The Net Curtain Strategist

Refaela Revach Looking out the window Painting

My childhood home in Romford looked out onto Heath Park Road, a relatively busy suburban street, lined with neat front gardens and pebble-dashed, semi-detached houses.

Over the rain-sodden school holidays my brother Martin and I often found ourselves stuck indoors, and our mother would invent tasks to occupy our time.

For one such assignment, she located us on stools by the living room window, supplying paper, pencils and a glass of squash. She then asked us to record the different colours of the cars passing by the house, in order to establish which shade was most popular.

‘Blue!’ ‘Red!’ ‘Blue!’ ‘Yellow!’

Eagle-eyed and attentive, with every new vehicle we added another stroke to a five-bar gate, setting about our objective with high seriousness.

I can’t say it was a particularly challenging or instructive exercise. Sometimes a metallic finish or striped van prompted a bit of debate. Sometimes the cars came past in a mad flurry all at once. And this being the ‘70s, most of the cars were just blue or red. (The black automobile was a rare sight back then.) 

Nonetheless, we spent many happy hours at that bay window.

Our monitoring of the traffic on Heath Park Road was given an extra frisson by the fact that, like secret agents, we were working unnoticed and out of sight. Most homeowners back then protected their privacy by hanging net curtains. These enabled residents to see out, but prevented passers-by from seeing in – a phenomenon quite beyond my crude understanding of science.

Over recent years the Planning discipline has grown in respect and recognition in the broader Agency community. We celebrate great insights and approaches. We cultivate our own flamboyant presentational styles. We lionize the best practitioners.

This is all of course to the good.

I would nonetheless suggest that for the most part good strategists work as if behind net curtains. Largely anonymous, quietly observing, seeing without being seen, they are unobtrusive and understated. They are also mindful of avoiding the Observer Effect, by which the act of measurement disturbs the object measured.

I am reminded that the great John Bartle, one of the BBH Founders, argued that Planners should contribute ideas without claiming authorship; that there is more chance of collective success if individuals are not striving for acknowledgement; that the best strategists are generous at heart.

‘Success has many parents, failure is an orphan - be happy to let others take the credit and success is more likely.’
John Bartle

I have occasionally wondered whether it was my mother’s car-monitoring exercise that set me on the path to strategy and research. Perhaps. But I’m not sure I ever really excelled at quantitative data and analysis.

'Every day now I can feel you watching me from afar,
And you've been leaving those love letters on my car.
So now I wonder, why you're so into me, in such a way
That you've got to take your spare time to chase after me.
What a shame.
So you like what you see?
Hey, you better put a hold on me.
So you like what you see?
Girl, you better put a hold on me.’
Samuelle, 'So You Like What You See’ (Samuelle, Foster & McElroy)

No. 470

‘Why Are All These People Here?’: A Provocative Question at the Sydney Opera House

I have recently returned from my first trip to Australia. 

My brother Martin and I thoroughly enjoyed the sea and sunshine; walks and views; fresh food and robust wine. We visited museums, galleries and surf clubs; vibrant markets, friendly pubs and the hallowed MCG. We spotted wallabies, kookaburras and brush turkeys; drank piccolo coffees, sipped Coopers from schooners and paid at the bar. It struck me as a country of progress and positivity; optimism and opportunity.

On one occasion we were standing outside the Sydney Opera House, admiring its splendid ceramic-tiled shells. How magnificent to see this familiar building up close.

An Indian tourist approached and asked to have his picture taken. Once we had obliged, the young man had another request.

‘Can I ask you a question?’

‘Of course. What is it?’

‘I’d like to know: Why are all these people here?’

‘What do you mean? Why are these people in Sydney?’

‘No. This place, here.’ He gesticulated at the clusters of sightseers wandering around the building’s forecourt. ‘I asked the Security Guard and he doesn’t know.’

We hesitated for a moment.

‘Well, this is the Sydney Opera House. It’s an architectural masterpiece. It’s one of the wonders of the modern world.’

‘Oh. Thank you. I see.’

The tourist nodded gratefully at our explanation, though he still seemed a little perplexed.

'I think, at a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift should be curiosity.’
Eleanor Roosevelt

We spend a good deal of time nowadays describing in great detail the trends and fashions that are impacting our world. We have reams of data, stacks of statistics to prove our points and evidence our observations. But I wonder if we spend enough time endeavouring to comprehend the underlying forces driving change, the truest cause. Do we sufficiently stop to enquire: ‘Why are all these people here?’?

