That Gormandizer Man

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.

Getting the clip of a place

I was in San Francisco over Christmas. I decided to get away by myself for a week or so to somewhere I'd never been and had no friends. I just thought it'd be an interesting thing to do. It's a place that I've always fancied going to. Some of my favourite films are set there, it has some amazing engineering and it sounded like the kind of open-minded welcoming city I would enjoy travelling to. Oh, but let's not mention the hills... my vertigo wouldn't appreciate that.

Before travelling I bought the usual bunf, some more of the usual bunf, chatted to friends who had been there, watched documentaries, listened to lots and lots and lots of different music from the area and watched various different films that I'd not seen before. It was kind of like boning up on TGI, Mintel and Datamonitor before getting the free brand samples from the client.

The purpose of this multimedia extravaganza was to try and give me as much a feeling of the place before I landed. By soaking up images, accents, opinions and criticisms I was hoping to hit the ground running and have an understanding of what to expect.

It didn't work.

When I landed I hit the BART, got to my hotel and got out on the streets and pounded the concrete as soon as I could.

When I got out onto the streets, heard the voices, watched the body language and looked at the scences I realised I didn't know it at all. The San Francisco brand was a completely different experience than I had been told about.

You see there is information, and then there are experiences.

That feeling of a place where you get under the skin of it, where it's your opinions of the place and not others, where you feel it instead of learn about it - that's what I call 'Getting the clip of a place.' (I think that's a northern thing...)

 
(Getting the clip of the Golden Gate Bridge)

It's essentially why people travel. They want to experience different things. Not just read about them or see them on Flickr, but experience them. In 1 hour on the streets of San Francisco I learned more than than I did soaking up all the information before I left. I was fully immersed in the experience.

Here at Woo HQ I enjoy working on our experiential work. It gives us the opportunity to really explore what a brand is truly about, and to give an accurate representation of this to consumers.

You see, we can give information to them via Direct Mail, websites or posters - truly value-added information that the consumer finds interesting and informative, but it's difficult to give a true experience in a one-way relationship. This is when we use experiential activity.

This is the perfect opportunity to give the consumer a great experience, a true experience of the brand, one that benefits both the consumer and the brand. And like my walking around the hills of San Francisco, it gives a much richer, two-way and true experience of something.

Maybe I should coin this 'Getting the clip of a brand...'

Why running is better than walking

... or, to be more precise, why people and brands should have the vision of a runner.

 
(Please excuse my scribbles and northern colloquialisms)

You see, when I run I look a good 10 - 50 metres in front of me. It makes sense. When you go slow you generally look directly in front of you - maybe upto a metre in front. When you go very fast, say in a car, you look a good few hundred metres in front of you. (Well, all besides Mr. Feganwho when travelling on the autobahn seems to think the car in front of him won't get any closer even though he's going about 100mph faster than it and gaining ground rapidly...)

I reckon there are similarities between brands and people here... what a revolutionary thought...

The Walkers
The walkers are keeping themselves very safe but not really the people around them. They hold the faster people back and they're reactionary when they need to make a decision. Some are positively knee-jerk. It is, however, much easier to turn around if you need to. Even though you're looking 10 metres in front of you when you're running, the short sighted can thwart you at any point because they only see the immediate landscape. NB. Walking is boring and unimaginative. Nobody likes a walker. Unfortunately there are a lot of walkers.

The Runners
When you're running you're sort of doing the job of a walker and a runner. You see, you keep one eye constantly 10 metres in front of you but you need to occasionally have a glance at your immediate landscape for obstructions that could impede your progression. When you're running it is harder to stop - there's no denying that - but you're more confident that you won't need to stop. You have more confidence than a walker because you're looking 10 metres ahead of you and because of that it's usually easier to divert an obstacle. Plus, you'll reach your destination quicker and with a sense of achievement. NB. Running is the perfect balance of risk and preparation. More people and brands need to be prepared to run, and not just talk about running.

The Sprinters
Whether you're in a car or you're sprinting yourself, a few things are consistent. You'll keep an eye on what's going on in the distance - maybe a hundred metres or more away. If you're concentrating on that for a long time you need to sometimes look away and give your eyes a rest. Focusing that far away can't be done without the occasional glance to regain focus and context. One thing's for sure if you're a sprinter - you're going to make a statement. The problem is there is more uncertainty than a runner about whether that statement will be positive or negative for you or your brand. Before you run out of fuel you'll either crash and burn or you'll collect the gold medal. Either way it makes the headlines. NB. Sprinters have a much higher rate of injuries than runners. People remember sprinters. Sprinters sell the tickets at the Olympics.

So what am I and where should brands be in this? Well, I'm a mix of a runner and a sprinter. I like to think I progress at a decent speed, but sometimes I need to take my eyes off the road and regain some focus and context on my journey. I'm prone to the occasional mild prang but I want to run faster and faster all the time.

From a brands point of view, well, it depends on the brand and what they want to achieve. They'll obviously say they're runners but we all know they're much more likely to be walkers. As marketers, though, we should be their running coaches. We need to convert the walkers into the runners. From there the sprinters will self-select themselves but it's our job to make sure that as many brands as possible don't just walk.

Walking is easy. Walking is boring. People like runners, and they love sprinters. If you're a brand and you're not Ben Johnson, you should start running.

