Hugh Salmon

Originally posted by Hugh Salmon, Jun 16 2010, 07:33 AM

In the 11 June Campaign feature on WPP’s 25th anniversary, and in the editorial which discussed ‘why opinion will always be divided over Sorrell’, one factor was not mentioned, but which I think is very important – especially since the eruption of this horrendous and divisive BP crisis.

Before WPP bought them, all of the four agency networks – JWT, Ogilvy, Y&R and Grey – were American owned and managed out of the US.

When WPP bought Ogilvy & Mather (as it then was), I was doing my stint as General Manager of O&M Thailand.

Overnight, literally, our financial reporting was to London not New York.

As well as the instant – and more rigorous – accounting practices we had to accept, the Britishness of WPP was definitely an influence on our clients and our people (and a shock to our bosses in New York).

I am not saying this was a good or a bad thing. Certainly not in terms of the day-to-day management of our clients’ business. But, in a strange and sometimes rather sad way, the billions of people living in the ‘emerging’ markets aspired to ‘Western’ brands and values. I believe they still do.

My driver (best perk, and one of the finest people, ever), grew his little finger nail to over an inch long. This showed he did not work in the fields which, culturally, was very important to him. And it made him feel proud.

Those one rung up the social ladder liked to show off their success too. One way to do this was to be seen to be able to afford Western brands – clothes, watches, perfume, whisky, cigarettes (the saddest bit) etc.

Within the word ‘Western’, do they differentiate between ‘American’ and ‘European’? I don’t know. Maybe you can forward this link to colleagues and contacts in your overseas offices. I would be interested to find out.

My instinct is that – culturally, aesthetically and artistically – it can only be a good thing that of the four major multinationals in our business, two are American (Omnicom and Interpublic) and two are European – one French (Publicis) and the other British (and Irish).

I suspect they may be joined by an Asian competitor in due course. Dentsu still haven’t cracked it globally. Yes, consumers buy Japanese products in these markets (by the bucketful). But do they aspire to them? Again, I don’t know. But I would like to.

One final, small point. When WPP took over O&M, David Ogilvy, an English gentleman with brains, allegedly called Sir Martin an ‘odious little jerk’.

In response, Sorrell persuaded Mr Ogilvy to be Chairman of WPP. Without wishing to seem obsequious, I think you have to be a big man to do that.

Originally posted by Hugh Salmon, Jun 10 2010, 11:48 PM

At what point does impact become intrusion?

Whistleblowing is a special interest of mine. I have personal experience of it. And it was included in my Manifesto at the last General Election:

“I support and applaud the work of the charity ‘Public Concern at Work’ (www.pcaw.co.uk) which helps whistleblowers act in the public interest.”

Much to their credit, PCAW pioneered the Public Interest Disclosure Act and drove it through Parliament.

So I was delighted to learn that, yet again, the Tories have taken one of my recommendations on board and that yesterday (9 June 2010), in his Oral Statement to the House of Commons, Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said:

“I can announce today that we are going to give teeth to the current safeguards for whistleblowers in the Public Interest Disclosure Act by reinforcing the NHS Constitution to make clear the rights and responsibilities of NHS staff and their employers in respect of whistleblowing”.

However, my joyful enthusiasm and support for this announcement was tempered by something which suddenly made me very bad-tempered indeed.

Also yesterday (yes, the same day!) at the check-out counter of a reputable High Street store whose initials are M&S, I noticed that among the ‘official England product’ merchandise on offer is a red-ribboned chrome whistle.

I think, by now, most of us have worked out that the World Cup is upon us.
 
And I am delighted that it may provide one of the rare occasions where the English people can unite as one in support of our team. Convergence at last!
 
And I have no objection to public displays of support that will play their part in this convergence.
 
Key rings? Fine, though not essential.
 
T-shirts? OK too, though not too heavy on the belly please.
 
Flagging down cars? If you must.
 
But what possible contribution will be made by the blowing of these loathsome whistles whose sole planetary existence is to attract attention by making a noise?

