Project Mayhem

If you’ve read this author’s posts with any regularity (and for a moment, let’s just humor me, shall we?), you know that I’m a big fan of research.  Love it, love it, love it.  Research drives insight and strategy.  Research informs and illuminates.  Research clarifies and coalesces.  But research doesn’t replace your gut.  I’ve said it many times –  Numbers are like people: Torture them enough and they’ll tell you anything you want.  For all the good that research does, research can also be limiting.  Take a look at the video below.  Yeah, laughed my ass off when I first saw it – but holy cow, it was spot-on.  How many great ideas have gone into the circular file because the research – focus groups or otherwise – made the decisions for us? 

Listen, I understand that in business, you never want to make a decision without having all the information.  You not only want to make an informed call, but you want – and often need – to cover your ass in case things go south.  But – and this is a salient point – it’s YOUR call.  Not the research, not the focus group, not the numbers.  YOU.  The research is awesome – but its not smarter than you.  You need to own the research, not vice-versa.  We all need to get all the research we can get our hands on, weigh the pros & cons and ask the advice and opinions of trusted colleagues – but we also need to trust in ourselves and in others. 

xoxo
Marc

…in the series of “the coolest things that marc has ever seen”…

Before I begin, you have to remember that my partner in crime, Jeremy, is a lot older than me.  A LOT.  Jeremy was alive when the Dead Sea was just sick.  I’ve seen younger faces on money.  And me?  Well, I’m a spry late-thirty-ish kid – albeit with the body of a 55-year-old and the sexual maturity of a Bar Mitzvah boy.  OK, now that the stage is set, let’s get to the heart of the matter, shall we…?

As I age – and in this industry, its blatantly obvious with all the whipper-snappers roaming the halls – I’ve begun to wonder how my lifestage will impact my creativity.  There are two sides to the argument (well, more than two, I’m sure, but hey – we’ve got bandwidth issues):

We Get Less Creative As We Age.  Someone much smarter than me once said that every kid gets a box of crayons, and slowly loses them over time.  The older we get, the more cynical we become.  As the realities of the “real world” descend upon us, our imagination shrinks.  Our ability to suspend disbelief is diminished.  Every “no,” every “can’t,” every “impossible” contributes to casting a longer, darker shadow over our creativity.  And it doesn’t stop there.   Too often, our clients construct a bubble of “never-woulds” from which we constantly try to escape.  As David Byrne once said, “I can feel my lifetime piling up.”  How could we NOT become less creative?

We Get More Creative As We Age.  Oliver Wendal Holmes said, “A mind, stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.” The key to creativity is inspiration, and the older we get, the more inspiration sources become available to us.  Exposure to travel, art, literature, science, communities – these can each inspire creativity.  New landscapes, new horizons.  Every interaction, every engagement.  Each challenge, each accomplishment.  They’re all opportunities to be inspired, and to inspire others.  And hey – let’s not forget the failures (in my case, it would be nearly impossible, but try to stay with me).  The more we learn, the more we’re exposed to the new, the more we embrace the unexpected – the more creative we become.  Nothing’s better than a well of inspiration filled to the brim.

So, the answer:  Well, I believe we get more creative as we age.  I understand, of course, that this conclusion may seem self-serving.  But personally, I’m a lot more creative than I was last year.  Or last month.  Or yesterday.  But the secret is ALWAYS striving for better creative work.  Because you DO have to fight cynicism and negativity.  You DO have to battle mediocrity and complacency.  And you don’t have to journey far – but you DO have to constantly view the world through new eyes.  And that, my friends, is the heart and soul of creativity.

xoxo

Marc

I am 47 years old. I have never been married. I have never lived with a girl. I am not gay. What I am is a human oddity, a drooling side-show freak in the relationship circus.

“Step right up, ladies and gentlemen; see the human azygos, the mateless mutant of more than 40 years! See the relationship reject as he caroms from female to female; dumping those who love him and being dumped by those he loves. Listen in horror as he describes his tragic love tales like never before unveiled. Tell your married friends! It is an experience They. Will. Never. Forget.”

