Trusting my working class gut

I visited a Wetherspoons over the weekend.

There you go. I said it. I admit it.I visited the lowest rung of the boozer ladder. No music, no olives or wasabi nuts and a menu where the numbers are printed bigger than the photographs of the food. And, instead of choosing a mid-range beer, I chose the cheapest beer on tap: a pint of IPA for 99p.

I'm like the next man. I have a repertoire of drinking establishments I go to and a repertoire of drinks I usually drink. But over the weekend I wanted to forget about these temporarily so I ended up in a Wetherspoons drinking cheap bitter.

That's why I like going home to the North East for the weekend. There's a different vibe about the bars, the pubs are full of old men and the Social Clubs can't be described without visiting them. When I'm there I catch up with my dad and his mates. I chat to them about what they've been up to, and they ask me how expensive things are "down in London."Not what things are like, but what they cost. I talk about experience, they talk about price.

When I'm there I ask them what ads they have noticed recently, or if they have been given any freebies at the supermarket. The feedback I get from them is brilliant. You see, these people are the North East. These are the men that have worked all their lives, looking at the prices of everything they buy and weighing up the benefit with the price. It may be a new sofa or it may be a pint of Brown Ale. It makes no odds, the process is the same: if I can get it cheaper here and the experience is the same as that place down the road, I'll get it here thankyouverymuch. But, the price always comes first.

The problem is, I've never seen these people walking around here at Engine Towers or any other agency I've been to. In fact, I feel that I stick out like a sore thumb sometimes just because I refuse to soften my Northern drawl.

I moved away from the North East 12 years ago. I was the first person in my family to go to Uni, the only one at all to get an MA and my dad thinks I've "made it" because I live in London. As much as I like to think I'm flying the flag for the working classes (if they exist any more), I live in a mews in Old Street, I can usually base my purchases on want and not need, and I earn more than anyone in my family - including people who have grafted much harder than me their whole lives. I've physically and mentally moved out of the working classes, but I still try and keep my links to it. I spent 18 years of my life as part of it. So I guess I'm 2/3 working class...

But, (and there is a but) meeting up with family and friends who still live it is more illuminating than any focus group or than any TGI run. When people start back-slapping each other for the new campaign they've just released that has superb creative, excellent strategy and wins awards for the agency concerned, I just ask my dad if he's seen it. You see, in this whole industry he's the most important person. He's the typical punter for a lot of the things we sell. He has no idea when he's been marketed to, doesn't understand PR and adverts are just an opportunity to put the kettle on. But the way he looks at things would make him one of the best planners in the industry.

It's so easy to become blind to what we actually set out to do. Things distract us along the way. Yet it's people like my dadthat I think about when I become disillusioned with the industry. We might think drumming gorrilas, people dancing in train stations or cars made out of cake or paper are superb, but he can't even remember them.

I need to trust my gut a bit more. A lot of the time I'm given a brief and I immediately get a feeling of a way to move on it. But then I remember I'm part of an agency. That I'm a planner. That the client needs TGI data to back it up. That we should employ psychological techniques and use metaphors and analogies.

But I reckon sometimes I should just trust my gut more. Say it as it is. I need to be like my dad more. Every agency needs a dad like mine working there.

Comments

[Anjali]

Lovely post Mark. Very personal and rings so true because of that. But aside from that, I say go for your gut feeling, definitely. Sometimes that just can't be beat.

[Charles]

A brilliant, brilliant post Mark. Respect.

[neilperkin]

Spot on Mark. Great post.

[Ramzi Yakob]

Very nice. The question is whether or not you have the sort of relationship with your clients where they'll trust you enough that the gut feeling minus the data to support it is enough to spend their annual marketing budget on (or at least their Q1 budget).

Its a lovely sentiment - but the fact of it is is that the average person DOES know about Gorilla etc. My girlfriend from Newcastle doesn't know what accounts I work on and called me up last week asking me if I'd seen the weird kids do the eyebrows thing on TV. She's not even from Newcastle, she's from Cramlington which is nothing more than roundabouts and low cost housing - and she had seen eyebrows, and had spent an evening in the pub with her friends trying to recreate it, with a mobile phone handy to document their efforts. When you can't afford Sky's TV packages - sometimes a really fun ad is enough to fill an evening.