We know from the relentless enquiries of children that Why? can be challenging and disarming. It is a simple question, but it takes us to the most interesting places – particularly when it is repeated.

The Toyota Motor Corporation used to ask Five Whys of a technical fault in order to establish its root cause. They believed that only after Five Whys did one arrive at the real issue, and by this method they found that product problems often derive from people and processes.

'The basis of Toyota’s scientific approach is to ask why five times whenever we find a problem … By repeating why five times, the nature of the problem as well as its solution becomes clear.' 
Taiichi Ohno

We stood talking to the Indian tourist for a little while longer. It transpired he was over on holiday from New Delhi. Not far from Agra and the Taj Mahal, we thought. Perhaps that’s why he seemed so unimpressed.

'How many times do I have to try to tell you
That I'm sorry for the things I've done?
But when I start to try to tell you,
That's when you have to tell me
Hey... This kind of trouble's only just begun.
I told myself too many times:
Why don't you ever learn to keep your big mouth shut?
That's why it hurts so bad to hear the words
That keep on falling from your mouth.
Tell me
Why...
I may be mad,
I may be blind,
I may be viciously unkind.
But I can still read what you're thinking.’

Annie Lennox, ‘Why'

No. 418

The Serene Stag Party: When a Leader Loses Control

'When you were made a leader you weren't given a crown, you were given the responsibility to bring out the best in others.’
Jack Welch, Former CEO of General Electric

It was a privilege to be appointed Martin’s Best Man - but also something of a challenge. How to design a stag weekend that would entertain my older brother’s friends, integrate a diverse set of personalities and still accommodate our Dad and his mate Bernie from the Drill?

This was 1993 and well before the era of exotic and expensive trips to Riga, Vilnius and Vegas. I determined that, given the sophistication and maturity of the attendees, the theme should be one of laid-back contemplation. It would be a Serene Stag Party. 

I rented a remote farmhouse near Acle Bridge on the Norfolk Broads, and as we gathered on the Friday evening, we settled into an exchange of amusing stories and telling anecdotes. I’d bought a couple of bottles of whiskey and a pack of cards to sustain the mellow mood. All seemed to be going well.

On the Saturday, equipped with an Ordnance Survey map, I led everyone on a scenic ramble around the Broads. Along winding paths and over awkward stiles; past disused windmills and romantic Saxon churches; sighting boats and barn owls; admiring voles, dykes and reed beds. It was all rather beautiful.

That night we had a relaxed dinner in a charming country pub. Again there was an air of warm-hearted bonhomie. I congratulated myself on a project well managed.

It’s true, a few of the group had in mind a more vibrant occasion. Scouse Mike in particular observed that a stag weekend should be characterised by shenanigans and tomfoolery; wild nights of mirth, music and dancing. 

I explained that that was not really the concept. This was the Serene Stag Party.

As we approached last orders in the pub, Mike pressed me about the possibility of going to a nightclub.

‘Come on, Jim. Club! Club! Club!’

‘No, that’s not part of the plan, Mike. And besides, haven’t you noticed? We’re in the middle of nowhere.’

Mike persisted. 

‘Club! Club! Club!’

At this point the Head Barman, who had overheard our conversation, made a helpful intervention in his distinct rustic burr.

‘There are nightclubs in Norwich and Yarmouth, you know. And Dave from the village can take you in his minibus.’

‘Club! Club! Club!’ cried Mike.

I tried to argue with him.

‘But I’ve got that bottle of whiskey for us to drink by the log fire when we get back.’

It was to no avail. Soon Mike was joined in his revolt by the rest of the company.

‘Club! Club! Club!’

That was it. My authority had evaporated. Mike took over the reins.

‘What do you think? Should we go to Norwich or Yarmouth?’

With a knowing smile, the Head Barman scanned the motley crew and pronounced.

‘No jeans in Norwich.’

Before long everyone was clambering into Dave’s minibus in a mood of reckless abandon, and they were on their way to Yarmouth.

I wandered disconsolately back to the farmhouse with my Dad and his mate Bernie from the Drill. We had a quiet whiskey by the fire and went to bed.

I was the Leader who Lost Control.

'Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.’
General Dwight Eisenhower

The lesson here is simple. Leadership is about more than a title, or a reporting line, an org chart or a corner office. Leaders cannot presume that a chosen plan will be adopted and executed without question. To be a leader you need to earn people’s commitment; to establish a shared vision; to take people with you. Successful leadership requires enthusiastic followership.