“What’s wrong?” people ask innocently upon discovering my still-single status. “I mean, you’re such a great guy,” they quickly add, catching themselves.

I used to be embarrassed by the question, stumbling through the answer. “Well, you know, I’ve dated a lot, you know, but it’s just never worked out, you know.”

No, they don’t.

Single year after single year, I have slowly devolved into the relationship equivalent of the Elephant Boy. People at dinner parties whisper and stare when I enter. They turn their heads when I glance their way, avoiding eye contact for fear this socially paralyzed form might approach them. I proclaim my normalcy as I slog my way toward their frightened cliques, howling indignantly, “I … am not … an animal!”

Okay, so given that playing field, where does one 47-year-old guy with a 30-year-old attitude go to find a woman? If you say, “online dating services,” I will club a baby seal, I swear. Online dating is like eating a T.V. dinner; the box has this awesome photo on it along with masterful descriptions: “country-style gravy and tender meat morsels.” But, when you open it up, it’s nothing like you imagined. It’s cold, frozen … ordinary. You try to heat it up, stir it around, add a little this, add a little that, but it’s still freeze-dried, preprocessed wannabe food.

Same with online dating.

Because there are no regulations when it comes to online dating services, the participants are free to place whatever photo and corresponding description they so choose. A colleague of mine went out with a guy once that she met through Match.com and she said the only similarity he had with his photo was that he was male … she thinks. When it comes to online dating services, there are more men and women filling out false reports than steroid-using ballplayers. Where’s the regulation, man?

Online services should do what baseball-card manufacturer Upper Deck did years ago. To prove the authenticity of each piece of its memorabilia, the company places a hologram seal on the item which certifies that Upper Deck personally investigated and confirmed its authenticity. The only way you get the hologram is if Upper Deck’s people approve it. They should do the same for online dating services.

You say you’re only 39? Cool - we’ll just have our investigation team confirm that information and slap a hologram on your profile. Oooops, whoa, sorry, dude, there’s a problem here. Yes, your age is correct … eight years ago! No hologram for you, gramps. And stay away from the college campus!

Oh, I see, miss, you say that photo is a recent one? Excellent. Waaiiiit a minute, honey, it appears that photo was taken before you started hijacking shipments of Haagen Dazs. No hologram for you either.

C’mon, online dating world, help us thwart online dating fraud. I’m tired of frozen dinners.

My name is Jeremy Baka and I approved this message.

I hate the word creative. In fact, I hate people who say they’re creative. Okay, hate’s a strong word; I abhor people who say they’re creative.

So many people are touting creativity these days that saying “I’m creative,” is like saying, “I have a lung.” The word creative has been so thoroughly beaten it means about as much as “hero” or “green.” Media tag people as heroes for doing everything from picking up trash in their neighborhood to returning a wallet to its rightful owner. [Note: That is not being a hero that is being a citizen.]

The 60s, man, now those were creative days. (Watch the series Madmen. Crazy mothers. No-holds-barred creative.) What I like best about that era was that the creative was so, so … simple. No fancy tech-gadget-this, or wireless-that, just … simple. Twister: That was creative. But it took Eva Gabor playing it against Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show for it to really take off. Chia Pet was cool … and Rockem Sockem Robots … and my Uncle Joe.

Uncle Joe, that guy had it. He was creative, man. But, he never said he was creative, you just knew it. He was a natural. He ran a photography studio and survived only by the wave of teens coming in during high school picture season. The rest of the time, he invented ways for us to have fun.

One year, he shows up with two dozen M-80s. Hell, just getting his hands on those things was creative … in October(!). The first couple he fired them up, threw them in the air and, BLAM! Cool, but not cool enough.

