Who said fundamentalism only exists in politics and religion. Whoever it was has obviously never been involved in the real world. Here’s the news, fundamental extremists are all around us, day in, day out. In all forms and shapes; in all cultures and value systems. How do I know? Because I meet them everyday, I read their thoughts in the ‘Letters to the Editor’, I hear them on the radio and watch them on the TV.
Explore our historical blog articles for nuggets of wisdom (and random musings) from our crew.
Lafcadio Hern was a master of English. Today, he would have been apoplectic – when ‘wicked’ is defined as ‘good’; when ‘cool’ is a response and not an adjective; when ‘awesome’ can mean anything you like and ‘talk to the hand’ is a form of rejection. Yes good old LH must be turning in his grave, poor chap.
When I use the word, it’s what I call a ‘face puller’. You know the casual conversation where you drop in the odd explanatory term and the guy opposite squeezes up his eyes and a slight dimple appears at the side of his mouth. It signifies of course that the person has absolutely no idea of what you’re talking about but he’s not going to say so. Let’s take a replay here. “Idiosyncratic; a characteristic … that is peculiar to an individual” and believe me when it comes to branding, the word is a big red light alarm.
I did it again today. As the ‘grown up; too old for anything; broken down’ marketer in the team, I infuriated the new Gens. of the office by attacking, none other than the use of the web by clients. I need some space here to argue my point because I know hundreds of web wankers will be all over me like treacle on a hot spoon.
In our business, being perturbed is a constant. You don’t wait to be frustrated you just know you’re going to be. What gets up my nose most is being forced to watch companies create marketing solutions that I know won’t work. By now you’ve probably decided that I’m an arrogant son of a bitch and you don’t care if I’m perturbed – well that’s OK but before you blow me off forever, hear me out!
I always thought that Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of Britain would have been a great source of wisdom to most pommies, at least until he befriended George W. However I never realised that, by accident, he would become a source of enlightenment for me. Knowing that I would be a useless politician, I have contented myself with the private study of British and U.S. politics and in accordance with my latest work I purchased a biography from a well known book store, which featured the life and times of Mr. Blair.
Exhibitionism is in and if you don’t believe me check out the net. – myspace.com; facebook.com. flickr.com etc. All, what we in the business call, UGC – that’s adspeak for User Generated Content. In my day you kept your snapshots in a scrap book and pics of ‘me’ doing stupid things were totally banned from sight.