'I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?'
Benjamin Disraeli

In the early hours of Sunday morning, in dribs and drabs, the members of the stag party found their way back to the farmhouse. They’d had a fantastic time in the Yarmouth nightspot and all agreed it had made it a truly memorable weekend.

I reflected that perhaps the Serene Stag Party had not been such a good idea after all.

'Put yourself in my place
And you wouldn't do the things you do to me.
If you put yourself in my place
You'd know the meaning of misery.
Sleepless nights, tossing and turning,
Days and nights of worry and wondering.
Put yourself in my place
Then you will realize why there are tears
So many tears in my eyes.'
Maxine Brown, ‘Put Yourself in My Place’ (W Drain, R Obrecht)

No. 387

Disruptive Dreams: A Tour of France with My Brother, Two Mates and Van Morrison

‘If my heart could do my thinking
And my head began to feel,
Would I look upon the world anew,
And know what's truly real?’
Van Morrison, ‘I Forgot that Love Existed’

Some time in the late 1980s I went on a road trip round France with my brother Martin and friends Mike and Thommo. 

Crammed into a small, silver Citroen AX, with our sports bags strapped to the roof and with nothing booked, we disembarked at Calais and plotted a path towards the Loire Valley. 

Since Martin and I were feeling flush, each night we shared a room in a modest hotel, while Mike and Thommo settled for the local campsite. When the four of us reported at the first establishment and requested ‘une chambre a deux lits,’ the proprietor was somewhat challenged. Martin, realising the misunderstanding, gestured towards Mike and Thommo and explained:

‘Non, ils font le camping!’

We started each day with strong coffee, golden croissants, President butter and apricot jam, and each evening we feasted on quite extraordinary food and wine - whether at a smart local restaurant or a truck drivers’ cafe. 

‘Fruits de mer et confit de canard, s’il vous plait.’

Thommo couldn’t cope with the unrelenting richness of the meals, and so we took one night off, settling for local ‘Loveburgers’ washed down by 1664. 

We moved on to the Vendée and the Dordogne, through the Auvergne and up to Burgundy, Alsace and Lorraine. And at each new location I dusted off the remnants of my O-Level French.

‘Pardon, maisonette, je n’ai pas de la monnaie.’

‘Ah, c’est l’année des guêpes!'

We explored lush green landscapes, rugged mountain roads and bleak grey hamlets. We encountered old men playing boules on village squares and young men playing baby-foot in late night bars. We avoided one town because on approach it seemed to be very smelly. Only later did we realise that we’d been following a sewage lorry round a ring road.

We were accompanied on the trip by Van Morrison’s elegiac ‘Poetic Champions Compose’ album, on repeat play. It seemed entirely appropriate.

'You're the queen of the slipstream with eyes that shine.
You have crossed many waters to be here.
You have drunk of the fountain of innocence.
And experienced the long cold wintry years.’
‘The Queen of the Slipstream’

On the long journeys Scouse Mike would amuse himself by hanging his head out of the car window. And when the two campers returned to their site each night, he insisted that Thommo stay up into the early hours drinking cheap warm red wine from plastic bottles.

Inevitably on a holiday of this nature, although we were pretty much aligned in terms of evening adventures, there were some disagreements about how to spend the daytime. Martin and I were interested in churches and chateaux. Thommo leaned towards nature and wildlife. Mike just wanted to have fun. 

To accommodate Mike we took in a terrifying luge trip down a mountainside. And when we visited the tomb of Eleanor of Aquitaine at the magnificent abbey at Fontevrault, he persuaded Thommo to stay outside and play footie. On another occasion he took over the map, and, without conferring, navigated us to a beach crowded with locals in skimpy trunks and bikinis. This was not my natural habitat. In protest I sat on a towel fully clothed with my top button done up. 

'Let go into the mystery.
Let yourself go.
You've got to open up your heart,
That's all I know.
Trust what I say and do what you're told,
Baby, and all your dirt will turn
Into gold.'
‘The Mystery’

We all look back on the holidays of our youth with great fondness. These were simple, carefree, happy times. And perhaps our exploits were all the more special because they were characterised by surprise, serendipity and strangeness. Everything seemed mysterious.

I read recently (The Guardian 14 May ‘Weird Dreams’) about a new theory of dreams.

Dreams have long fascinated scientists and psychoanalysts. Freud believed they were ‘disguised fulfilments of repressed desires.’ And through the years experts have variously hypothesized that they help us process our emotions; consolidate our recollections; make creative connections between memories; and practice our survival skills.

