News / Comment from Team Seven
26/06/2022
Was it just me or did anyone else think the lanyards at #canneslions2022 could have been a bit bigger?
I guess if you’ve paid £4K for a ticket during a cost of living crisis you’d like people to know. Or would you…? I’m glad I didn’t because I was happy enough meeting smart people with interesting and alternative perspectives at the many and generous fringe events. A central theme and one that is close to my heart was purpose but the topics around it were dull and expected e.g. what purpose really is and the need for brands to be authentic and genuine etc etc. Yawn. But one thing that did strike me was how much people were expecting brand owners to do to help make the world a better, safe, happier place. Don’t get me wrong, obviously brands have a responsibility to protect the communities they serve and prevent doing harm and purpose, when properly designed and executed is a win : win marketing strategy. However at the end of the day, we have to be realistic, brands are businesses with a requirement to sell in order to protect either shareholders or other dependents, like their employees. Corporations, like the rest of us, pay hefty taxes (well most of them do) so you could argue that they, like us, are already doing their bit. Obviously there’s always room for more but I found myself really perplexed by a question from a mother to a panel of creatives. “I have two daughters.” She said as she dipped her feet in the Google pool and sucked on an Aperol Spritz. “How can brands help them stop feeling so stressed and anxious about everything?” My first and very uncharitable thought was ‘What an absurd question. Should we really be outsourcing parenting to brands?’ My second thought was equally unempathetic ‘Our economy is based on consumerism and the job of marketers is to sell more stuff and the job of creatives is to sell it more effectively than the competition. If children suffer stress due to their primal instinct to build status and gain acceptance by the acquisition of more stuff, then perhaps people who don’t like it should move to a communist country?’ Horrible I know but I was nursing a (cliché alert) rosé hangover but I’m only being honest. I’m not a bad person but I subscribe to the Buddhist concept of modular thinking as many do, which says you can’t control the thoughts that offer themselves to you, you can only control what you do with them. I’m just sharing mine rather than pretending they never happened. For me the logic is clear. As creative communication partners to marketers our job is simple, to sell more stuff. The more stuff we sell the more money a brand makes. The more money a brand makes the more it can invest in communities and social causes as part of purpose, sustainability and CSR marketing initiatives as well as pay more taxes, which a half decent government (when did we last have one of those?) can also put towards communities and social causes, some of which deal with stress and anxiety in children. My point is, we can’t have it all, we can’t have our cake and eat it and there’s only so much responsibility we can realistically put on the shoulders of brands because the most responsible thing most brands could do for the sake of the planet and all the worried mothers, is close shop and f**k-off home. I’m just putting it out there.
17/01/2022
To jump start the year we’re launching our quarterly insight newsletter highlighting the most important trends that are going to rock 2022.
We know how busy everyone is so this ‘meeting ammo for the busy exec’ is designed to be a 2 minute read with links embedded if you want more detail.
27/10/2021