Northern Planner

You are what you see

When I was a student, there was a girl in the swim team. She was beautiful.

But she never really spoke to anyone. We all thought she wanted to keep to herself and had a hidden clique of equally beautiful and cool friends she'd rather be with.

We thought she just came to swim.

Until she came out on my final years sports ball (Always an interesting affair, since teams wore their respective sports kits. We made it respectable by wearing our training tops and baggy swim shorts - skin tight lycra wasn't a good look even in 1996).

As is traditional, the beer was cheap and plenty was consumed. By midnight, it was the usual mess. But there she was, nursing a drink by herself in a corner.

Looking lonely.

So, thanks to alcoholically fueled courage I decided to go talk to her. And the ice queen melted. 

Not because of any charm, or because she'd been waiting all this time for moment I'd talk to her.

Now that would be silly.

Simply because I'd bothered. Because she was painfully shy and found talking to people hard. And because people assumed she was the usual self confident cliche with cool friends, no one bothered trying.

She joined the swim team to swim, but also make friends. But she didn't know how.

The only people that talked to her were louts trying to get off with her and other beautiful (but shallow) people. 

When she came for training next week, she started chatting to me, and then others joined in and found out how nice she was.

That's the problem with perception. It becomes reality.

What you see isn't what you see, it's what you think you see.

You see the impossibly arrogant, beautiful girl instead of the shy lonely human being because culture teaches us that pretty girls have it all and have all the confidence in the world.

Just as you see people don't want to talk to you in your new job because they're all aloof. When they might be intimidated.

The creative director who is an egotist but is really insecure.

The aloof client, who is actually intimidated by self-confident agency types.

The creatives who won't talk to planners, not because they're arrogant, they're just scared that the 1% of their work that doesn't end up in the bin will be credited to someone else.

Or your perception of youself. "I'm not good enough for that. I'll never be allowed to switch departments. I can't say that, they'll think I'm mad".

Your perceptions and beliefs of situations, other people, and even yourself,  are based on past experience, cultural conditioning and past experience. 

They become your reality. If you want to change your reality, simply change your perception.

 

Target the real person? Or target the one they'd like you to see?

I was at an excellent Future Foundation conference this week. You don't usually say that about trends companies, but this one bases their stuff on data and is good at proper digging. And it's more about what people care about, rather than what's cool.

Come to think about it, that's a decent descriptor to good planning, but anyway.

One of the things they raised was the gap between between the 'social self' and the real self. Cut the pretention of that statement and you get into the fact people will often tell you what they think is socially acceptable, rather than how they actually feel or think. Now that social media is making lots of people create a 'better version of me' alter ego, not only does it mean social medai gurus should watch out spouting 'free research' and listening exercises as reliable, it points to something fundamental.

You need to work out if your targeting someone's self image or the real thing. And sometimes you're best resolving the tension between both.

For example, most people in the UK agree they're not influenced by celebrities. Many gurus will tell you it's all about peer to peer these days (the social graph if you're a jargon idiot). But success of the Mail Online (how big us Kim Kardashian's but today?) suggests otherwise, as does the continued success of celebrity endorsed brands. We're fascinated by celebrities, we just don't want to admit it.

So do you omit celebrity endorsement and make a big thing of it? Targeting the social self? Do you target the reality and use celebrity - but make it relevant and even ironic to make it socially acceptable?

Just as the myth that the British are getting angry and we're facing a generation war as young people realise baby boomers have left them with nothing. When actually, young people seem to be less bothered and are knuckling down and working harder. Or are they? Are they saying this but really waiting for a catalyst to get angry?

Pepsi with it's 'Live for Now' position is very much about 'Safe Rebellion' but not many brands are owning the idea of hard work and finding a way to make it cool - or even rebellious to make it work for both.

Take the 'Naked Citizen'. Right now in the UK we agree 'were on our own' and personal responsibility is on the up as the accepted social norm.

But not only do I have a hunch this is more lip service, there will be a gap between cultural pressure to control your own life and the realities of the skills and confidence of real people out there. Big chance to provide real help -or resolve tension to make us feel good, to provide an outlet.

 

Just Do It is a classic example of how this might work.

