What the f*&% is a real person?

Another week and more articles from adland trying to work out why they ‘don’t have a clue about anything’.

Their words, not mine.

We had Mawdsley last year (read our last post) banging on about how imagination can carry everything.

And then a welcome directional change from Richard Huntington of Saatchi & Saatchi, last week, saying planners need to get out more.

Followed up by an article from Kevin Chesters of O&M, which I can only assume was published to tell everyone they’re one step ahead of the game.

The intention is that they send out a few planners to different parts of the country and report back to the whole industry…

The intention is to be applauded, but the language – and possibly the method – needs some serious work.

Campaign headlined the article PLANNING IN THE WILD.

It’s funny because it’s so serious.

Do you think that referring to anywhere beyond Soho as ‘the wild’ might possibly be part of the problem?

Chesters says they’ll go ‘rogue’.

The definition of rogue is:

‘a large wild animal living apart from the herd (and having savage tendencies)’

Again, perhaps not intentionally, but definitely lazily: the impression is that the herd is ad-land, and far-far away from that is some kind of strange-land.

Finally, the plan is to go and speak to real people.

Who the f*&% are real people!?

Everyone is real.

What they’re trying to say (I think) is:

go and speak with people who are less like me

“Real people” just grates.

There are easier ways to do this.

There are methods that can bring everyone closer without the need for the vanity project.

If people are to understand people better, we could start by trying to avoid using lazy descriptions and headlines that only serve to show how far they have to come.

But what do we know? We’re just real.