What will these ‘official’ whistles – most likely blown by drunken football fans late at night on their way back from the pub – add to our enjoyment of this wonderfully convergent event?

Let me tell you, if I hear so much as a whisper from just ONE of these whistles, I for one am going to blow my top.

Originally posted by Hugh Salmon, Apr 13 2010, 12:19 AM

When does a name become a brand? And at what stage of a brand’s development can it rely on the mere transmission of its name to justify expenditure on the exposure of its name alone?

For example, how do marketers justify investment in the presence of their name on the side of a golf ball, or the side-line of a football pitch or the side-pod of the nose-cone of a Formula One car?

I have never really understood this side of our market. These ‘sponsorship’ brands aren’t making a claim. They rely on their name.

To people who do not understand the meaning of the word ‘brand’, I advise them to substitute the word ‘brand’ with the word ‘personality’.

Once they have understood this, they can then understand that brands rely very heavily on their name. In fact, for most brands, their name defines the brand, although there are some exceptions, such as Nike and Shell, where a visual device says it all. These are formula one brands.

There is an inherent truth behind these brand names. People know what they stand for and what they can get out of them.

Thus, I suppose, ‘reminding’ people of a brand name alone is money well spent. Personally, I still don’t get it, but people do it – so it must be justifiable expenditure.

In the real world, having established a brand like say, Dove, the brand’s personality can be extended into new product areas and new income streams. But you need to connect the claim of old brand to delivery in new product.

And in the High Street, signage is very important. The name of the store, even if it is as fatuous as Fat Face, defines the personality of the brand and so encourages shoppers to feel comfortable entering the store.

Unfortunately, these days, it seems the same shops with the same signs and the same personalities are all on the same-looking High Streets in same looking towns. Wherever you go, the names are the same.

Talking of towns, I have always been interested in the fact that people have a preconceived perception about a place that may not be based on reality, and where they may never have even been. For example why has Slough always been defined as such a rotten borough? It can’t all be down to one poem by John Betjeman.

Indeed, the place I live and work also seems to be looked down on by certain folk, especially those North of the River Thames.

Why is the case and how can one change it?

When I moved The Salmon Agency to Clapham Junction 10 years ago, we were paying £12 per square foot compared to over £50 a square foot in Victoria – 7 minutes away on a train.

Because Clapham Junction is a ‘main line’ rather than a ‘tube’ station, people think you have to wait for a train or find a timetable – unlike the Underground, where you just turn up hoping a train will turn up too.

Unless you live near Clapham Junction, that is, in which case you will know that trains to Victoria and Waterloo leave every few minutes.

In fact, in terms of frequency of trains to London, to all intents and purposes, Clapham Junction operates as an Underground station – one stop to Vauxhall, two stops to Waterloo and, often, one stop to Victoria.  You seldom have to wait more than five minutes for a train into town.

So I have always told visitors to my office that Clapham Junction raises an interesting branding issue based on people’s automatic perceptions of a ‘main line’ rather than ‘tube’ station.

But Clapham Junction has another, much bigger branding issue.

Clapham Junction is not in Clapham at all. It is in Battersea.

Clapham is the other side of Clapham Common and Wandsworth is the other side of Wandsworth Common and Clapham Junction is bang between the two – in Battersea. That brand ‘Clapham Junction’ is not based on an inherent truth. It is where it isn’t.

And it is really boring when you live and work here and tourists come out of the station, often laden with baggage from Gatwick, and ask the directions for a road in Clapham and you have to tell them they are not in Clapham at all.

It doesn’t give visitors a favourable first impression of London.

I also think it is really important for the people who live here to have a positive sense of identity about the area they live in.

So I wonder if towns and urban areas like Clapham Junction could identify and admit to their inherent truth (or lack of).

Would Clapham Junction benefit from a change of name to, say, Battersea Junction and could marketing and communications experts use this to launch and establish a greater sense of pride and identity in a place just like they do with ‘brands’?