You could always tell when Uncle Joe was churning something around in his head. While all of us kids were jumping around celebrating the last explosion, he had a glazed look on his face like he had just dropped acid. He was hosting an internal brainstorm. The next thing you know he’s clanking, clinking, clanging around in the basement. Then, suddenly, here he comes with a six-foot-long steal pipe and a sledge hammer. Nice! He pounded that sucker in the ground at about a 45-degree angle, dropped in an M-80 followed by a small stone and – PHOOM-ZING! – a canon. Awesome! But there was more…

Same pipe, drop in an M-80 followed by a drumstick from an old set of drums and – PHOOM-SHOO! – a rocket launcher. Toss a Frisbee with an M-80 firmly Duck Taped to the top and –WHIP-BLAM! – a mid-air collision. Hang an M-80 from a string two inches above a bucket of water and – BALOOOSH! – a humanless cannonball. Place an M-80 under an upside down bowl with a baseball on top and – BOOF-WOOSH! – a sky-high pop up. (He had outfitted three of us with baseball gloves, but we still missed it.) Okay, it’s October, you had to know it was coming: put an M-80 in a pumpkin and – PAHWP! – pumpkin pie! Everywhere.

We worked our way through 18 of the 24 M-80s, but our zealousness for creative blew up in our faces, so to speak, when I convinced him that the doll I handed him was an old one of my sisters that my Mom had already thrown away. With my sister watching in horror from her bedroom window, Chatty Cathy underwent instant open-heart surgery, M-80 style – PHWAP!

That shut us down for the day.

Uncle Joe ultimately replaced the doll, however, bringing it over to the house … along with four balsawood propeller planes and a cache of firecrackers.

– Jeremy

Waiiiit a minute. Hold on. Stop. What the f*&%??!

That’s what I said while watching what turned out to be a commercial for Always minipads or maxipads, or whatever, by Proctor and Gamble. My Tivo was on the blink so I was doing what I always do when commercials come on – reading. Then, suddenly, Boom!, there it was: Have a happy period. I could almost here the crash of the collective number of shoes women were flinging at TV screens all across America. Are you kidding me — a happy period? Whoa! That takes balls. (Pardon the gender jump.)

So, here’s a quiz: Select from the options below the answer that best describes the person responsible for coming up with the idea that a woman’s period is “happy”:

¨ A 90-year-old woman who was so beyond her period she considered it a blessing to have ever of had one … whatever or whenever it was.

¨ An English professor looking to raise awareness about the lost art of punctuation.

¨ A 35-year old creative director at one of the most prestigious ad agencies in the world. (Hint: He is a he.)

For all those who picked the third one, congratulations, you have just won an epidural-free birthing process, complete with your own Bedazzler!

That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, from Leo Burnett, the renowned ad agency that brought you the likes of the Marlboro Man, the Pillsbury Doughboy, Tony the Tiger and the Jolly Green Giant comes the happy period, the Jolly Period, if you will.

[Note to creative dude at Leo Barnett: Please read “The Female Brain” by Dr. Louann Brizendine. Okay, at least read Chapter Two: Teen Girl Brain. It’s about what happens to a girl’s entire body when she experiences a period. C’mon, man, if you’re going to promote it, you have to know it. That would be like asking the Pope to write a book on “How to Pick Up Chicks”.]

Yes, I think we’ve all seen the mock letter that some woman supposedly sent to Proctor and Gamble ripping them on their ad, but since this blog is supposed to be about being creative, I chose instead to use this as an opportunity to once again say: Do not force a creative approach or idea. Don’t fall in love with something just because it’s yours or just because it’s different. It has to make sense. Otherwise, what you have is a really cool, innovative, groundbreaking and completely ineffective concept.

Now, I’m sure the good folks at Leo focus tested the crap out of this ad and had good cause to run with it, so I only have one comment and it goes out to the ladies in the focus groups: In the words of Jay Leno, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING??? My God, if we let creative run irrelevantly rampant like this, think about what other erroneous tag lines we could soon be forced to endure:

Charmin: Have a great one.

Imodium D: Shit happens.

Preparation H: For Hemorrhoids on Steroids.

Exlax: Life is a bowl

Compound W: Beauty is only skin deep.

Pampers: Good things come in small packages.