Erik Hoel, a research assistant professor of neuroscience at Tufts University in Massachusetts, has proposed that, by introducing the strange and bizarre to our habituated existence, dreams equip us to cope with the unexpected.

His theory was inspired by the field of machine learning. Artificial intelligence often becomes too familiar with the data with which it’s been coached, assuming that this ‘training set’ is a perfect representation of anything it may subsequently encounter. To remedy this, scientists introduce some chaos into the data in the form of noisy or corrupted inputs.

Hoel suggests that our brains do something similar when we dream.  

‘It is the very strangeness of dreams in their divergence from waking experience that gives them their biological function.’

This suggests to me that we should think seriously about the role of the unusual and unfamiliar in our lives. 

Perhaps we should more actively embrace strange and bizarre events in our personal and professional worlds; not just in our dreams or on holiday, but in our day-to-day experience. Maybe we should use the weird and wonderful to ward off the narrowing perspectives brought on by habit, custom and age. Maybe we would do well to regard disruption, not just as a revolutionary market force; but as a necessary part of our daily regime.

Despite our excellent gastronomic adventures, by the last night of our tour of France I was pining for some familiar food. Spotting ‘fromage blanc’ on the menu, I assumed it was cheddar and ordered it with eager anticipation. When it arrived it was worryingly soft and smelly. 

I ate it nonetheless.

'I've been searching a long time
For someone exactly like you.
I've been travelling all around the world
Waiting for you to come through.
Someone like you,
Makes it all worth while.
Someone like you
Keeps me satisfied.
Someone exactly like you.’
Van Morrison, ‘Someone Like You’

No 328

A Family Outing to the Beach: There’s a Gap in the Market, But Is There a Market in the Gap?

'I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.’
John Masefield, ‘Sea Fever'

All through the school holidays we’d been pestering Dad to take us to the beach. He was somewhat reluctant, I suspect because he regarded summer as a time to be watching cricket on TV. 

And then one day, out of the blue, he announced:

‘It could be a good day to go to the seaside.’

I was a little confused. It was not the blistering hot day I had imagined. Rather it was overcast and blustery outside. Perhaps he’d been studying the weather forecasts and knew something we didn’t.

Mum packed some cheese and pickle sandwiches into the blue tartan picnic basket and prepared a Thermos of sweet tea. Dad ensured he had a supply of roll-ups to sustain him. We four kids picked up a few buckets and spades, and crammed into the back of the ageing Austin Cambridge (no seatbelts back then, of course). 

And so we all set off down the Arterial Road to the coast. The thrill of it all!

My friends at school had entertained me with stories of days out in Southend. I could expect a crooked house and a carousel at the Kursaal amusement park; candyfloss and kiss-me-quick hats on the pier. There would be crowds of carefree holidaymakers, abundant fish and chip shops, seagulls soaring up above. The town would be teeming with life.

When we’d been on the road for some time, Dad announced that we were not in fact heading for Southend, but nearby Walton-on-the-Naze. 

‘It won’t be so busy.’

He took us to a rather secluded part of the coast. It wasn’t really a beach - more rocks and pebbles than golden sand. And there was no one else there. 

This didn’t seem to trouble Mum, who made herself happy poking around among the shallow pools for elegant rocks and ancient fossils; nor Dad, who just stood there, admiring the view and puffing on his roll-ups.

‘I’ve always found water very relaxing,’ he sighed.

There’s a tatty old photograph of the family on the deserted beach at Walton-on-the-Naze that day. I used to keep it pinned to my desk at work.

Martin and I wear home-knit sweaters and school shorts, and Martin has adopted the confident squatting pose of a footballer from the Soccer Stars sticker album. Sarah and Anne are wrapped up in neat anoraks, and Anne seems to be carrying a Filofax 10 years ahead of her time. We’re all sporting sandals. Mum gives Sarah a tender embrace. 

Dad was probably happier taking the shot than appearing in it. He tended to avoid crowds and he had naturally shunned the hustle and bustle of Southend. No doubt he had calculated that a pebble beach on an overcast day would be more peaceful than a sandy shore on a sunny afternoon.

Of course, he was right. It was certainly tranquil. But to me as a child he seemed to have got it all wrong. This certainly wasn’t the day out at the seaside that I had envisaged.

There’s an old marketing saying: ‘There may be a gap in the market, but is there a market in the gap?’

The aphorism is designed to remind us that the existence of an empty space in a sector does not necessarily entail commercial opportunity. That space may be deserted for a reason.