And, if this could be done, could the new name signal a new direction and a new sense of identity and a new sense of pride and maybe even better behaviour and respect for people within their neighbourhood?

I wish.

Originally posted as A Different Hat, Mar 08 2010, 10:49 PM

So, David Cameron and Michael Gove want us to adopt the Swedish education model.

I once had an educational, indeed enlightening, experience in Sweden.

It involved a media channel that may never be used for commercial purposes – but which is very important. In fact, it can save lives.

I am talking about the little red and green ‘men’ that light up on and off at pedestrian crossings. Their aim is to tell you whether or not it is safe to cross the road. (Can I call them ‘men’? Probably not, especially in Sweden. But I’m not there now.)

Anyway, there I was in a provincial Swedish town, with my better half, clutching the hands of our two toddler children and waiting to cross a road – as it happened, a very straight road.

And we waited. And waited. Some people joined us. And then some more.

The red ‘man’ was alight. He stayed alight. And he stayed alight.

He just wasn’t moving. In fact, nothing was moving. 

I looked left. No traffic for miles.

I looked right. No traffic for miles.

I looked left again. And right again. And left again.

“Why don’t these other people cross the road”, I asked my better half.

“Because we are with children”, she said. “Otherwise they would”. 

Would the Conservatives, or any other of our revered career-politicians, succeed in educating our children to behave in such a thoughtful and civilised way when they grow up?

Originally posted as A Different Hat, Jan 25 2010, 10:18 PM

It is all very well for creative agencies to be proud of their work but how ‘creative’ are they really? Despite all the talent they employ, very few agencies or publicly quoted communications groups pro-actively create new businesses which, in turn, create proprietary financial value. It is far easier for agencies to react to client briefs and respond as best they can.

Admittedly, creative agencies have a history of spawning great novelists, but how many of the online and digital media businesses that have made financial fortunes over the last few years have emerged from creative and media agencies – or the groups that own them? For example, how many have developed Apps for which they own the IP? Very few, if any.

Last week (22 January 2010), Campaign reported the rebirth of The School of Communication Arts (SCA 2.0). This initiative not only aims to attract new and more diverse talent to the industry but has also developed a uniquely creative approach as to how such a venture could be funded and managed.

The School is aiming to raise money from ‘patrons’ in order to provide scholarships for the students who, as part of the course, will be mentored by industry experts. Even more intriguingly, in return for scholarship investments of up to £20k a year, the students (aka ‘ideapreneurs’) will be briefed to create businesses that will be launched in the big wide world. For real. And the patrons will be allocated shares, creating the opportunity to make financial returns on their original ‘investment’ in the School.

Marc Lewis, whose mission it has to relaunch SCA 2.0 as a measure of thanks to – and respect for – his late mentor, John Gillard, has clearly defined his objectives and developed this truly creative solution.

It is true that waves of new agencies emerge from time to time, but very few apply their creative skills to create businesses outside their own comfort zone. I know of only one agency that, rather then rely on the fee- paying model, has re-modelled itself to create its own clients in return for equity and financial value. But how many of these are out there?

Last year, Sir Martin Sorrell admitted: “The people who run agencies tend to be of an older vintage – to put it politely. They tend to be resistant to change and want to spend the last three to four years of their careers travelling around the world rather than dealing with fundamental strategic issues on a daily basis”.

If creative agencies can’t move with the times, and develop ‘ideapreneur’ – or, perhaps, ‘interpreneur’ – strategies themselves, how credible are they to clients, their own industry and the wider world from which they have become so disconnected?

Agencies, clients, and the media companies in which their work appears, especially the major multinationals in all three, should not only support The School of Communication Arts 2.0 – but they should also learn from its example.

Originally posted as A Different Hat, Jan 04 2010, 09:58 AM

Critics of marketing and advertising often accuse us of creating ‘noise’ and
‘clutter’ (unless we tell them about something they want or find useful).

But there is one communications tool which, to my knowledge, has never
been commercialised – but does make a noise. In fact, it exists to make a
noise.