– Jeremy

I received absolutely devastating news via email last night. I mean, devastating news – the kind of crushing information that makes you sit and ponder how cruel the world can be; questioning our very own chance for survival. This news came in the form of e-vite to my 30^th–year class reunion. Are you kidding me? I have officially been out of high school longer than nearly everyone with whom I work has been on Earth. And that, I tell you, is major suckage. “So, you graduated in 1978?” mused one of the 20-somethings at work, “Huh, that’s the year my parents got married.” Bitch.I am mixed about going back. Do I really want to see 47-year old versions of the young, vibrant, hopeful souls I knew back in the day? And think about the posturing… “I don’t want to go back, “said, my buddy, Jeff, a twice divorced high school friend of mine who has filed for bankruptcy two times in his life. “I, mean, I’m actually worse off than I was in high school.” When trying to console him about his many accomplishments, Jeff countered, “Thanks, dude, but at my age Lincoln was holding the Union together.”I am one of the people who make up the 75 million Baby Boomers in the U.S and 375 million more around the world. Every 7.5 seconds, a Boomer turns 50. If the purchasing power of this group in the U.S. alone were a GNP, it would be the size of Spain. But, there’s a problem, I am a Boomer only by birth. Here’s why:

The point is, you can’t just market to a group. (You can, but then you’re missing guys like me. And I spend.) In today’s marketing, a one-size-fit-all approach is best left for the spandex shorts section at WallMart. Successful marketers will be those who go beyond carpet-bombing communications and orchestrate a more laser-guided approach to audience dialogue.

In other words, that beer-drinkin’, bar brawlin’ good ole boy in the South might have the same political and philosophical beliefs as the Crystal drinkin’, thousand-dollar-dinner-a-night Wall Street boy, but try talking to them the same way and they’ll shut you down faster than my response to my 30-year class reunion invite.

– Jeremy

I’ve just invented my own word: dodzi. Well, actually, my nephew created it. One of the first words he learned was doggie, but it came out “dodzi.” Unfortunately, however, his limited vocabulary ensured that everything was a dodzi: a horse was a dodzi, a car was a dodzi, his brother was a dodzi, his … well, you know, was a dodzi. Anything and everything was a dodzi.

Dodzi, therefore, means, “Anything that is overused, generic or familiar to the point of being meaningless.” Consider dodzi my one-word expression of things that have jumped the shark … twice.

The word “creative,” for example, is dodzi, so is “unique.” Quoting Einstein, Aristotle, Roosevelt or Churchill is dodzi. Producing a colored bracelet or ribbon to represent your social cause is dodzi. Reality TV: definitely dodzi. Images of politicians attending a religious service: dodzi. The latest food, pill, beverage, herb, commodity, chemical or behavior that now causes (or prevents) cancer is dodzi. Athletes on steroids is dodzi. Celebrities in rehab is dodzi. Celebrities involved in the latest causes are dodzi. Award shows: dodzi. MySpace is dodzi. Corrupt CEOs (Redundant?) are dodzi. U.S. automakers complaining about fair trade is dodzi. The Clintons and Bushs: dodzi. Stories about clever Super Bowl ads are dodzi. OJ is dodzi. Hearing about the space station is dodzi. Evoking JFK comparisons during every election is dodzi. In fact, books about JFK are dodzi. Lying under oath is dodzi. Harry Potter is dodzi. Car chases on the news are dodzi. The world “like” is a dodzi. American Idol and stories about the winners and loser is dodzi. Diet books, drinks, pills, food are dodzi. Boxing is dodzi. Energy-saving light bulbs are dodzi, as is “Green living.” Sports analysts are dodzi. Hot teachers sleeping with their students: dodzi. Starbucks is dodzi. “The Simpsons” is dodzi. China is dodzi. SUVs are dodzi.

At this point, dodzi is getting dodzi. Anybody got any others?

– Jeremy

One of the Best uses of creativity ever.  EVER!

Before I start my rant, let me check something first . Okay, I’m back, just making sure we don’t have these guys as a client …

Hey, United, I got your friendly skies right here - you suck! In fact, all major domestic airlines suck. (Unless, of course, you happen to be reading this and you’re a CMO for a major domestic airline. In that case, all domestic airlines suck, except yours. You need PR, though, and we can help you.)

