortunate enough to go to Cannes next year. 

At the press conference Cindy talked about the outstanding Grand Prix winner, Vaseline Transition Body Lotion. 

Part of our debate was about the difference between a brand taking positive action for a small community versus a smaller action for a big community.  A crucial insight for me in the decision making process was that when a big brand does this, this action can have meaning for every underrepresented community.

Our gold winner is Pink Chip, which for the first time tracks women run businesses to give proof of their success.   In the UK there are fewer women ceos of FTSE 100 businesses than a decade ago.  Share prices can fall when a women is announced as boss.  The Pink Chip allows evidence, not prejudice, to inform opinions and investments.

Our silver and bronze winners were wonderful work too.  Silver Lions went to the Harpic Loocator, a crowd sourced app to locate and rate women’s loos.  (Please Harpic, bring this to London!), and to Lays Project Farm Equal, where there was significant and game changing investment in tools for women potato farmers, and help with creating pride in their community.  Bronze Lions went to Welcome to the Group, Child Wedding Cards (both of which are an object lesson in how to get politicians to change their minds), and 5 days, Give me a break (a revolution in paternity leave).

Cindy Gallop made a final, and crucial point at our press conference.  She said that she has in the past challenged our industry to ask whether its own patterns of behaviour are worthy of a Glass Lion.  We had seen, and debated at length in the jury room, some evidence that this is not the case, still.  We decided to judge the work on merit, but the behaviours exhibited when presenting, are indicative of the behaviours and attitudes behind the work.  Our industry can and must walk the walk as well as talk the talk on equality and equity.

Belonging for everyone, whoever they are, is not the norm in our industry still.  It was absolutely the experience for this juror of the Glass Lion experience at Cannes, and my gratitude goes to everyone involved in making this experience stand out as best practice in this respect. 

New vinyl, new gifting

I have missed the smell of vinyl.  Growing up, buying a record on vinyl (the main format when I was a teenager) was hugely exciting.  After months of saving up you would venture out to the quite intimidating record store, staffed by trendy young adults (everyone who worked in a record store was very cool).  The experience of buying it, and the almost religious experience of carefully unwrapping and playing for the first time was unforgettable. 

The smell of fresh vinyl was an intrinsic part of this.

This week, joyfully, I was gifted a new (old) vinyl record by my esteemed EssenceMediacom Connected podcast co-host Sacha Owusu, as we did our final podcast together.  Sacha is both extremely talented and kind.  I’ve had a blast doing the podcasts with him, getting to know him and seeing his career progress.

When streaming overtook cds (which had of course overtaken vinyl), it meant that you could no longer give someone the gift of an album of music easily.  Apart from the emotional impact of this (choosing someone an album of music to give them joy, show well you know them, and possibly to stretch their musical tastes in a new direction are all a way of showing deep friendship), it was surprising to some that the music industry collectively had shut down a revenue stream in gifting.  (The same is still true of movie dvds of course.)

So its brilliant that vinyl sales have revived, and to see the new (old) HMV store on Oxford Street.

The Economist recently pointed out that contradictory though it might seem in the era of streaming music many pop stars are still making albums, not just releasing songs, some of which end up of course on vinyl.

Billie Eilish declared that her record “Hit me hard and soft”, released in May 2024 was a “cohesive piece of work… ideally listened to in its entirety from beginning to end”.  No singles were pre-released.  Taylor Swift released four successive sets of new material this year with no advance singles.  Ariana Grande stressed that she wanted listeners to “experience the album in full this time” when she released Eternal Sunshine in March 2024.

Was it the Beatles who delivered the first concept album with Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in the 1960s?  Or Frank Zappa’s Freak Out? Or the Beach Boys Pet Sounds. 

According to Wikipedia, the concept of the concept album was invented by Woody Guthrie in the 1940s. Let’s not forget Frank Sinatra’s Songs for Swinging Lovers.

A new business model for music has evolved where fans will buy the album on vinyl, and download and stream their favourite tracks, thus paying twice for the same sound.  So vinyl helps sustain music profits and allows artists to dominate the charts.  When she released Tortured Poets Department Swift claimed the top 14 spots in the Billboard chart.

An old idea having a renewed life cycle, vinyl allows fans to own something concrete and of classic design.  It allows artists to make additional income.  And it revives the ability to give someone you care about something that you think they care about or will love.  Plus, more people get to smell fresh vinyl. 

Old ideas are sometimes the way forward.