It is the horn of your car.

And, for some time, the question I have been asking myself is whether or
not the intrusion, and occasional offence, of the noise made by car horns
is disproportionate to the consumer benefit it generates?

I live in a ‘normal’ London street of ‘normal’ terraced houses. And I have
come to learn what people are saying when they use their car horns. I’ve
got the language.

There is the very early in the morning noise which is two short toot-toots,
just like that. Toot-toot. This is the 5am cab that has come to pick up the
guy with the Porsche three doors down to tell him ‘I am here to take you
to the airport’. Toot-toot. (Getting out of the car and ringing Mr Big’s
doorbell does not seem to be an option).

Ok, I know this is one important guy but, just because he needs to be up
early, do all of us who live nearby have to wake up too?

Then, because my road has been conveniently designed to allow two cars
to only JUST not-be-able to pass each other, one car has to pull in to
allow the oncoming car through. By definition, it tends to be the case that
this situation is more prevailing with the 4×4 status-symbol vehicle than
the smaller, more street-friendly models (some of which are quite smart).

If there is nowhere to pull in, and both cars have committed to the road,
they meet in the middle, realise one of them is going to reverse all the
way back down again, know for a fact that it is the other idiot who should
do this and – just to make their case more compelling – emit the much
angrier, longer and louder ‘tooooot’. This is the ‘I got here first and I ain’t
moving’ message.

It can happen at any time, day or night, and it means that all of us who
live nearby, some of whom might be ill or have had a sleepless night with
a new baby, have to wake up. And then, having been woken up by the
first ‘tooooot’, we get the equally loud responding ‘tooooot’ – leading to a
series of toooooting ripostes of varying length and frequency of response.

Sometimes, one of the drivers gets out of his or her car and shouts loudly
at the other driver through the closed window and, by now, locked door of
the opponent. My theory is that this person is the loser. The physical act
of getting out of the car, the delivery of a voluminous volley of verbal
abuse, the stomping retreat and the loudest possible slamming of the car
door on re-entry is actually the final gesture of submission leading to an
inevitable, angry reversal of that driver’s position.

If this happens in the middle of the day, and you are wide awake, this can
all be quite entertaining and even lead to a shrug and a seen-it-all-before
wave to your neighbour in the house over the road. Oh what fun!

But, if it is in the middle of the day, and you have had a bad night’s sleep
because of that baby again or you are ill or you are jet-lagged Mr Big, this
is a hell of an intrusion and extremely annoying.

Round here, these are just two of the most common uses of the car horn
medium.

But, from what I have heard, the absolutely most common use of the car
horn is the one that substitutes those two short words, the second of
which is ‘off’. This is the long, loud ‘TOOOOT-TOOOOT-TOOOOT’.
Someone has pulled out or changed lanes or merely even slowed down to
let someone else in. Clearly, this absolutely deserves the full shot-gun
volley of horny abuse and everyone – resident, pedestrian, mild mannered
pensioner at the bus stop – yes, all of us have to know that one driver is
telling another that he or she is a tooting moron and should toot off.

So why do we have these car horns?

Yes, I know that on country lanes, you need to let someone know you are
approaching a corner. But how often does that happen?

Yes, I know that at town traffic lights, you have to alert the person who
has not noticed the light ahead of you has gone green. But how do you
know they are going to hear you? For all you know, they could be listening
to loud garage music or be on the phone. These days, however loud you
toot, how do you know your noisesome message will be heard?

Until recently, I thought my horn-aversion was a strictly personal foible.

But then, late last year (December 2009), I had to catch one of those Mr
Big early morning flights to a meeting in Vienna. And guess what? As we
approached the centre of this old and beautiful city, we passed a road sign
that had a picture of a bugle-looking thing with a red line across it.

I turned to the cab driver (for it was he) and asked “what does that sign
mean?”.

“It means you cannot use your car horn”, he said.

“What, not at all?” I retorted, amazed and in hope.

“Not in the centre of the City of Vienna”.

