With a global talent shortage, and as we get “back to school” for the autumn, after the summer holidays, it is important to unpick, and then refresh, motivation at work.
Season 2 of The Bear is streaming now on Disney+. Spoiler alert, the season leaves many unanswered questions (including will Carmy ever get out of the walk in fridge). During the course of the show we see the process whereby the Chicago sandwich café The Beef, which protagonist and Michelin starred chef Carmy inherited from his brother, is rebuilt and reopened as fine dining restaurant The Bear.
It’s clear that fine dining is Carmy’s passion. In fact, he concludes at one point that it is the only thing he cares about or that makes him happy, stating: “I didn’t have any of this fuckin’ bullshit” – by which he means “amusement or enjoyment” of any other aspect of his life.
It will be just as well if he is driven by the satisfaction of making customers swoon over his food, because the chances are that The Beef will have had been able to generate better profit than The Bear. Restaurateur Russell Norman of Polpo points out that “if you own a restaurant with a Michelin star, you will lose money. If you own a restaurant with two Michelin stars, you will lose even more money.” As MoneyWeek recently pointed out, Domino’s Pizza on the other hand generates a ROCE of close to 30% and an EBIT margin of 20%.
People are driven by a passion to be the best and to give back as well as by making money.
In a fairy tale moment in long running reality TV show “Say Yes to the dress”, about Bridal Store Kleinfield in NYC, star designer Pnina Tornei allows the sale of one gown at less than half price, because she says she is not only working to make money (the average Pnina gown goes for more than $4000) but also in the business of “making beautiful gowns for brides and of making their dreams come true”. Of course, this is a reality TV set up, which sees Pnina’s dresses highly promoted, but it kind of works because we Say Yes fans all recognise some truth in the story we are told.
This is important because it is relevant to how we create a strong culture at work. If the only motivation of the ExCo and company planning is financial, then the culture is unlikely to stay robust during difficult economic times.
A 40 year research study, from the American Psychological Association, has proved in fact that “extrinsic” (bonuses etc) and “intrinsic” (being motivated about the work) operate jointly to produce the best work performance.
And as EssenceMediacomX ceo Ryan Storrar recently wrote: “Fundamentally, people need to be able to look at themselves in the mirror and feel good about going to work”. Ensuring that there’s satisfaction from doing excellent work and from fulfilling purpose is the job of every leader and manager.
The latest Edelman trust survey reveals that more than two thirds of employees believe that “having societal impact is a deal breaker when it comes to considering a job”.
CEOs are expected to take a position on climate change, discrimination, wealth gap, immigration as well as on how their employees are treated. Businesses are now more trusted than any other institution, and with this trust comes high expectations that business should “advocate for the truth”.
Fulfilling commitments to wider stakeholders in terms of people, communities and planet is now on most UK companies’ radar. But we must not ignore the drive to excellence and mastery too. Carmy’s partner in The Bear, Sydney, makes a simple omelette for Carmy’s sister, and The Bear’s exhausted and pregnant project manager, Sugar. We follow it closely, eggs, sieved through a mesh are beaten by fork; the omelette is cooked fast, and then filled with Boursin and sprinkled with some crushed sour cream and onion crisps. Sugar thinks it is divine. Sydney states that making that omelette and taking care of Sugar is absolutely the best part of her day. After all, as she states in series one all her motivation is about the work: “I wanna cook for people and make them happy and give them the best bacon on earth.”
Farewell Campaign Print Magazine
October 20th, 2023I started out in a full service creative agency in the 1980s as a TV buyer. Straight from university, with no particular interest in advertising (I was just filling time until I started a law conversion course), I didn’t know about the esteemed industry trade press organ until I met a fellow grad intake who proudly boasted that he had already been mentioned, before he had even started in his first job, as a face to watch.
For my first couple of years I only saw glimpses of Campaign when I could beg, borrow or steal an issue.
Media Week (subsequently incorporated into Campaign) was the go to weekly print magazine for media folk. But I know the first time my name was in Campaign magazine, and it helped me get my job at The Media Business (the small buying start up media independent that became MediaComTMB, MediaCom and now EssenceMediacom and EssenceMediacomX). (Thank you Campaign).
That first time, I was in a list of top 10 press buyers, and my name was (inevitably) misspelt, so I appeared as Sue Uberman. Thrilled, and yet, peeved, I did get an approach from TMB to join and help set up a strategy team.
Subsequently, eventually, I managed to get my own subscription to Campaign Magazine. Favourite features were always Private View (some of which were laugh out loud funny, especially Gerry Moira and Dave Trott), Jeremy Bullmore (very wise and very funny), the editorial points of view and the columnists.
To an extent the arrival of the magazine would dictate the rhythm of the week. My Thursday had to incorporate reading time for the magazine, out weekly at that point, and then I would pass on my copy to anyone that needed it. It was a necessary addition to reading Media Week to give a bigger picture view of our industry.
Also, everyone had a copy of Media Week. Campaign could give you a competitive edge and a different perspective. Copies of Campaign magazines were a rarity round the agency. To be read thoroughly and then shared generously.
As Campaign’s editorial viewpoint changed, to incorporate the acquisition of Media Week, and Marketing, with an ambition to champion good thinking and good thinkers across the business as a whole, so too did the business itself change and progress.
I started in the media department of an agency where the predominant business was making TV ads, and the job of the media team was to buy airtime to ensure that people saw them.
Usually, in the 1980s, the job was to reach as many people as possible, regardless of much emphasis on targeting or context. The first sets of skills that I learned included to be complete accurate with data, and that buying space in “shoulder peak” was desirable to my boss, because it counted as peak airtime, but was cheaper. After my first few weeks, I made my first challenge to the then status quo, by pointing out that buying airtime at 17:30 on a weekday, meant that someone in London with a normal commute, would never see the ad. My boss responded by showing me the value saved chart for the client, and saying that was all they cared about. That brand no longer exists in the UK. So, there were two lessons learnt. In the short term I learnt that challenging your boss can make you unpopular. In the long term I understood that every decision can have significant impact.
In my first agency, there wasn’t much collaboration between media and creative, and despite the nostalgia about a so-called golden age of full service, my experience was more like that depicted in Mad Men where the media team are bottom feeders compared to everyone else.
And now media agencies make creative work. In an era where the medium does and should dictate creative execution, where creativity is democratised across huge numbers of creators, and where the true strategic breakthroughs exist in the junction of insights from media, data, tech and creative understanding, this is less the return of the full service agency, and more the birth of a true communications business. For brands to be relevant in the new communications economy, where people spend more time than ever with media, but less time as a proportion of that with ad funded media, every brand needs to consider strategies across culture, gaming, social, influencers, word of mouth, content, ecommerce and, also, advertising to breakthrough in terms of business success.
Farewell Campaign print edition, long live Campaign as a champion of this.
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