This really matters. Advertising really deals with how you feel about a brand, it creates memory structures that make the brand easy to buy. The long term effect of this lasts longer than the 'messaging' that quickly gets forgotten.

So, when you think about how you want to make people feel, ask yourself which person you're trying to get a response from. The real person, or the one they want people to see. Ideally, find a way to deal with both and resolve the tension between cultural pressures and the pressures of everyday life.

 

Target the real person? Or target the one they'd like you to see?

I was at an excellent Future Foundation conference this week. You don't usually say that about trends companies, but this one bases their stuff on data and is good at proper digging. And it's more about what people care about, rather than what's cool.

Come to think about it, that's a decent descriptor to good planning, but anyway.

One of the things they raised was the gap between between the 'social self' and the real self. Cut the pretiousness of that statement and you get into the fact people will often tell you what they think is socially acceptable, rather than how they actually feel or think. Now that social media is making lots of people create a 'better version of me' alter ego, not only does it mean social medai gurus should watch out spouting 'free research' and listening exercises as reliable, it points to something fundamental.

You need to work out if your targeting someone's self image or the real thing. And sometimes you're best resolving the tension between both.

For example, most people in the UK agree they're not influenced by celebrities. Many gurus will tell you it's all about peer to peer these days (the social graph if you're a jargon idiot). But success of the Mail Online (how big us Kim Kardashian's but today?) suggests otherwise, as does the continued success of celebrity endorsed brands. We're fascinated by celebrities, we just don't want to admit it.

So do you omit celebrity endorsement and make a big thing of it? Targeting the social self? Do you target the reality and use celebrity - but make it relevant and even ironic to make it socially acceptable?

Just as the myth that the British are getting angry and we're facing a generation war as young people realise baby boomers have left them with nothing. When actually, young people seem to be less bothered and are knuckling down and working harder. Or are they? Are they saying this but really waiting for a catalyst to get angry?

Pepsi with it's 'LIve for Now' position is very much about 'Safe Rebelllion' but not many brands are owning the idea of hard work and finding a way to make it cool - or even rebellious to make it work for both.

Take the 'Naked Citizen'. Right now in the UK we agree 'were on our own' and personal responsibility is on the up as the accepted social norm. But not only do I have a hunch this is more lip service, there will be a gap between cultural pressure to control your own life and the realoties of the skills and confidence of real people out there. Big chance to provide real help -or resolve tension to make us feel good, to provide an outlet.

 

Just Do It is a classic example of how this might work.

This really matters. Advertising really deals with how you feel about a brand, it creates memory structures that make the brand easy to buy. The long term effect of this lasts longer than the 'messaging' that quickly gets forgotten.

So, when you think about how you want to make people feel, ask yourself which person you're trying to get a response from. The real person, or the one they want people to see. Ideally, find a way to deal with both and resolve the tension between cultural pressures and the pressures of everyday life.

 

This is my bike

This is my bike.

It was my father in law's, but he's long past going out on the road. I wanted to get back into road biking, so he gave it me. At that piont it was still his. Basically, it was a frame that needed building back up.

But now it's mine.

I wanted to do this partly because this is the year of not buying anything, so I couldn't buy a new one anyway.

But it's more than that.

This is a Raleigh bike. That used to mean something, when they were made in Nottingham,like this one, rather than a factory somewhere abroad. I grew up with Raleigh Strika's and Grifters. I love Raleigh.

My father in law loved cycling, still does. When the Tour De France comes through Yorkshire, he'll be up at 4am to make sure he gets a good spot. He loved this bike and seeing it come to life means something to him.

And if I'm learning anything this year of not buying what I don't need, it's that you can't buy happiness. You get out what you put in. I could have bought a bike, but I wouldn't have loved it like I love this one. Because I've helped build it back up. It's mine in a way a brand new one never would be.

Cycling to me is freedom. So much of it now is about aesthetics and having the right gear. That's not what it is to me. It's something simple and real. Road biking just seems like the purest expression, the level of wind, the breathtaking speed. It's real.

Now it's been a while since I was on a road bike. My legs are killing me, by back isn't used to that crouching position yet, but the sense of velocity, of being out there by yourself...and being able to go so far on your own steam is pretty special.