We spend a good deal of time seeking out the roads less travelled; the unusual, uncommon and unfamiliar. We like to discover new territory, to pioneer new frontiers. But we must always ask ourselves: is there a good reason for this absence, this inaction, this stillness?

A year or so after our trip to Walton-on-the-Naze, one of Dad’s mates from the pub took Martin and me to Southend. We rode on the dodgems and ate candyfloss. We gambled on the slot machines and tottered around the crooked house. That day I had my first hamburger. It was at a Wimpy, and was washed down with an extravagant milkshake.

It was bliss.

'Somewhere beyond the sea,
Somewhere, waiting for me,
My lover stands on golden sands
And watches the ships that go sailin’.
Somewhere beyond the sea
She's there watching for me.
If I could fly like birds on high,
Then straight to her arms,
I'd go sailing.’

Bobby Darin, ‘Beyond the Sea’ (A Lasry / C Trenet / J Lawrence)

No. 323

Space Is the Place: Nostalgia for the Future

'Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.' 

I know exactly where I was just before 4-00AM on the morning of July 21, 1969. I was in the sitting room of 125 Heath Park Road watching TV. My parents had got Martin and me out of bed to see Neil Armstrong become the first person to set foot on the moon. I was 5 years old.

To be honest I’m not sure I recall the experience. Perhaps I just remember being told that I was there. But certainly rockets, space exploration and moon landings played an important part in my childhood. Back then we dreamed of astronauts, aliens and asteroids. We watched Star Trek, the Clangers and Thunderbirds on TV. We created space suits out of boxes and Bacofoil. And one summer Sister Mary Stephen helped me make a lunar landscape out of papier mache.

Armstrong: 'The surface is fine and powdery. I can kick it up loosely with my toe. It does adhere in fine layers, like powdered charcoal, to the sole and sides of my boots.’

Over the last few weeks there have been numerous documentaries and dramas commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the first lunar landing. I was particularly struck by the film ‘Apollo 11’, which edited together original footage from NASA and the National Archives. 

The crowd at Cape Canaveral wait expectantly in sun visors and straw trilbies. The women sport cat-eye shades. Families in striped summer shirts camp out on the parking lot at JC Penney’s. Wide-angled lenses are trained and at the ready. At Mission Control Center in Houston banks of clean-cut men in headsets attend to their monitors. They wear white short-sleeved shirts, thin ties and have pens in pocket protectors. Their desks are cluttered with coffee cups and ashtrays. After a steak-and-egg breakfast, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins complete their final checks and wave goodbye. Then the unbearable tension of the countdown...

‘12, 11, 10, 9, ignition sequence start.’ 

Time slows to a crawl…

‘6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, zero, all engines running.’ 

The thunderous roar, the fearsome commotion, as the Saturn V rocket escapes its umbilical tower, and takes off… 

‘Liftoff! We have a liftoff, 32 minutes past the hour. Liftoff on Apollo 11.'

It’s a familiar drama now, but it still sends a chill down my spine.

Collins: 'Well, I promise to let you know if I stop breathing.’

As the adventure continues, I can’t help being struck by the dry, understated humour of these brave, intelligent men. I fell in love with the United States in 1969, with this casual heroism, this easygoing informality.

Aldrin: 'Now I want to back up and partially close the hatch... Making sure not to lock it on my way out.’

For me as a child the space program was entirely optimistic, inspiring, euphoric. It was a compelling tale of vision, ambition, ingenuity and courage. The stainless steel plaque attached to the ladders of the lunar module stated: ‘We came in peace for all mankind.' And President Nixon, speaking on the phone to Armstrong and Aldrin while they were on the moon surface, intoned in his rich, gravelly voice:

'For one priceless moment in the whole history of man all the people on this Earth are truly one.'

There seemed something noble and uplifting about the whole endeavour.

Of course, looking at the flickering footage now, one can’t help noticing the shadow that the Eagle module cast over the moon’s surface. And there was a shadow over the space program too. 

There were protests about the US Government’s priorities at a time when the country was facing incredible poverty and inequality. At its peak in 1966, NASA accounted for roughly 4.4% of the federal budget. The resonance of Nixon’s words now seems tarnished by Vietnam and Watergate, and there’s a suspicion that we were simply witnessing another chapter of the Cold War. We also feel uncomfortable about the low representation of female and black faces at Mission Control; and the debris left on the lunar surface.

Armstrong: 'Isn’t that something! Magnificent sight out here.'
Aldrin: 'Magnificent desolation.’ 