Here I am sitting at San Francisco airport. It’s 9:45 p.m. United flight 249 was supposed to leave at 7 p.m. It’s been delayed three times. No worries, though, the United Customer Service desk was well equipped to handle the crush of 40 tired, bedraggled and desperate passengers (from five delayed flights) who scrambled to catch connecting flights or simply tried to get a flight - any flight - out of SFO. Yes, United Customer Service was all over it, man, they were prepared. This was their moment to shine and they were ready to rock. They had everything in complete combat ready. They had all the necessary communication tools at their disposal. They had . Anthony. Yes, Anthony, one meager, none-too-concerned customer service guy handling all of us.

After an hour wait, I finally reached Anthony. “One question,” I snapped, sarcastically. “Is flight 249 going to leave here by Saturday?” (It was Thursday.) He didn’t miss a beat. “Oh, definitely,” he said, with a degree of cuteness. “Good,” I said. “Now, is it going to leave tonight?” He studied me for a moment, gauging my willingness to play, “Darn,” he deadpanned, “The questions tonight just keep on getting tougher.” His gauge was clearly off. It wasn’t funny. I didn’t laugh. I didn’t respond. I stared. My jaw clenched. Perhaps he was picking up on the conversation going on in my head - the one that involved me weighing the consequences of leaping, Ninja-style, over the counter and crushing his windpipe with a wicked strike to the throat - he quickly recovered. “I’ll put you on the 9 o’clock, sir. It’s definitely leaving on time,” he said, professionally, tapping away at the computer keys. “That’s what you said about the 7 o’clock . and the 8 o’clock,” I shot back. “It’ll leave at 9,” he said, presenting me my new ticket and pointing, “Gate 78, sir.”

I reached gate 78 where the screen above the counter declared boldly: “Flight 805: Boarding in 17 Minutes.” So far, so good. I waited and watched as the screen continued to change: “Boarding in 15 minutes,” “Boarding in 10 minutes,” and so on. Then, at “Boarding in five minutes,” I decided to take a peak outside the window - know what I saw? C’mon, guess… Wait for it . waaiiittt for it . I saw … nothing. There wasn’t even a plane at the gate. United Airlines was playing bluff poker with 250 passengers and all of us had gone all-in and lost.

Okay, so, as I was told, the weather is always a problem when flying out of SFO; okay, flights get backed up; okay mechanical problems are unfortunate but a reality; and . Fine. I get it. I don’t like it, but I get it. So, here’s a novel idea: At an airport (and with an airline) where delayed flights are as common as bacteria, come up with something to help passengers past the time while they wait. Here are just a few I came up with while I waited . for two more hours:

· Instead of the screen above the desk simply flashing the name of the destination city and the departure time (which, as this story illustrates, never leaves on time anyway), why not flash Keno numbers? Then, instead of reporting to friends that, “I was stranded at San Francisco Airport for four hours last night and it was a disaster,” you could be saying, “I was stranded at San Francisco Airport for four hours last night, but I won $300!”

· Or, how about a partnership with e-harmony? That’s right, up on the screen comes the photo and pithy bio of a woman who’s stranded at the same gate as you. She likes long walks in the park, Italian food and horror movies. Her email address is provided and anyone can ping her right there and go chat with her while you both wait. Then, when you report to friends, you say, “I was stranded at San Francisco Airport for four hours last night, but I met somebody pretty cool.” (I haven’t figured out how to handle the creepy guy with a comb-over issue, but give me a break, I’m brainstorming here.)

· Or, what about passengers who have an expertise in an interesting field - a top chef, a renowned fitness expert, a Nobel Peace Prize winner (don’t laugh, there was one on my flight). They could sign up to give mini-seminars in a section of the airport while people wait. Maybe they get a discount or something whenever they are required to conduct the class.

The point is, there are a million things airlines could do to make waiting a little more bearable for A.D.D.-stricken passengers like me. They just aren’t applying the creative energy to figure it out. And that’s why friendly skies aren’t so friendly anymore.