I'm Mark, and I like scoring

 
(That's me licking my lips at a particularly juicy planning problem)

I was in Barcelona last week having a few days rest and recuperation with a friend. It's the first time off I've had since May so I think it was well deserved and I took full advantage of it. I returned to the office on Tuesday and it's taken me a couple of days to get back into the swnig of things. When I was thinking about this last night the only comparison I could think of (because planners love comparisons) was the superb Michael Owen.

I'm a Newcastle fan, so I'm probably a bit biased about what's written below. I do like to think that I can be an unbiased magpies fan though, so hopefully it's a little bit on the ball... (I'm not unbiased when it comes to filhty mackems though... unless you want to offer me a job and you come from the amazingly beautiful and underrated Sunderland... what a lovely place... erm...)

Michael Owen gets injured frequently
Whilst my sick record is the opposite to his (a couple of days over the past couple of years I think), I do get distracted a lot. And yes, this is the same. It means sometimes I find a tangent and need to explore it robstly until I get back into the main gist of something. However, this is a bonus as a few times my exploration of this tangent has led to a change in the project - a positive change. There's a thing we do here at Woo towers called Parallel Problem Solving where we look at things from different angles and my thinking helps to solve problems in non-contextual, non-formulaic ways. That's when it's a benefit of having a background that isn't in the industry - your thinking isn't sullied by the same thinking that everyone else participates in.

Michael Owen takes a few games to get fully fit again after an injury
When I come back from a holiday it takes me a couple of days to fully get back into the agency mould. I plan 100% of my time, whether I'm on holiday or not. I'm always questioning things, exploring things and looking at things out of context and thinking about how they can benefit my clients. I'm the type of planner that lives the job. I can't turn it off. It does, however, take me a little bit of time to get warmed up to the agency life side of things when I come back. The hustle and the bustle and all that.

Michael Owen isn't the best striker in the world
... but he contributes to make a small team that little bit better. I see this point as being chronologically opposite to my own situation... hopefully. Michael Owen started at the top, maintained that level for a while then moved a little bit down the scale (yes, yes, I know NUFC aren't actually very good) and works his trade there giving 100% week in week out. I've started at a mid-level agency and I hopefully contribute to make our output that little bit better. I think I help give us that little point of differentiation compared to some other agencies. I'm the Michael Owen that comes on to change the game when the long ball to Peter Crouch doesn't work out. Other agencies use the Peter Crouch long ball game a lot. I'm hoping that if I can't help make this place break into the top 4 of the Premiership then someone will come along with a massive transfer fee to tempt me to join the big players... although I reckon I'll have to employ a bloody good agent to take backhanders for that to happen... or maybe not.

Michael Owen knows his roots
He still resides in the North West and is grateful for what he's got. (Mind you, if I was getting paid about £120k a week I think I'd say thankyou as well...) I'm from a very much working class background in the North East. I moved down to London by myself in an attempt to forge my life into something more interesting than building sites (my dad is a builder) or welding factories. Through hard work, dedication and luck I've turned out ok I think. I do honestly believe this background helps me improve my planning. Part of our job is to break down the boundaries between client and consumer. If the consumer is in the lower rungs of our social ladder I don't need to conduct TGI runs or focus groups, I was one, and my family still are. I of course test my initial gut feeling with research tools, but I do believe in my gut and it's rarely let me down in the past. Most other planners I know come from pretty middle/ upper class backgrounds (as do most people in agencies) and I do feel my background does give me something a little bit different that sometimes comes in handy. It's all too easy to fall into the trap in meetings of "what would I do?" when it must be "what would the consumer do?"

When he's fully fit he's deadly
Planning is living, living is planning. All animals are equal but some are more equal than others. He has a better scoring record against some teams opposed to some others. It's the same in my work. I connect better with some clients than I do with others. I think that's only natural. I'm a human and there are some clients I believe in more, some I refuse to work for and some I more easily connect with on an emotional level. Like Michael Owen I'll always give 100% but sometimes against various opposition (or for certain clients) you just seem to get more passes on target, you get into the box more, you get more shots on target.

My name is Mark, and I like scoring.

Andy S'Diner and terrible kerning

I took these in Berlin last month:

I love the top one. I mean - they've just got everything wrong haven't they? Bad grammar and bad use of capitals - and all when the others around them are fine. I spoke about this on Monday morning to people here. If in doubt - look it up. Simply by whacking it into google you can get a decent indication for starters. But then I guess it'd mean we wouldn't get any Engrish - and that would be a loss for society.

And as for the bottom - I'm not sure of the German for kerning - but it's like they've made an attempt to just get the spacing all different. Wouldn't that take even longer than automatically spacing them?

Note to management about the bin in the toilet

... (the word after the '+' is 'mass' - I couldn't be bothered to write it again just for effect. I'm precious about my moleskine pages you know.)

A gaggle, a plethora or a colony?

Spurred on by Golden Square being full of people sat down eating overpriced sushi, wearing skinny jeans and talking about racing airport vehicles I’m compelled to try and find the answer to this very important question:

If more than one pigeon is a flock and more than on goose is a gaggle, then what is the correct term to describe myriad media types gathered at one place?

It's a nice day outside so at lunchtime I partook of a nice little walk around soho. On arriving back in Golden Square I was literally speechless (nearly) on seeing the assembled throng of people from local agencies congregating. Make no mistake about it - if something untoward happened in Golden Square today at lunchtime then I'm under no illusions that London would quickly resemble Sao Paulo, and that there'd be 3 minutes of snow between programmes on ITV.

That's a lot of media types in one place at one time. If something did happen would a bloke called Ralph take over medialand?