And doing it on a bike that, in so many ways, feels like 'mine' makes it feel more special. Because we all feel more attached to stuff that has required some effort, things we've had a hand in making. Stuff with history and story.

So when I'm on this bike, I'm not just riding with my father in law, I'm riding with all those craftsmen in Nottingham, I'm riding with the blokes in the little independent shop that helped me restore her, I'm riding with 10 year old self on a Raleigh Strika, a 15 year old me with racket bag on my shoulder, haring through town on my racer,to play tennis, a 20 year old me whistling through the streets to get to lectures or make swim training in time. 

In fact, this bike might be 'mine' but you could say it's 'ours'.

What to look for in a great planning director

1. Part sponge, part despot, part aggressive protector of team, part diplomat, part crafts-person, part researcher, mostly ideas fountain
2. Never undermines their team, looks to build their confidence, leads by example and guides rather than tells
3. Sometimes not a little bit frightening
4. Excellent judge of strategy and ideas, even better at presenting them
5. Never says 'No' to anyone without giving a good reason
6. Draws out the best in people without doing their job for them
7. Knows when to advise their team the creatives or the suits are right. But also knows when to defend their team when they are not
8. Never throttles bad thinking without inspiring the thinker to think better
9. Still trying to change things and learn, rather than boring everyone with the stuff they did ages ago
10. Exists to help others shine: their team, creatives, suits, the clients, rather than existing to maje it work the other way around
11. Is adept at politics, but doesn't believe the route to success is being political
12. Believes great planners care less about planning and more about real people in the world, and looks to build a team of people who are experienced in life, rather than advertising
13. Kicks their team out of the office to go look at real people living real lives
14. Exists to liberate creativity that builds businesses, rather than exists to do (insert proprieratary process here)
15. Encourages their team to understand their clients' business from end to end, not just the 'brand' bit
16. Bans marketing speak, brand bollocks and general jargon

Target the human in society, not the shopper in the category

"Every human being at every stage of  history is born into a society and from his earliest years is moulded by that society. Both language and environment help to determine the character of his thought; his earliest ideas come to him from others. The individual apart from society would be both speechless and mindless"

E.H Carr, Society and the Individual

Liberating constriction

"I am already discredited, I am already politicized, before I get out of the gate. I can accept the labels because being a black woman writer is not a shallow place but a rich place to write from. It doesn't limit my imagination, it expands it"

Toni Morrison, The New Yorker October 2003

Planning clothes

What you wear matters. You may well be one of those people who thinks it's silly to be bothered with what your clothes and shoes say about you, but it's simply a fact of the human condition.

Most of human communication is non-verbal. We respond to how people appear, how they make us feel. Not what they say.

Our instincts have been honed for millions of years to make instant judgements about what we see, without really thinking about it.

It saved us from wondering if we should run from a saber toothed tiger and help choose the women with child bearing hips and the men with broad, strong shoulders.

And anyone who works in the communications industry, who probably argues with clients over design detail like making the logo bigger and such, who then believes they are exempt from the rules of visual branding are kidding themselves.

Like it or not, how you dress has a massive effect on how others view you. You're a planner, you're supposed to have your finger on the pulse, an approachable nerd, someone with intelligence and imagination.

In short, you want to look like a planner- clever but with imagination.

Of course, many reject the idea of some sort of uniform, which is fair enough. Many try and push directly against the idealised image of what people expect them to be. But be aware of what that communicates to other people though.

So how might a planner want to come accross?

There's the hipster, so achingly in touch with what's happening in culture before it's even happening.

There's the bourgeois bohemian. Usually seen in obscure extreme sports wear. Despite being part of capitalism in a big way, they see right through it. They're beyond consumerism, which is why they're so good at manipulating it for clients.

There's the scruff. Usually found in faded jeans, t-shirts on their last legs and wearing jumpers with holes in. They haven't got time to worry about stuff like image, they're too distracted and intelligently useless to dress themselves properly.

There is the creative. Overtly trying to show they want to liberate great work, and could probably do it themselves. A variation on the Bourgeois Bohemian but with more Ironic t-shirts.

