Writer at large Mark Tungate finds himself trapped in Argentina – and in the past.
You want Disruption? You’ve got it: a giant cloud of ash sent the world spinning back in time, to an era when foreign travel was long, difficult and mostly over land.
Personally, I was stuck in Buenos Aires. The situation could have been worse, especially as I was stranded at the Alvear Palace, one of the most glamorous hotels in town. On Sunday night, the lobby bar was full of wealthy stragglers from around the world. It really did feel like an episode from an Agatha Christie novel.
After a bit of research, I discovered that pre-aviation travellers from Buenos Aires to France – where I am based – usually took a steamship to Bordeaux. The journey took three weeks. What a luxury it would be to have so much time today! One could read, think – or simply stare out at the ocean. And being so close to the waves, rather than soaring high above them, would remind us that nature is wild and dangerous.
The volcano disruption has served the same purpose. It has brought home the reality that the Global Village is virtual rather than actual. The networks that make the physical world a smaller place depend on technology that – apparently – is almost as sensitive to the caprices of nature as steamships were.
The difference, of course, is that we have the virtual world to rely on. Throughout my extended stay in Buenos Aires, I was constantly in touch with Air France, friends and relatives and news from around the world via the Internet. Ironically, this made me feel even more frustrated. At least the travellers of the past knew that they were cut off from civilisation, as did their loved ones. Today we can communicate with the entire world in an instant, and yet still feel very far from home.
Do you know why some companies are performing better in the crisis than others? And do you know why those same companies will emerge from the crisis in an even healthier position than before? It’s because they have strong cultures.
It is about having a vision, a belief system, an attitude and a worldview that is shared by the entire company. More than a simple guideline, it is a set of values. When a company has a strong culture, everyone in that organization not only supports decisions made by the CEO – but could have made the same decision in his or her place. In our digitalised, open-sourced society the culture is the brand. You cannot fake it.
Some of our clients have the strongest cultures of all. I have to mention Apple, because it’s such a great example. Thanks to the vision of Steve Jobs, Apple has a culture of creativity and innovation. ‘Think different’ was far more than an advertising slogan. It went to the heart of a way of thinking that has transformed the company. By thinking different, Apple shrugged off the notion that it was a mere computer maker and embraced the idea that it was a provider of tools for creative people. The result, of course, was iTunes, the iPod – and later the iPhone. These were radical new departures for Apple, but they were perfectly in tune with its culture.
Apple is well known for the loyalty it engenders among consumers. Needless to say, its employees are equally evangelical. When you go to an Apple store, you can tell the staff love working there. Why? Because a strong culture attracts the best employees. And when the economy crumbles, you want those people by your side.
So how do you build a strong company culture? For one thing, it takes time. You can’t just bolt it on. When you start a company, the culture is already taking root. In fact, very often, company cultures are created by strong leaders. The system may stay in place long after that person has left, but usually it can be traced back to a single inspiring figure.
At TBWA our culture is based on Disruption, which is all about questioning conventions in order to find a new path towards a larger share of the future. But when we organise Disruption exercises (we call them ‘Disruption Days’) for our clients, we do not ask them to change their cultures. In fact, we ask them to look deep within their cultures and identify their key points of difference, a vision and belief-system that sets them apart, makes them likeable or creates a campfire. In this way, we can unlock untapped potential. Companies often tell us that they have ‘found themselves’ after going through the Disruption process. It’s a liberating experience for them.
Take Kraft, who we recently invited to attend a Disruption Day when the company was reviewing the strategy for its Tassimo hot beverage maker. We transformed our Berlin office into an apartment, with a kitchen, a living room, a bedroom, a kid’s room. Read more…
Acclaimed filmmaker Spike Jonze premieres his latest work – I’m Here, a 30-minute short film – at the Sundance Film Festival this month as part of the first-ever Opening Night’s Shorts Program at the festival. The film is a collaboration with ABSOLUT VODKA, and the partnership acknowledges the brand’s position as a pioneering and culture-shaping brand. ABSOLUT has always stood out in the marketplace as a groundbreaking company that has been supporting artists for decades. Previous collaborations include those with Andy Warhol, Keith Haring and Helmut Newton. I’m Here honors the brand’s history while embarking on a new and innovative alliance with one of today’s most original filmmakers. The film came about when TBWA\Chiat\Day New York and ABSOLUT reached out to Jonze to make a film, and gave him creative control to create the film he wanted.
Read more about this groundbreaking project from TBWA’s New York office, and see the :60 trailer after the jump. Read more…
Rob Schwartz is the Chief Creative Officer of TBWA\CHIAT\DAY in Los Angeles He writes an “Inspiration is Everywhere” to the LA creative department every week. Sometimes, he shares them with us:
Amigos,
I watched the Golden Globes last night. I don’t usually watch the Golden Globes but I happen to love comedian/writer Ricky Gervais and he was hosting.
Yet is wasn’t Ricky or George Clooney or even the ever-prolific and brilliant Meryl Streep or for that matter the ever-prolific and brilliant Martin Scorsese who appeared as a flash of inspiration.
It was Robert Downey, Jr.
First off, he had by far the most genuine and funny acceptance speech of the night. Yup, in a show flooded with tears, thank yous, and seemingly endless shout-outs to various and sundry agents, studio muckety-mucks and hangers-on, ol’ RD,j bounded up on the stage and admitted that he “didn’t have anybody to thank.” And that everyone involved in the production needed him!
