McCann

McCann are taking a bit of a kicking at the moment. Senior staff being poached, clients in New York bailing out and all the usual shit one is accustomed to hearing about from the agency that used to by and large run Coca-cola worldwide and probably got a bit too fat on it.

I do urge you to read "For God, Country & Coca-Cola". It's freaking ace. It maps the brands distribution in advance of U.S. troops securing Europe, city by city during the second world war. It's one of my absolute favourite marketing stories and one that inspired me when pitching Coca-cola in Asia because I concluded in Vietnam, that with under the counter Coke sales in Ho Chi Minh, the beverage had succeeded where the US marines hadn't. Not a bad USP.

The creatives did good work on the "Freedom" positioning. I still believe its got legs today. Actually they went off piste and did some nuts stuff that would put CP&B to shame but Asian clients are reluctant to be first. In some ways it's the pressure of growth. Best work comes in a downturn.

Anyway, McCann aren't totally shit. I've bumped into two kick ass digital transmedia pieces from their Israeli office that are well worth your time.

I always know it's good when I think that's how I'd do it. Modest aren't I? Here's another.



PR brief anybody? So well done Nir who I think had a lot of input in this.

David & Goliath

Somebody on the Linkedin Planners page asked a question.

"Do you need a British accent to be a good planner?"

For fun I answered it. So this is a cut and paste job from last night though I'm even more pleased that I found a Carravagio to portray the drama.

The answer is no, but it helps. A better question would be why do British planners do so well? London is the home of planning so there's some heritage equity there. The accent has some Hollywood stereotypes. Villainous, Effete or Intellectual. All three help. Then there's the way the accent commands attention. I once read a script to a C Suite in Germany and the CEO said 'shit that sounds so much better in English'. 

But the real value of a British accent. And this is my hypothesis after watching American Planners in action, is that we have a pattern of inadvertently telling the unpalatable truth. One only needs to say Should George Bush be up for war crimes? Do Corporations commit ecocide? Are sales the only benchmark for great advertising? and there's a collective bowel movement around the meeting table. 

By the time the speccy Brit has shuffled out the room; maybe, just maybe, someone switched-on recognises it's not all about saying awesome all the time but about being a bit uncomfortable. 

Eternal optimism does indeed rock. But rock throwing is eternal. 

Ask David. 

Fuck it. Ask Goliath.

Goldman Stock - Hit By A Rock

For the first time since crony capitalism did a great rock and roll swindle on main street culminating in 2008's stand and deliver in the Whitehouse, it seems some judicial teeth are being bared. 

Frankly I didn't think the home of capitalism pie had the stones for it, but this story isn't going away any time soon. Goldman's stock looked like someone dropped a rock on it yesterday as shown above. It looks like they stitched up a young and cocky French patsy (The fabulous Fab) who appears, despite his gleaming education to have been in over his head.

As we've all learned since the word subprime entered the vernacular, a bucket of nuclear waste debt was extended to another financial firm by Goldman to distance them from the act of actually picking  the radioactive synthetic CDOs which they then shorted while ostensibly recommending long to their clients.

At worst their reputation just took a serious blow but the obvious head on the platter is their big Kahuna Lloyd Blankfein who conveyed that Goldman through capitalism were doing God's work. Even thought it's not exactly a footnote in Matthew 20:12 that Jesus lost the plot only once when casting the money changers OUT of the temple.

It's a helluva story.