And finally,the character.Someone who carefully crafts a persona to make them more memorable. The novel choice of footwear, the motorhead t-shirts etc.

Which one are you? Or more importantly, which one do you want to be? Recieved wisdom tells us you shouldn't dress for the job you have, but the one you want.

 

How to get the most out of a planner

Let's be honest, agency folk come in two types.

The ones who think planners are a pain but necessary.

The ones who think planners are a pain and complete waste of time.

But if you're moderately nice to a planner, and even treat them from time to time as someone who is occasionally helpful, they'll be so embarrassingly thankful, they'll end up doing all sorts of stuff for you. 

If you're a creative, chat to them, especially if there's a live brief. Rather than telling then to go away until the first creative review, ask them what they really think, what were the things they considered that didn't end up in the brief.

Ask them about the audience, what to they like, what do they care about, what excites them? Because a brief in most places is about reductionism and 'messaging'. Unfortunately, it's not about tone of voice, culture and the real lives of the people you're aiming at.It's not a springboard for ideas.

If they're any good, they'll have all sorts of stuff in their heads about this. The stuff may well help you crack the brief. Most of it will be crap, but most likely, something will tumble out you find useful.

Same if you're a suit. It's natural for you to want to control everything, especially the relationship with the client. It's easy to think planners are a threat to that relationship.

But trust me, the last thing a planner wants is to have to make small talk, get shouted at for going over budget or anything that involved invoicing. But if you have a good one, they'll add all sorts of stuff to a meeting, not by talking too muchm but by occasionally saying something interesting. And clients fire agencies for all sorts of reasons. Being useless is one, but so it the fact they're bored.

Also, when you're struggling over powerpoint, or wondering how to sell the work, they tend to be very good at understanding how an idea works and even post rationalising it when it's off brief. And they can write powerpoint for you very quickly.In fact, like above, if you're uncommonly nice, they can do all sorts of stuff for you.

If you're anyone in an agency in fact,in any department, talking to anyone, don't be a tosser. Agency life is odd,the departmental stuff, the constant jockeying for position naturally leads to confrontational behaviour. Little of this is of much help to anyone. It's amazing what can you get done by being nice. Try it.

 

Speak human

Daniel Miller's The Comfort of Things is one of those books every planner, in the UK at least, should read. The analysis of the contents of 30 households in London exposes so much about what we really care about. It paints a true picture of the drama of everyday life, where nothing happens yet everything happens.

It perhaps offers a counter argument to the convention that happiness is about 'doing stuff' rather than 'owning stuff'. But that's for another day.

But when you get to the end, there is the need to justify writing in rich, accessible prose, rather than 'academic language'.

That's right, there's a very specific 'academic' style of writing. As if it's not 'really clever' unless it's written in over-complex langauge.

Just as Newton and his mates used to write in Latin to stop the plebs reading their stuff.

Just, to be honest, as so many folks speak 'marketing', or even worse, speak 'planner'.

When psychology tells us that the more complicated your style of communication, the less seriously folks tend to take you.

Choose your enemies carefully

 

 Batman: Then why do you want to kill me?
Joker: I don’t want to kill you! What would I do without you? Go back to ripping off mob dealers? No, no, you … complete me.

Nothing provokes greatness like a great nemesis.

They force you to challenge yourself.

They provide focus.

They unite a team, or a community like a common antogonist enemy.

They're brilliant for people working on brands too, if they want to get to good quickly.

At level of getting an idea...

Finding a juicy enemy to work against seems to unlock great thinking so much quicker.

Mostly because creativity seems to come out of friction.

Which is why you shouldn't try and get on with creatives or suits TOO much too. Throwing in a little constructive friction can be useful.

Great ideas often come out of conflict.

Anyway.....

 

What unlocked all that great Honda stuff was settling on negativity as the enemy.

 

This actually makes hating something enough, the subject of the communication.

 

Probably the most iconic ad of all time was set against 'the man'.

 

While Dove continues to make an enemy out of the impossible dreams the beauty industry promotes.

But it's not just about creative rocket fuel. It's about work that works.

Our job in other words.

The role of advertising is about making brands memorable and distinctive.

Much of that is finding something folks really care about and linking it to what the brand cares about.

It's about looking for real tension in culture and providing an answer.