Nowadays the future has lost some of its lustre. Although we’ve witnessed the most dramatic transformation since the Industrial Revolution, we have become concerned that the same technology that spreads knowledge and understanding can also intensify hate and bigotry; that a new corporate oligarchy threatens our privacy and security; that the freedoms of empowerment also carry the responsibilities of self-control. Inevitably we’re suffering change fatigue. 

Aldrin: 'We feel that this stands as a symbol of the insatiable curiosity of all mankind to explore the unknown.'

Despite the reservations, the Apollo 11 story prompts nostalgia for the future. It suggests that hope and optimism are the first steps to progress. It reminds us of the power of wide-eyed anticipation. We should not deny ourselves the chance to dream.

'I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth.'
President Kennedy, May 25, 1961

The US space program remains the definitive example of the motivational power of a clear and ambitious goal. It indicates that we can achieve great things if we channel talent and resource towards a unitary mission, if we commit to the principles of focus and weight.

Imagine reconvening those dudes in their thin ties and short-sleeved shirts. What if we could create the contemporary equivalent of Mission Control? What if we summoned a more diverse cross-section of the finest minds in the world, allocated proper investment, and set them a singular task? What if we asked them to save this planet rather than to visit some other celestial body?

Aldrin: 'There it is, it’s coming up!'
Collins: ‘What?'
Aldrin: 'The earth. See it?'
Collins: 'Yes. Beautiful.’

'Space is the place where I will go when I'm all alone 
Space is the place, 
Space is the place.’

Sun Ra, ’Space is the Place' 

No. 241

The Barber, The Bald Patch and the Crew Cut : The Outsiders Who Want to Belong

As a child I loved going to the barber’s.

Martin and I would stay over at Gran’s house on Northdown Road. In the morning she’d furnish us with a substantial cooked breakfast, laid out on a red gingham table cloth and washed down with sweet tea. Then she would send us on our way with a coin popped in our pockets and a sprinkle of holy water. We’d gallop down the road, all enthusiasm and expectation, to Leon’s, the small barber’s shop next to Hornchurch Bus Depot.

As we sat waiting in the queue, I soaked up the aroma of Brut, Old Spice and scented talc; the perky sound of Saturday morning Radio 1; the chat about politics, park football and factory life. Many of the clientele worked, as our grandfather had done, at the Ford plant in Dagenham. It was a robustly masculine environment and I felt a strong urge to belong.

Pete, the apprentice cutter, sported purple-tinted specs, generous flairs and a jaunty manner. Eventually he would reach for a wooden plank and place it across the arms of his barber’s chair. The plank served to raise youngsters to a manageable height and it was the signal that I was up next.

I was under strict instructions from Mum to request a crew cut. I’d been curling my hair and I was developing a bald patch. A severe cut would deprive my nervous hands of the material for play. And, to be fair, having observed the monkish tonsure of Michael McGinty, a fellow hair curler and pupil at Saint Mary’s, I was prepared to embrace the remedy. Martin didn’t share my weakness and he was allowed a ‘short-back-and–sides.’

Yet it was the early seventies, the era of Marc Bolan, glam rock and lustrous locks. And here was I ordering a crew cut. I was well aware that, with my shorn mane, I could kiss goodbye to classroom cool. I would be awkward and alone; outside and other.

Little did I know that my experience at the barber’s was equipping me for a career in commercial creativity. In creative businesses we need both the yearning to belong and the failure to do so. We need empathy and individuality in equal measure – empathy, to align our work with the true needs and tastes of our audiences; individuality, to catalyse invention and to set our ideas apart from our competitors.’

Finding a good balance between these two elusive qualities can prove taxing. Some strategists are perhaps too sensitive to the whims of consumers; some account managers listen too attentively to their clients; and some creatives are just too idiosyncratic. But therein lies the challenge. If you want to succeed in creative business, I’d suggest you need them both: empathy and individuality.

My mother’s ploy proved successful. Over a period of time my bald patch was re-thatched. Sadly, it was too late for me to join the in-crowd at Saint Mary’s. And I suspect I was scarred by the experience. In my adulthood, I have preferred hairdressers to barbers, and, whatever the fashion of the day, I have always let my hair grow long. 

No. 92

A Man Having Trouble With An Umbrella: Recognising the Power of Repetition

My grandfather was a retired policeman with a warm heart and authoritative manner. At weekends he would drive Martin and me along the A13 to his old haunts in Barking, Poplar and Limehouse. Hard to believe now, but ‘going for a drive’ was a popular leisure activity in the ‘70s. At traffic lights and junctions, Grandpa would playfully greet other drivers with a ‘Hello, Mary’ or ‘Yes, of course, Dave, you go first.’ He didn’t actually know Mary or Dave, but he was aware it amused us. And every time we went past a triangular sign indicating road works (by means of the silhouette of a labourer planting his shovel in a pile of earth), Grandpa would exclaim: 'There's a man having trouble with an umbrella!'