Of course, this was simply a rhetorical device. He used the negative to be extremely positive. See his disruptive speech here:
But it wasn’t simply RD,j’s sense of irony or spontaneous energy at the Globes that I find so inspiring. It’s deeper than that.
What really inspires me is his talent, his dedication to craft, his overall creative exuberance and excellence. Of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that he had a few rocky years in there. In fact, from 1996-2001, Robert was mired in a black hole of substance abuse, suicidal tendencies and general shit-bag behavior. Yet to his credit, he sought the help he needed and is now enjoying one of the best comebacks in Hollywood history.
Now I won’t dive too deep into his career here. You can go to wikipedia Or imdb to find out more.
I will list some of his most inspired performances that you might want to download and check out:
Sherlock Holmes
Ironman
Tropic Thunder
“Family Guy” (Patrick Pewterschmidt episode from 2005)
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
“Ally McBeal” (episodes from 2001)
Natural Born Killers
Chaplin
Saturday Night Live (He was a cast member 1985-1986)
Less Than Zero
Thanks for reading.
~Rob
If you have any comments or suggestions please email Rob Schwartz.
If anyone deserves their own holiday, it’s dogs. So let’s celebrate our best friends and recognize their contribution to the quality of life on earth. All we have to do is give our own dogs a little extra love, share our stories and pictures on this page and do a little something extra to make the world a better place for dogs.
So if you love dogs the way we love dogs, become a fan, post a picture, tell all your friends and family and download the flyers and stick them up all over.
Another Golden Drum: oh yeah, that means a whole week with a hangover and meeting new people who’s names won’t remember after the party. I love coming here – it’s like a week of holiday somebody else is paying for. It’s almost normal this year, only less crowded. The patio at the Hotel Bernardin is almost empty. Last year finding a place to have a drink there was almost a miracle.
Yes, it’s crisis time. But more important than the lack of money is the incredible shortage of good ideas. If you look closely at the works presented you’ll find that most of the inspiration comes from YouTube, and the rest from other ads. And that’s very sad for a profession that has “Creative” as a job title. All the shortlists are very short this year – and not only because the number of admissions was smaller.
What the hell has happened? I don’t know, I’m not the part of an advertising agency, but when I look around, I have the feeling that CREATIVITY with a big “C” is moving from the West to the East. And yet somehow Central and Eastern Europe are getting overlooked in this process. Maybe it’s because we have never learned to use the freedom to create? But we can still admire great art, paintings, poetry and so on created in the region – so why is no good advertising being produced? Please, will somebody explain to me this phenomenon, before I decide to change my profession? I’m so bored!
Agata Malkowska Szozda is a regular guest at the Golden Drum Festival. Agata is a reporter for Media & Marketing magazine from Poland.
The economy in Europe is down by 4,1% since last year.
The number of businesses going bust in this region increased by 11%.
The entries submitted to Cannes were down by 19,9 % this year.
I hate to be positive, but this is quite a string of exceedingly good news, isn´t it?!
What these numbers tell us, when we read them again after the initial shock, is that creativity is needed more than ever.
I find that very good news, because creativity is what we do.
Solving problems in an unexpected, clever way is our job.
Adding value to brands through our talent for communication.
The second thing these numbers teach us is, that quirky, exchangeable, not-brand-driven scam ads, only produced to impress award shows, are becoming as irrelevant as they were to brands and clients all the time anyway.
We´ll soon meet to look for this years Drums.
And I hope we will be able to give them to some fine and excellent thinking.
I hope we will see more than just another set of ads. I hope we´d rather see brilliant expressions of strong and valid ideas. Made to engage with our audiences out there.
Written and art directed to infect human beings with passion, wit and with a promise for a real contribution to their lives.
Because that is what we are there for.
As bold as it may sound, we can help to save the world from this crisis.
Because we are creatives. And creatives know more about love than war. And it´s always love that ends the crisis, as much as hostility causes it.
Let love rule.
Stefan Schmidt will share his experience heading the Golden Drum Film, Press, Outdoor and Radio Jury exclusively with the readers of mad-blog.com. Stefan is Chief Creative Officer of TBWA\Germany in Berlin.
If you have any comments or suggestions please email Stefan Schmidt.
The other day I have received an e-mail and a great initiative by the environmental non-profit called GREEN THING was introduced to me: Glove Love.
On the website they say: “There’s only one thing worse than not having any gloves when you need them – having just one.” With Glove Love they match up single gloves that have lost their original partners to create new and unique pairs. It’s part of our anti-waste initiative called ‘All Consuming’, which promotes the art of wasting nothing and using up everything.
I think it’s rather a lovely example of inspiration, creativity, technology, sustainability and connecting individuals through a shared passion.
At TBWA our culture is based on Disruption, which is all about questioning conventions in order to find a new path towards a larger share of the future. But when we organise Disruption exercises (we call them ‘Disruption Days’) for our clients, we do not ask them to change their cultures. In fact, we ask them to look deep within their cultures and identify their key points of difference, a vision and belief-system that sets them apart, makes them likeable or creates a campfire. In this way, we can unlock untapped potential. Companies often tell us that they have ‘found themselves’ after going through the Disruption process. It’s a 
If anyone deserves their own holiday, it’s dogs. So let’s celebrate our best friends and recognize their contribution to the quality of life on earth. All we have to do is give our own dogs a little extra love, share our stories and pictures on this page and do a little something extra to make the world a better place for dogs.
The other day I have received an e-mail and a great initiative by the environmental non-profit called 