Creating a provocative call to arms. Enabling people to feel they're part of something.

Not because it will make them loyal (although it should turn the minority of loyalists into advocates, reaching the masses of people who DO matter).

Because it will cut through.

It will make stuff distinctive. It will connect with deep stuff most can't even articulate.

 

Ask most folks why The Old Spice guy works and they'll say it's funny. The fact that Old Spice get's you experienced manliness, is against guys going 'soft' is never said, especially because it's clothed in irony.

 

Whereas this is more explicit, but it links small cars with something folks are starting to care about.

 

As always, this is nothing new, Marlboro made an enemy of the 'other directed man'.

And so on.

It's not the only way of getting great quickly, but it does seem to work.

It's, of course, planning 101 for challenger brands.

But in a world where brands have to fight more to get noticed, where to find a waty to add to people's lives, rather than interrupt them, finding a common enemy gets you noticed. 

So, when choosing your enemies, choose well. They can unlock extraordinary business building ideas.

Avoiding all that brand essence, brand promise, LINK tested rubbish - which is probably the enemy of this post.

In other words, pick great fights.

 

 

Get out there

"Opening his eyes, he would know the place by the rythm of movements in the street long before he caught any characteristic detail"

Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities.

Every place people come together has it's own, unspoken body language. If you're prepared to listen, it can tell you all sorts of things.

If you're in the midst of building your thinking, or reviewing work and you haven't met your audience there, get a move on.

Because, our mirror neurons present an invaluable gift of seeing the world through others' eyes.

Just you got excited by that song and played it to someone, only to hear it through their ears.

Just as that presentation suddenly got better once you rehearsed in front of your colleagues and experienced it from their point of view.

When go out to where your audience congregates, you very quickly see your thinking, or the work from their side of things.

You realise that what you thought was cultural dynamite was pretentious twaddle.

That the fights over that endline are not the point, this lot won't even care.

That your strategy that was fine in theory won't work in real life.

That finding a way to matter to the people will only come from starting with their lives, not their buying habits.

Suddenly you get them.

And when you get them, you can find a way to matter to them.

 

 

 

 

What the battle of who could care less tells us about the need for ideas rather than designs

Let me start by saying I have a deep and abiding admiration for great designers and great design. 

Great design, how something looks and how we experience it greatly matter to how we feel about it and how it matters in our lives.

The Iphone is an obvious example of experience and aesthetics married beatifully.

But a design idea is not a creative idea. It's not a brand idea. It's not an advertising idea.

Because designers tend to be concerned with pleasing the eye.

Yes, of course, that sometimes means standing out, but more often than not, design follows hallowed rules.Which makes it predictable.

Which, when it comes to brands is isn't commercially sensible.

Because, as has been said often enough, the goal of marketing is to puncture the indifference of people who don't care.

The light buyers who actually decide the fate of brands, rather than the loyalists who don't. If you have a few minutes to spare, you should watch this..

 

Absolutely, building big, consistent symbols of recognition matter. Signposts that get buried in the subconscious. That's most of design's role.

But after you consider the need for distribution,  and constantly removing reasons not to buy (the latter is the role for NPD and comms planning when you strip away the bollocks)...

You always come back to being distinctive. Getting noticed. Capturing the imagination. 

Winning the battle of who could care less.

The craft behind capturing the attention, getting in the head and staying there.

The element of surprise.

The art of making magic.

Not looking for a perfect whole.

Looking for tension, energy and provocation.

Stuff that makes you form on opinion.

Stuff that connects with the heart, not just the head.

That's what seperates ideas people from designers.

It's usually easy to tell the difference.

Do they show you their first ideas as scamps, or loosely written scripts? Or do they always have to retreat to the comfort of the mac?

To they tell you how it looks? Or can they tell you how it works?

When it comes to bonding with people, there's nothing quite like a crisis

I read with great interest this article about planning all over the world.

Partly because the mug shot of Rob Campbell makes him appear to be forcing to smile while somebody squeeezes  his testicles.

But mostly because the challenges Gareth Kay faces in the US remind me of what it's like being a planner in the northern outposts of the UK.

Namely you have to fight for your right to be in the rooms and conversations that matter.