We loved that joke. To a young boy it was deeply silly, slightly surreal, somehow subversive. And it improved with repetition. As we rolled around in fits of laughter at the back of the Rover, the gag didn't seem trivial at all to us. It seemed important. And I'm pretty sure it was.

Repetition reassures. It creates a sense of familiarity, intimacy, common currency. Consider catchphrases and slogans; jingles, chants and incantations; aphorisms and end lines. These may be regarded as lower forms of expression, but they have an insidious potency. We assume that familiarity breeds contempt. But often the reverse is true: familiarity breeds contentment.

I recently came across a review of The Song Machine, a new book that considers the methods of the modern music industry and today’s high-tech record producers. It’s a calculating world of ‘writer camps’, ‘melodic math’ and the quest for elusive ‘bliss points.’ The author reaches an interesting conclusion about the science of hits:

‘For all the painstaking craft involved… the crucial factor in our emotional engagement with music is familiarity; in other words, if you were repeatedly to hear a song you didn’t like, that proximity would eventually breed affection.’

Mark Ellen/ The Sunday Times, reviewing The Song Machine by John Seabrook

That explains a lot...

Familiarity also resides at the heart of brand value. The first brands were founded on the reassurance of consistency: this product is the same as the last product you bought; it’s made from the same ingredients and it’ll perform in the same way.

I wonder, do we in modern marketing properly appreciate the power of repetition? Of course, we endeavour to be disciplined about visual identity; and, in a media context, we take account of frequency, dwell-time and wear-out. But this is a quantified, rational view of repetition. Do we really understand the qualitative, emotional value of repeated experience?

Earlier this year I attended a production of Aeschylus’ Ancient Greek tragedy, Oresteia. I was particularly struck by this exchange:

‘What’s the difference between a habit and a tradition?’
‘A tradition means something.’

At their best brands are not just mindless habits. Through repeatedly exploring territories and ideas that are relevant to people, the best brands establish their own meaning, their own traditions. In this age of nudge theory and behavioural economics, we spend quite a lot of time seeking to change habits. What would happen if we sought occasionally to establish traditions?

Certainly our creative instincts are all the time working against iteration. They urge us to embrace change, innovation and reinvention at every turn. Every campaign is a fresh challenge; every new brief is a blank sheet of paper. And these instincts are intensified in the modern age. There are infinite platforms to be filled with unique content; there are ever-increasing consumer appetites to be sated. We live in dynamic times of difference and diversity.

In our obsession with reinvention the commercial communication sector is at odds with other creative professions. In the film, gaming and TV industries the occurrence of a hit is a cue to explore sequels, series, formats and box-sets. Why are we so nervous of repeating success?

Of course, none of us needs a return to the dark days when advertising drilled the same messages into the crania of hapless, captive audiences; over and over again. In the interactive age we need communication coherence more than rigid consistency. We need theme and variation, call and response. We need campaigns that evolve and amplify.

It’s sometimes helpful to think of modern brands as ‘meaningful patterns.’ Brands reassure through rhythm and repetition. With infinite variety they examine, echo and expand ideas.

Some years ago I attended a talk by the esteemed fashion designer, Paul Smith. He explained that, when it came to window displays, he believed in ‘the power of the repeated image.’ Accompanying a pale blue cotton shirt with a royal blue version of the same shirt; and then navy and deep indigo; next to a twill or a denim execution of the same design; adding a polka dot pattern, a striped print or floral detail. It was theme and variation played by an orchestra of blue shirts. And it created a very compelling, harmonious effect. At once both thrilling and reassuring.

Perhaps the power of repetition in the digital age is best expressed through the concept of memes. For many marketers memes are merely a form of iterative campaign, something involving white type and cat videos. However, insofar as a meme is ‘an element of a culture or system of behaviour passed from one individual to another by imitation or other non-genetic means’ (OED), then surely brands are memes. Brands exist not in factories or spreadsheets or shop shelves. They exist in people’s minds and in their behaviours. For what is a brand, if not a shared set of behaviours and beliefs? We always sought to create content for brands that was 'talkable'; nowadays we aim to create the imitable, adaptable, copyable and repeatable.