Oh joy! Oh wonder! Oh Christmas! Oh the Sound of Music!

So there you go. If they can do it in Vienna, why can’t they do it here?
Shall we launch a Campaign? You can sign up here.

Otherwise, why not join me in my New Year’s Resolution never to use my
horn unless absolutely necessary – and certainly never in anger?

Toot-toot.

Originally posted as A Different Hat, Dec 04 2009, 02:37 PM

Don’t any of these highly paid BBC executives or flipping MPs understand just how much £142.50 means to people in the real world out there?

Actually, I mean the real Britain, not the real world. In fact, that’s my point.

When CNN was launched in 1980, it had had almost zero content. Now it is a massive worldwide media powerhouse. And, in those far off days of 1980, do you know what content viewers were prepared to sign up to?

Well, I can tell you. In some parts of the world, such was CNN’s dearth of content, and so desperate was CNN to expand globally, that viewers in say, Asia, were prepared to sign up and pay for the CNN weather forecast for yesterday in Florida from the day before yesterday.

Get that? On a Wednesday in Asia, people would watch the weather forecast from the previous Monday for what the weather would be in Florida on Tuesday, the day before they were viewing this ‘forecast’. Why would people, sweating in Hong Kong or freezing on Mount Fuji, pay for that? But they did.

And, more importantly, how ON EARTH did the BBC ever allow this to happen? How did the BBC even allow CNN to take off at all, let alone for Ted Turner to laugh all the way to the bank and into Jane Fonda’s arms?

I’ll tell you why. It was because of the licence fee.

The BBC management never had to worry about revenue, never had to bother about the sheer hunger for news and entertainment from billions of people with billions of televisions and radios, never had to think about the explosion in world markets with worldwide corporations and worldwide brands and certainly never saw that, one day, there might be a worldwide web of people with a world vision.

They just sat their – myopically – in Regent Street or Shepherd’s Bush and ‘earned’ their fat salaries based on their entirely forecastable revenue that was being provided by taxing the relatively small number of Brits who were forced to pay for these short-sighted people.

And, all this time, which of the BBC and CNN had a worldwide reputation, largely through the World Service, for editorial integrity, expert journalism and TRUST?

And which of the BBC and CNN had a catalogue of content of such outstanding creative quality that they are still repeating it to this day?

The answer, of course, is the BBC.

Remember, we are talking about ALL of the programming EVER produced by the BBC up to 1980 versus CNN with virtually NO CONTENT at all.

Because of this, CNN’s very existence is a national disgrace to the British people. We should be ashamed of ourselves.

So what can we do about it?

Well, there is only one answer. Punish these BBC wasters by setting them a commercial challenge that – if they cannot fulfil – will force them to take their fat pensions and fast forward themselves off somewhere else. They should be ashamed to show their faces in the High Streets of Britain.

Right now, they have a strategy to save money and be more politically correct by moving a chunk of their business to Manchester. What do their potential audience in India and China and the whole wide world care about that? We are talking about an audience of BILLIONS here.

It gets worse.

According to Campaign Live last week, “The BBC is considering floating a portion of BBC Worldwide, its commercial arm, following increased pressure from the government and commercial rivals to reduce its media market power…….the company is reported to be holding talks with City advisers regarding the issue as part of a strategic review of its worldwide entity, which is estimated to have a total equity value of £2 billion.”

BILLIONS of people – and now BILLIONS of pounds?!

And, in all this, the BBC STILL wants a few million Brits, many of whom are struggling like never before, to cough up £142.50 a year to fund this madness. Get this – £142.50 is DOUBLE the dole of increasing numbers of our people – and, to some, over A MONTH of their disability allowance.

What ON EARTH is going on?

Here is one solution. The UK taxpayer should set the BBC a limit of five years to reduce the licence fee to nothing by that time. As a sop, they should be allowed to sell advertising on a commercial basis except on BBC 2, BBC Radio and BBC World Service. After that, they should be set a target of paying corporation tax on profits at competitive market levels so that some of this £2 billion can be returned to the hands that have fed this antiquated and myopic anachronism for so long.