In fact, that's something all planners come accross at some point.

With clients, with suits, with creatives, with entire teams.

Many clients are not used to working with planners.

Many agency folk are in the same position.

Even worse, many disregard the discipline after suffering the kind of self important, over-complicating, intellectual snobbery that is more common that many of us would care t0 admit.

Planning isn't something that should get in the way, that you should suffer. It's about unlocking the best in others.

So getting credibility and building a relationship doesn't happen by divine right. It happens by demonstrating usefulness.

So what do you do when you're in the position where no one wants to work with you?

Wait for a crisis.

One of the most common stories in cinema is the couple or group who are either totally different, hate each other or have deep,unresolved issues that seem in-surmountable.

Until the crisis of the story is set in motion and, by overcoming it together, they form, or rediscover a tight bond.

A princess, a smuggler and a farmboy.

A hot, working class girl and geeky, middle class outsider (terrible film).

A bunch of rough Dwarves and a complacent Hobbit.

An estranged father and his children.

It's the same for planners and creatives/suits/clients/teams.

Be patient, look for a situation where everyone needs to pull together.

Internally, nothing brings a team together like a pitch or a scary make or break presentation.

Nothing makes a client love you like getting them out of deep hole.

In my own experience, I had a fashionista marketing director who prefered the company of other women. It was impossible to credibly break into conversations around Sex and the City and issues around kitten heels or wedges.

I had to wait she was dragged over hot coals by the board for spending thousands on a segmentation study when she didn't even know market share (their distribution model meant if wouldn't show up in the usual sources. Their product didn't even go through EPOS).

Then proceeded do omnibus work and a bit of maths to get a figure.

Got her out of the shit, got the board of her back, helped develop a proper growth plan based on real market dynamics.

Loved me forever.

There's the suit who can't resolve the isssue with the creatives.

There's the creatives who's campaign is on the verge of being killed by research.

Finally, and maybe not strictly moral. There is the 'give them enough rope to hang themselves' route.

Look for the situations you KNOW will develop into a crisis.

The rough with a tiny chink you know will become gaping chasm when it get's developed.

The route that's nothing more than beautiful mac work, devoid of any idea. Wait for the moment it has to developed into a real campaign.

The complex client brief the suits haven't understood, where the first stage presentation will be car crash.

And let it happen. Don't interfere, let them get on.

Then help them sort out the ugly mess they've created.

Not with smug superiority.

Not by saying, "Told you so".

But with quiet, considerate, helpful usefulness.

So........

If I ran an agency and wanted to get a team working well together, I'd put them together on a pitch.

If I was a planning director and saw one of my team struggling to get to grips with an account or creative team, I'd do everything I could to get them together on a pitch team.

If I was a planner looking to earn the right to be listened to, or even invited into rooms - and I work in Yorkshire,that's my day to day - I would constantly be looking for moments of truth, where your colleagues or client is struggling with a crisis.

Less moral, but more effective, let them get on with making the rope for their noose, let them feel it beginning to bite into their necks and then step in.

As a Harold Macmillan once said about steers goverment; "Events dear boy, events'.

They also create the opportunity for you to prove your usefulness.

 

 

 

 

 

Good intentions are no use to anyone

“It’s not who we are underneath, but what we do that defines us.” -Rachel Dawes in Batman Begins

You can be the cleverest, most talented planner in the universe.

You can constantly look at great work and game changing thinking thinking I can do that.

You can make yourself feel better about the percieved gap between the output of where you work and the places you'd maybe like to work.

You can blame the kind of clients you have, the culture and skills of where you work or anything else that removes responsibility from yourself.

But it really doesn't matter how you feel and how great things could be, if only fo this or that.

All that matters is what you do about it.

Stop talking about how great you could make things. Look hard at what's in the way, find the fundamental problems and figure out how to solve them.

In other words, be a planner.

 

Legacy

What physics can teach us about creative research and the dangers of asking nature direct questions

If you're daft enough to read this blog occasionally, you might have concluded that my ideal job would be Chief Tea Taster at Yorkshire Tea.

You would be wrong though. I'd be a particle physicist.

Not a famous one, just someone who could do it for a living would be fine.