Of course, brand management is fundamentally a  balancing act between consistency and change. Some brands are too conservative; others are too capricious. Working out whether to 'stick or twist' is a critical marketing skill. All I'm saying here is that, occasionally, in times of transformation, the argument for holding a steady course gets shouted down.

Perhaps when we’re being seduced by the siren call for radical reinvention, we should also have the tender words of Billy Joel singing in our ears. Repeatedly.

‘Don’t go changing, to try and please me.
You never let me down before.
Don’t imagine you’re too familiar,
And I don’t see you anymore.
I would not leave you in times of trouble
We never could have gone this far
I took the good times, I’ll take the bad times
I’ll take you just the way you are.’

Billy Joel/ Just The Way You Are

No. 57

Chips & The Barking Creek Crisis

It was a long, long time ago. My brother Martin and I would accompany our ageing grandfather and his tortoise-shell bull terrier Chips, for walks by Barking Creek. This was a windswept, desolate place. We could play freely in the derelict gun emplacements, throw sticks for Chips to fetch, and cast messages-in-bottles out into the brackish water.

Chips was our widowed grandfather's soulmate. They went everywhere together.

One day by the Creek, Chips began scampering off into the distance and we chased after him. He kept running and we kept following. Soon our grandfather was left far behind, unable to keep up, and Chips kept running, and we kept following.

It seemed that Chips was on a break for freedom. Our grandfather would soon be bereft of his fondest companion. Martin and I began to panic.

I turned around and shouted to grandfather, now way back in the distance. "Grandpa, Chips is running away. What do we do?" ''Stop running," he cried. And we did. And Chips stopped too.

I guess the Barking Creek Crisis taught my brother and me a lesson about cause and effect. We thought Chips' running was the cause of our running. In fact the reverse was true.

It was a useful lesson. In life we often unwittingly confuse cause and effect. When we look at the world around us, we rage against what we imagine to be the causes of our problems, but frequently they are just the effects of them. And when we look at ourselves, we imagine we are at the centre of our own universes, influencing events, determining our futures. We tend to see ourselves as causes, when in fact we are effects. Because for most of us, most of the time, our behaviours, and even our beliefs, are the effects of other people's habits, tastes and preferences, of extraneous events, of conditioning, custom and convention.

It's a melancholy truth, but perhaps inertia is the driving force in much of our personal and work lives: the endless repetition of patterns that were laid down by others years before; theme and variation played out with infinite variety.

Working in a creative business we may think we are different; that we are the ultimate paradigms of free expression, that we are causing change on a daily basis. It's in the job title. But often much of a creative agency's activity entails translating, transplanting, adopting and adapting. Responding to events, to competitive action, to the predispositions of clients and customers, to the conventions established by our seniors and forebears. Executing the strategy, extending the campaign, evolving the idea. Much of the time we're just keeping the train on the tracks.

You might imagine our clients would wish for more than this. But often their primary focus is the management of consistent delivery and performance across time, geography, platform and outlet. They don't want to change the world. They're not looking for a New England. They’re just looking for another year of steady, incremental growth.

Now you may find these observations a little depressing. But I don't. For me they serve to illuminate the fact that genuine, original, creative thought is a rare and precious thing. Pure creativity, the kind that rewrites rules, reinvents language, changes minds and precipitates new behaviours, is not called into play very often, even in a creative industry. But when it is, there are few people and few businesses that can deliver it. Creativity's value is enhanced, not diminished, by its rarity.

Indeed, although much of commercial life is driven by conformity and consistency, systems and processes, creativity is becoming more, not less, important. Because, in a more confident economy, CEOs and shareholders are less and less satisfied with modest, incremental growth rates. They are setting more ambitious plans for the future. They are asking for step change innovation. Inevitably the strategies and behaviours that deliver steady, incremental growth are not fit for dramatic step change. And the people who are suited to keeping a train on the tracks are rarely capable of laying new lines.

As one of our founders, Nigel Bogle, has expressed it, 'growth needs space'. And to discover new space you need a pioneering spirit, a very particular combination of original thought, persuasive skill and mental stamina. Pure creativity is not just the best answer; it is the only answer.

If you're pursuing a creative career, you may be intimidated by the scale and congestion of the creative industry. But fear not. If you genuinely have the ability to ignore convention, to set aside case studies and best demonstrated practice; if you can find a way of changing the behaviour and belief of individuals, and thereby communities and cultures, you'll go far. Because there aren't many people like you around: People who dare to be different; to be a cause, not just an effect.

First Published: YCN Magazine 10/07/2014

No. 29

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