The Toilet Paper Rule
We want to be the Apple of dishwasher tablets. We want to be the Nike of accountancy software. We want to be the Tesla of bathroom grout. We want to be the Supreme of clingfilm. We want to be the Netflix of medical waste disposal. Recognise statements like these? We all want to be the […]
The Most Underrated Strategic Tool
We are all cats in boxes. This is an analogy I once heard (can’t remember where) which really speaks to me, and has a lot of importance for smart and strategic thinking. Expanded, the concept is something like this. Imagine you have a cat in a box, with air holes punched in it so it […]
The Strategic Hierarchy – Business Made Easy
As we all know, strategy is confusing. If I tell people that I’m a strategist, they typically respond in a similar manner as if I told them I’m a pixie – a mixture of bafflement and scepticism. “I don’t really know what you mean, but it sounds like bullshit anyway”. This, frankly, is fair enough. […]
Great Brands Are Clueless Too
When I speak to businesses with a view to working with them, I tend to encounter two different attitudes. Very occasionally, the attitude is one of supreme confidence. We’re great, we’ve got it all figured out, everything’s perfect. This situation always begs the question of why exactly they’re speaking to me, but that’s by the […]
Sussex Royal, Ad Agencies, And The Danger Of Subjective Language
A friend of mine runs a film company, and as a result often works with advertising agencies. He once made a comment based on his experience which has always stuck with me: “Any time I see an agency refer to themselves as ‘creative’, I immediately know they aren’t”. I know I have many newsletter subscribers […]
How To Take Your Thinking To A New Level – Literally
The yin-yang symbol has become a bit of a cliche. These days it’s probably more likely to bring to mind a lower back tattoo than timeless wisdom, which is too bad, because its message is extremely relevant to our contemporary struggles. It also reveals a method of thinking which is central to strategic wisdom, and […]
Glossary Of Strategic Ideas – Volume 1
One question I’m asked, again and again, is what I think of Simon Sinek’s famous “why”. If you don’t know what this is, then I’m very surprised that you’re reading this blog. However, to offer a totally redundant recap, his basic thesis was that “people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do […]
Innocent, 21 Jump Street, and why consistency requires constant change
In 2012 they made a new movie adaptation of the TV show 21 Jump Street, where two cops (Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill) go undercover as students in a high school to bust open a drugs case. Near the beginning it has this great scene which I think is, weirdly, very strategically instructive. Basically, although […]
The creative canvas – the key to building a charismatic business
Sometimes people ask me the meaning of my company name, Basic Arts. It came from the original idea I had for the business, which in essence was to embed advertising-esque creativity and artistry into the very fabric of the company itself, rather than limiting it to external “media”. Basic = foundational, structural, the bones of […]
Appreciating scale – what to do with things you can’t control
There is a quote you may have heard which goes something like: “I am a libertarian at the federal level, Republican at the state level, Democrat at the local level, a socialist with my friends and family, and a communist with my dog”. The idea is designed to reveal the fatuousness of political labels, but when […]