Because I find the truth about how nature works endlessly fascinating, inspiring and downright beautiful. There's so much mystery and grandeur in nature I don't need religion for that sense of wonder and comfort, It's all there.

Sadly general intelligence and very specific failings at maths mean I'm stuck doing planning.  I get the principles of relativity, I understand why E=MC2 and why it matters, but that's as far as it goes.

One thing physics folks can teach agency folk though is how to go about and interpret research. Because they know that the same experiments will only produce the same results.

And they understand the more interfere with your subject, the less it can tell you.

Just as flashes of insight rarely come from focus groups.

 Ernest Rutherford was perhaps the greatest experimenter ever. He wasn't a great theorist, but he was brilliant at devising experiements, and even better, looking for suprise results and working out what they meant.

His most famous was the gold foil experiment, where he fired alpha particles through the wafer thin metal, fully expecting them to shoot straight through, like bullets through paper.

But every now and again, they bounced back, as if they'd hit some immovable force. This was as unexpected a firing a cannon though paper and it rebounding.

The flash of insight to explain this was, roughly, that atoms are mostly empty space - all matter is concentrated in a tiny nucleus.Which was the beginning of our modern understanding of particles and leads to the conclusion that you and I are mostly empty space too.

If you could distill down the human race and push out all that space, we'd fit on a sugar cube.  

There's Youngs double- slit experiment too. Where they fired electrons towards a barrier with two slits and, brain poppingly, they appeared to go through both.

Which led to modern quantum mechanics. Something most people accept as plain daft, but has been proven to be fundamental to modern nature - that you can't assume tiny particles don't take one route to a destination, you have to assume they take EVERY possible route. That particles can pop out and back in to existence.

Even more bizzare, the more you try and pin-point where a particle is, the less you know about where it's going.

Even worse, the more you try and box it it, the more likely it will disappear out of the box and re-appear somewhere else.

In other words, if you ask sub-atomic particles direct questions, the more they'll give you duff answers

Just like traditional marketing research.

Where interfering with human beings, just like particles reveals untruths and even bare-faced lies.

Because, just like particles can tell you where they are, but not where they're going.

People can tell you what they think (or at least think they think), but not how they feel or what they'll do.

Focus groups mean we conform to group think.

Our own decisions are clouded to us, our so called rational decision making process is a smokescreed to make us feel better about that fact we choose based on shorthand heuristics, emotion and instinct.

Even worse, our minds distort the past and predict our future based on our imperfect view of that past.

In fact, the only reliable way to research human beings is not interfere with them.

To observe how they they behave in their natural environment.

And get creative.

Look for unexpected.

If you know what you're looking for, the more likely you'll find it. And it will be obvious.

Leading to obvious advertising.

BBH didn't focus group Polaroid. They gave Polaroid cameras out at wedding and watched what happened - discovering they added to the occasion. You USED them to enhance the moment.

Leading to this...

 

AMV borrowed from cutting edge phychology and filmed how people shopping failed to notice a  man in a gorilla suit in th aisles. Proving how much they were stuck in a routine. Leading to this:

 

That Gorilla insight was even used in a piece of advertising too...

 

And so on.    

Game-changing insights in modern physics happened through creative experimentation and, well, by accident.

Not from repeating the same methodology. 

Not from asking nature directly either. 

So it is with discovering the truth about human beings. 

And, probably, stealing as much methodology from Brainjuicer as you possibly can.

 

 

Markets of Britain

 

Diminished heroes.

"The sophistication of modern sport workd against freakish solo-domination. In skill- centred sports rather than purely physical sports, some records are virtually unbreakable"

Which means..

"There truly was a time when great men were greater -but human progress means those days witll never come back, there really will never be another Don Bradman"

Which is immensely sad. It seems like blokes need high mimetic heroes today more than ever.

From 'What Sport Tells Us About Life" by Ed Smith. If you fresh insight into sport,or life for that matter, because sport is really a mirror for everyday life, you should read it.

This also puts the arrogance of planners into sharp focus. It's not that most are genius strategists, it's just that others are even less good. 

My career in a nutshell..........

 

Swimming doesn't need a point. It is the point

 

It's 6am, it's cold and dark. I'm supposed to be getting up to go swimming.

