Everybody's free

Wear sunscreen.  

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it.  

The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists whereas the rest of my advice on the words and phrases that I believe are underused in marketing has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience.  

I will dispense this advice now. 

I don’t know 

Our industry rightly talks about collaboration and partnership with clients. One ingredient both these things need is honesty and, in the context of clients seeing agencies as hired expertise, saying I don’t know is the rawest form of this.    

You may feel exposed saying it remember it is not an admission of idiocy or incompetence, it is the recognition that marketing is hard and that no one can ever master it. It evolves with new channels and tactics; the landscape shifts with competitive pressure; and customer expectations never stay still.  

Foundational principles exist that we should all know (Les Binet, Peter Field, Orlando Wood, Richard Shotton, Byron Sharp, Jenni Romaniuk have authored some of these) but a change I’d love to see is for more marketers to approach projects with the attitude of a scientist – the things we don’t know are exciting and offer the possibility of producing stand-out work.   

So, say when you don’t know. The recall of knowledge and trained instinct are both valuable but the underlying talent you should covet more is having the experience of tools and techniques plus the attitude to find the right answer, however hard.  

Let’s do the same again 

The allure of new shiny things and short-termism is well documented and appears to be blocking many marketers from thinking about what approaches or assets they could run again or tweak slightly. This is a shame as repetition is an important feature of building distinctive brand assets. There is a strong pool of evidence showing that the reiteration of these verbal, visual, and sensory assets leads to mental shortcuts for buyers that contribute to improved marketing effectiveness.    

I’m not going to write too much on this because everything I want to say was put far more eloquently by Orlando Wood in a recent discussion with Mark Ritson.

I disagree AND are we wrong 

You may disagree – you have every right to – but the art of considered debate needs to be more practiced in all walks of life.  

In our world, productive sceptism is undervalued and underserved by many agency/client relationships. We’ve built mechanisms that reduce the probability of conflict-based disagreement – the creative brief, water-tight SOWs, detailed project plans – but we don’t necessarily practice the softer skills that lead to constructive debate.  

My advice on this would be to encourage every member of a team – client and agency – to answer the question “are we wrong?” or “what would we see if we are wrong?” at key checkpoints throughout the project. This collective challenge takes the pressure out of the situation, making any disagreement collaborative rather than confrontational. It gives everyone the permission to find ways to improve the brief or creative concept which benefits all parties.  

Admitting mistakes and changing course also happens to be a habit of the world’s best forecasters. “Successful forecasters aren’t afraid to change their minds and are comfortable with the notion that fresh evidence might mean abandoning an old view”: a useful skill for anyone in marketing. I’d recommend reading Tim Harford’s article on “How to See into the Future” if you want to know more about the other characteristics of the world’s best forecasters.  

To conclude 

Maybe you’ll build a successful campaign, maybe you won’t. 
Maybe you’ll win an award, maybe you won’t. 
Maybe you’ll retire at 90 having squandered your riches on coffee and moleskine notepads.  
Maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on the stage of the Cannes Lions. 
Whatever you do see your work as fun, relish the challenge, and don’t be afraid to challenge to norms in our industry…you may find that most people know they are wrong anyway.    

And if in doubt, listen to advice that will always be relevant.