I don’t care about the execution but it must be right that the strategic objective must be to force the BBC to face the commercial realities of the big, wide world out there and stop bleeding the poor people in the UK to enrich yet another bunch of ‘City advisers’ and entertain audiences around the globe.

It is the UK taxpayer who deserves – at last – to receive the BBC for free. It is the time for the rest of the world to pay us for that privilege. And it is the human responsibility of the BBC’s management to make this happen.

Originally posted as A Different Hat, Dec 18 2009, 01:15 PM

Early in my career, a rock band asked me to be their manager. I listened to their demo and was impressed but, for various reasons, I was more than a little underwhelmed by the music business at the time.

And I had one big doubt in my mind. They didn’t want to play live. They just wanted to be a studio band. As their potential manager, I knew that this would be a dangerous way forward. Actually, I thought it would restrict their potential to make money, which I wanted them to do (so I could take a cut for me too), but this didn’t seem to matter to the band. They just wanted to sit in a studio, get stoned and make great music.

Luckily, I knew the Managing Director of Island Records. He agreed to meet for a beer one lunchtime. We did that kind of thing in those days.

He told me something very interesting and I have never forgotten it. He said the Island Records philsophy was very simple.

If a band was big in Dublin and if, every week, more and more fans turned up to see them, Island would encourage the band to go and play in Belfast.

If, then, more and more fans turned up to see them in Belfast, they would encourage and, by this time, pay for them to play in Cardiff – and then Leicester, then Manchester, then London and then the world.

Of course, he was talking about U2. In fact, at the time of our beer (or three), he told me Island Records were out of pocket to U2 to the tune of nearly a million pounds – and those were the days when a million quid was worth a flipping lot more than an MP’s house.

But Island knew four things;

1. They knew that wherever U2 played, they would build an audience.

2. They knew that if U2’s music was popular in one country, it would be popular in the next country.

3. They knew that U2 were young and hungry and just wanted to play live music to live people – every night if possible. Gigs were their passion.

4. And the last thing Island knew was that if, wherever they went, U2 could pack out pubs and clubs and stadiums, then Island could sell a lot of records for U2 (and take a cut for them too).

And so I went back to my mates and told them that my career as manager of a rock band was over before it had started. And the band never made it either. No gig-time, no big-time (sorry).

But I have never forgotten this very important lesson. I guess you could call it ‘bottom up’ rather than ‘top down’ marketing.

However, in this digital age, is this lesson relevant any more?

Certainly, the music market has been turned upside down. Now, bands give away their ‘records’ for free online. Then, when the music has become popular, more fans will go and see them live – and, proportionately, pay much more to do so. Plus, of course, there is that highly-marked-up stuff called merchandising.

And, actually, the fans get a better deal this way. Because they have had access to the music for free, they know all the songs the bands play live.

In the old days, in order to hear the tracks you did want to hear, you had to endure half a gig of music from the band’s new album which, because you had not been given the chance to get to like it, made you feel a bit ripped off – but it was the only way the band could get their new music ‘out there’.

So, way back then, the band played all the gigs they could by way of launching their new music and made money from selling ‘records’. Now, they give you the new music for nothing and make money from the gigs – which tend to be staged smarter, more expensive, ‘named’ venues with more expensive, drinks, food and T-shirts. U2 @ O2 (sorry again).

However, every rule has exceptions.

As we have seen over the last few weeks, the massive TV exposure created by the The X Factor has created awareness very quickly for a small amount of people – this way, Cowell will coin it in even more when he starts selling these people’s records before they start playing live. The sheer volume of the OFFLINE exposure has paid massive dividends.

But in Susan Boyle’s case it was the explosion of one simple video clip of her first TV appearance ONLINE that created her worldwide following.

So where does this leave us in the real world?