Someone said these words recently, "You're nearly 40. isn't it time you admitted your age and let it go?" They haunt me.

Shouldn't I?

Work means I'm not always around when the kids wake up. Shouldn't I be there every chance I get? Can't I listen to my aching body? It's always a bit stiff on mornings these days.

Sometimes the convinction wavers and, like gravity, the reality of being 39 year old drags me down.

But I go on. Mis-placed pride, ingrained habit and the knowledge that swimming has been such a big part of my life for so long, I don't know anything else.

What's more,  when you know you we're born good at something, it seems somehow wrong to waste it. Even if the performance is a mere facsimile of days gone by. 

I drive to the swimming pool. I dive in, it's freezing cold and my body takes longer to warm up that it used to. The old scar tissue from a torn shoulder muscle throbs for a little longer in the cold.

Then my thoughts wander.

It's been a hard three years as a husband and father. Being a parent puts simultaneously wonderful and terrifying challenges in front of you. I think it takes a real man do without a nights sleep, to comfort a sick child, then work the next day. It takes bravery to see your little boy in A&E without caving in, or have a doctor tell you your little baby girl might have brain damage and then not try and punch their face in when they've mis-diagnosed.

It takes a man to understand they will never be number one in the wife's eyes ever again. It takes a man to accept the immense responsibility to do more than protect your children, but help shape who they will become. To always be patient, to explain, to comfort, to not just shout and punish.

Winning at work, out drinking  your friends, owning a good car or anything else that's supposed to signify manhood, pale next to this.

Including performing at sport. It seems pointless next to being their for my wonderful children. I love them and their mother so much.

But then I think of my parents, how happy they were for me to find something I loved as much as swimming.

How proud they were, win or lose, a long as I tried. And How pleased they were when I took it up again around ten years ago.

They're getting really old now, to the point when the fact they won't be around forever becomes less of a far off idea and more and ever present reality, quietly nesting in the subconscious.

Dad used to get up before 5am to take me swimming when I was young, then go to work. They sacrificed their weekends and their evenings together for me. Despite the prospect of all that time, they were still heartbroken when I packed in serious racing before my time, but they understood.

Trying to keep swimming at a decent level feels in many ways feels like a way to love and honour my parents and respect what they've done for me. Because, one of the many things they've taught me, is that everyone should be respected and valued. Everyone can do something well if you look hard enough,and everyones talent should be celebrated,  no matter what it is.

This seems more important in these instant gratifications times, where people get rich or famous for doing nothing.While the quiet bravery of those that struggle everyday is forgotten. This is something  want my children to understand as they grow up.

Then I'm not really thinking any more as I cut through the water. I'm just doing. I'm in a waking dream, totally in touch with my body as it remembers it can do this.

And it feels like home.

It feels like what it was like to be a child, when nothing needed a point, the joy was simply in the doing. You didn't think about playing, you just played.

I'm well into my session now. People often ask how I can spend so long in a pool, just going up and down. It's hard to explain what it's like. How you get to a state where you're not thinking, you're just focused on the act, fully aware of every stroke, every second, every turn.

How quieting the cacophony in the mind, not worrying about what's next, not going over what's happened, not second guessing, not trying to do ten things at once, lets your subconscious talk to you.

It's an escape, but that escape leads to ideas, solving of issues.By not thinking of them.All that stuff bubbling in the back of the mind just drifts forward. There are few problems or issues that don't seem easier after a good hard swim.

Swimming also stops me going soft, provides ballast. The harder it gets, the more it matters.That's whay that 6am conflict matters so much. If I give in to that, I start to crumble under all sorts of other temptations.

Like hell.

But it's not really any of that. The only point to swimming is swimming.

It doesn't have a purpose, it doesn't need it.

The act is enough.

Which in turn, reminds me how to live in the present and appreciate what's under my nose.

In my marriage, to not always pursue distractions, to just 'be' sometimes.

With my children, to not always be educating or even worse, having something more pressing to do. To just play for the sheer joy of playing.

Guess I'm saying that swimming is a contradiction.

It takes me away from wife and children.

Yet swimming helps me work out how to be a better father and husband.