I agree that there is too much conceptual bullshit which goes on and no doubt even the popular ads have this same BS behind them. To my girlfriend, and your dad - the BS doesn't matter - all that matters is its funny/a bit weird/slightly unusual i.e. they notice it for any number of positive reasons.

100% go with your gut feeling more - its just a matter of learning how to sell it.

Good luck!

[Mark Hadfield]

Thanks for the comments everyone.

Ramzi - very true what you say about clients and their budgets. Whatever they profess, the majority of them are driven by numbers. If true creative content means they get to hit their numbers then fine, but it always comes back to the numbers. The numbers and the people who are ruled by the numbers are the gatekeepers of true creative content. That's obvious of course, especially when we live in a consumerist world.

There are probably 3 types of ads: 1) Ones that excite people and get talked about for the right reasons (Gorilla, Eyebrows), 2) Ones that annoy people and get talked about (regardless of whether it's for a good reason) (confused.com, churchill etc) and 3) Ones that elicit no discernible response from anyone. Clients want 1, 2, then 3 - in that order.

Now, ask 'normal' people like my dad and your girlfriend and they may be able to describe the odd one from 1), a couple from 2, and none from 3. The problem we have as marketers is that I'd say 3 is where most output sits. Why does it sit there? Well, I'd say not because of a lack of thinking from agency-side, but from restrictive briefs from clients.

There needs to be a sea-change in the way clients think. They shouldn't be gatekeepers, they should be the ones that offer agencies magical briefs every time. Every brief should be an opportunity to really flex some creative thinking and to challenge norms.

Some would say they do this at the moment, but I'd argue against that to a certain degree. If a fake flashmob in Liverpool Street is lauded a year after ImprovEverywhere did the Grand Central Station thing, and 9 months after the Liverpool Street Rickroll thing then I'd say we're in trouble.

Clients should offer opportunities to shine, not fences to break through.

(I think I went off my point somewhere up there, but hey ho.)

[Nick]

Brilliant post, Mark.

Right at the end, you hint at what a practical application of your realisation might be: "Every agency needs a dad like mine working there."

Just interested to know whether this means that you believe in getting 'non-marketing people' into the room right at the very beginning to collaborate on the creation of advertising?

It's something I've been dying to try, just out of curiosity...

N

[Mark Hadfield]

Hi Nick,

I believe thinking from 'non-marketing people' can bring up some really good thinking, and can make existing thinking from the agency more robust.

One of my ex students at St. Martins looked into 'untraining' adults and the way they think, because the naive way children think can bring up some great insights. This is what agencies need.

I remember when Wayne Rooney first made an impact in the Premier League. There was this big thing about him being a raw talent, a bit rough, liable to do something both equally silly and inspirational. There was this fear that when he became a regular in the first team that he'd have that unpredictability coached out of him. That's what happens at some agencies. People replace natural raw, unchecked talent with more of a honed business talent. While there's a place for both, I think agencies have too many of the latter and not too many of the former.

Of course Focus Groups are there to give the opinion of the consumer, but why can't those consumers be an integral FULL TIME employee when working on an account? Why just dip in and out?

That's why interns and work placement people can supplement an agency really well - they ask questions that others don't ask. They need to be rewarded for that, and certainly not fear asking 'silly' questions.

Come the revolution!

[Shib]

Great post Mark! Living in the Midlands I can really relate to what you are saying. The average viewer doesn't understand the strategy that goes into an ad, they see and (sometimes) undestand the end execution. I feel sometimes as an industry we complicate something that we can get across very simply.

Ha and I'll second the call for a revolution! I've alway's suprised people during a placement, sometimes it just take's an outside view to solve a problem.

[Andrew Robinson]

Loved the post Mark. As a fellow ex-working class North East-er who's rapidly turning into a soft southener I totally get where you're coming from. Working client-side, instead of the dad test I often use the mum test to see if it's something my mum would buy/do. I think gut instinct is something you develop over time. But it's not innate - it's the culmination of all your experiences, both professional and personal. Background counts a lot for this - and coming from such an excellent part of the world I think your gut instinct will be right most of the time, as is mine!