Since my Island Records U2 lesson, I have always challenged clients and agencies (both creative and media) not to think:

“what is the best way of spending the budget we have been given?”

but:

“if our budget was a thousand pounds rather than, say a million pounds, what would we do and can we build a more effective campaign from the bottom up rather than from our budget down?”.

I am certain that however many media channels we can access, however great the online explosion and however much data we can access and track, this is a factor worth considering more than ever.

Originally posted as A Different Hat, Nov 13 2009, 01:59 PM

Two decades ago, I was privileged to attend a conference in Bangkok where the Key Note Speaker was the CEO of a major American Bank. He may even have been The President. Certainly, he was very important. He had a bodyguard and he arrived in his Bank’s private plane (as it was private, he probably kept it for himself).

His thesis was that ‘Over time, convergence is more likely than divergence’. In other words, all of us would grow closer together – culturally, educationally, religiously, morally, in every way.

I thought this was really clever. The Asian markets were booming, Vietnam was opening up and curious. And certainly there was much more regional awareness. Asian countries knew much more about what was happening in their region than we did in Europe. Above all, there was massive demand for ‘international’ products and brands.

Two weeks ago, I read ‘A Week in December’ by Sebastian Faulks. Set in modern-day Britain, the book exposes a society that couldn’t be more polarised – culturally, educationally, religiously or morally, in every way.

So what are the media and marketing industries doing to help overcome this divergence?

After all, every year a select few of the cream of British youth yearn for jobs in marketing and advertising – and they learn how to communicate vital messages to the consumer population.

Hardly surprisingly, in a competitive world, these messages are designed to divide rather than unite – brand v brand, service v service, product v product, Pepsi v Coke for pity’s sake. We create USP’s which are, by definition, unique. They are different.

Now, just look at the divergent tabs along the top of the Brand Republic Home Page – advertising, creative, design, digital, direct marketing, market research, marketing, media, public relations and sales promotion.

With all this skill and expertise and amazing creative talent, can’t we bring these divergent specialisms together to communicate the things that we all agree on and that should, but don’t, bind us – right and wrong, the importance of education, respect for others, ‘do as you would be done by’, tolerance, kindness, freedom?

Only this week, at the Berlin Wall, Angela Merkel talked about “the incredible gift of freedom”.

So, who is working to help our communities converge rather than diverge? The only person I can think of at the moment is Nick Griffin.

It certainly is not the ‘main’ political parties. Over the next few months, they are going to be electioneering at us. They’ll be dressing up in red and yellow and blue and green. What a great party it is all going to be.

The trouble is that at the end of it all, whoever wins, we will have endured months of these people telling us how much they can change things and how DIFFERENT they are (they had better be).

Talking of colourful people, I once (and only once) attended the Annual NABS Boxing Dinner. A worthy charity to be sure, but this was one sick evening. We all dressed up in our finest and converged to watch some impoverished kids beat the hell out of each other while the media glitterati drank their brandy, smoked their cigars and cheered the lads on. If you were sitting close enough to the ring, you got splattered with blood.

And then, just to ram home the difference between the rich and the poor, a bidding war started between the clients and agencies for the free space various media channels had put up for grabs. Hundreds of thousands of pounds were raised. A bloody fortune.

Thankfully, and inevitably, NABS moved on to newer, more tasteful events. But, without running off with NABS’ main income stream, can’t this fund-raising principle be applied to society on a wider level?

On 26 October, Warren Buffet said on the BBC: “Most of the rich people in the United States, and probably in the UK too, would not have done quite as well as if they had lived in Bangladesh or some place like that. They may think they did it all by themselves but society has done an awful lot for them. And if you get the chance to live very rich in society then you ought to have a taxation system and a personal value system where you believe that a lot of that ought to go back to the people who got the short straws in life”.

And John Freeman, the editor of Granta magazine, has recognised that the technology designed to bring us together is driving us apart. Surely this new technology, which all of us are using as communications tools, will have freed up more ‘spare media space’ than ever?

So in this divergent world, can’t we, as a business sector, including clients and agencies, be more creative about using our talents and resources to define and create messaging which might help overcome the divisions in the society we live in?

From time to time in the trade press, I have seen hypothetical lists of ‘teams of all the talents’.

Why can’t we do this for real and bring our resources and our skills together to communicate the importance of the values that UNITE us?

Wouldn’t this be a great brief?

Originally posted as A Different Hat, Nov 27 2009, 05:01 PM

Recently, my family and I have had major, multiple retail problems. Personally, a fundamental shift has been forced onto my purchasing behaviour. My local Somerfield has become a Co-op.

On the good side, the place looks cleaner in every way, they sent me a discount voucher booklet which was handy because I like discounts – they even offered me a discount for my funeral.

And, most important to me, the Co-op retained the staff from Somerfield – all of whom I like. They have always been nice, polite people and I admire them a lot. They work hard and they smile at me and say ‘good morning’ or ‘good evening’ and ‘thank you’ when I buy things from them.

A few years ago, Somerfield tried to replace these kind, helpful staff with machines where you scanned in your own goods and then paid for them automatically. But I made a stand. I refused to use these machines. They didn’t smile at me and they didn’t say ‘good morning’ and ‘thank you’. The check-out people were right behind me and, quite quickly, we repelled these horrible, faceless, mutant machines. I refused to use them and the check-out staff continued to be unfailingly polite to me. Power to the people!

So, I like the Co-op and I hope their new store works for them. But I do have a problem with them, and it is a problem which might actually be a problem for the Co-op more than me. I’ll come back to that.

In the meantime, having said I like the people at the Co-op, at least I find it easy to approach them when they move the stock around the shelves – which I am told is a tactic retailers use to promote impulse purchasing by their regular customers.

But moving on, as it were, last week my wife had a whole new problem.

Here’s the story. We went to buy a sofa on Sunday. And we had invited some friends round to our house for a drink that evening. No big deal. Just one other couple and their daughter who is a friend of our daughter. We had some wine and even some gin in stock but we had run out of tonic and we needed some juice for our sweet girls and some snacks and some dips. I’m a guacamole man myself (unlike Peter Mandelson who likes mushy peas, I’m told).

The plan was we would buy the sofa and then we would go to Asda, where my wife does her weekly Monday-morning shop, for the nibbles.

But things don’t always go to plan and, in this case, we took much longer than we thought we would not buying a sofa. We found what we wanted. But twelve weeks delivery? What’s all that about? We want one now!

Anyway, near the sofa shop there was a Tesco. Great, we thought, let’s see how the real people live in the big, wide world. We’ll pop in there. So we did. We bought all the drinks and nibbles we needed. It was a bit crowded, but it seemed a great place – lots of offers, lots of different things and even an upstairs bit and a petrol forecourt outside.

So impressed was my wife that she announced that, the next day, she would do her Monday-morning shop at Tesco instead of Asda.

In the event, she had a nightmare. She had her standard list of things to buy but she couldn’t find anything! Up and down the aisles she went. She found this at that end of the store, that at the other end of the store and went off her trolley pushing it up aisle and down aisle.

Sure, there are signs above the aisles but lime pickle? What is it? A ‘sauce’? An ‘international food’? Or is it a ‘dip’ like those we had bought the day before? No one seemed to know. And the whole process took three hours – twice as long as Asda.

Which brings me back to my Co-op problem. I can’t find anything!

Remember, I like my new Co-op, I like the people who work there and I like that Co-op kept their jobs for them. But when it was a Somerfield, I knew where everything was and I popped in there most days to buy a little bit of this and a little bit of that.

Now I don’t bother. I’m in a pickle. And that’s why I think the Co-op are in a pickle too. Quite simply, I am not spending as much there as I did when it was a Somerfield. And my wife never wants to go to Tesco again. She’s sticking with Asda, thanks.

So, isn’t it strange that for all this world of ‘search’ that we live in, and for all the millions they spend urging us to go to this one instead of that one – including, no doubt, how to search for them online – these major multiples can’t find a better way of telling us where anything is when we go to their stores?