Ideas will travel » Reviews

Welcome to the Success Lottery! A short review of Gladwell’s “Outliers”.

mario.gamper — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 16:44:10 +0000

In his new book “Outliers” Malcolm Gladwell debunks the common belief that being a hard working genius is all it takes to be exceptionally successful.

Looking into fields as diverse as Canadian (Ice) Hockey, M&A Lawyers in NYC, and PC Tycoons – he discovers two things: (1) Yes, it takes about 10.000 hours of practice to become good at anything. If you’re not willing to spend that, don’t even flirt with the spotlight. But it is (2) the sheer luck of being born at the right time and the cultural capital of one’s community that creates the foundation on which everything else stands.

While being fantastically entertaining, Gladwell can therefore offer very little on how to be successful yourself. Because you just can’t go back to be born in 1955, and become like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs (both born in 1955). The good part: You also can’t go back and become like Steve Ballmer (Born in 1956). ;-)

Reading “Outliers” from the perspective of an advertising guy offers an interesting view onto a very special set of ideas. At the core of all those successful microcultures that Gladwell describes, we find ideas that will travel – not from neighbor to neighbor, but from generation to generation. I’m quite sure, if we look at the most resilient brands, we will discover the same: Culture-creating ideas that transcend generations of marketing executives and ad agencies.

Ian Tate has seen the future.

mario.gamper — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 16:24:51 +0000

Because nothing beats a list: Here is his list of the 10 things that will happen in advertising in 2010. I like the Andriod one, and the newfound love of small campaigns. But that’s like going for a penalty kick against a 2nd grader. The rest is a bit too intentionally hazy but nevertheless instructive.

Take a look at the google doc presentation.

The adman's bucket list. Is yours ready?

mario.gamper — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 22:02:36 +0000

A while ago, I co-ran a little website that asked the question where the 40plus-year olds in advertising have gone. Obviously, I was 39. :-) I was expecting to receive eye witness material about a secret copywriter graveyard. I was convinced that one morning, we would just getup and slowly walk there to die, because our instincts told us to. Then, from time to time, researches and scientists would come by and stare -- awestruck -- at thousands and thousands of whiter than white admen ribcages.

Turned out, my imagination was off. Way. We received lots of responses. Mostly expressing a newfound happiness in work: from Goldsmith to Philosopher, from Floral Designer to Journalist. Seems they weren’t lying. Lemonade, a new documentary from Writer Erik Proulx and Director Marc Colucci follows a handful of the more than 70.000 advertising professionals who got laid off in the current recession. While the selection of people smells of sensationalism, the truth is… Martin Sorell might be right and the glory days shan’t come back (he euphemizes it an L-shaped recession, meaning: Big down. No up)

So get out the Montblanc and scribble your adman’s bucket list into the Moleskine, while you sip that Starbucks Latte. What’s your second Plan A? Could you really do it? What happens, if you’re no longer the hottest shit on earth?

Reality has strapped a rocket pack on the back of this question, hit the start button, and jammed it. Some will enjoy the view. Be one of them.

Preview found on Swissmiss.

Enemies of crap.

mario.gamper — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 09:18:46 +0000

“The frightening and most difficult thing about being what somebody calls a creative person, is that you have absolutely no idea where any of your thoughts come from, really. And especially, you don’t have any idea, where they are going to come from tomorrow.” (Famous Ad Guy)

True that.

Art & Copy is a documentary about the people who started the creative revolution in US advertising in the 1960s: Lee Clow, Dan Wieden, Mary Wells, Hal Riney, to name some. They changed advertising and came up with ideas that travelled all over the globe -- and all the way to today. Like “Just Do it.” or “Think different”.

Filmmaker Doug Pray usually occupies himself with less mainstreamy stuff. Big Rig drivers, a crazy surfer family with 9 kids, HipHop DJs. He seems quite intrigued by the tension between the advertiser’s full-on corporate job description and the spirit of independence and counterculture that he encounters in their penthouses and beach residences.

“Yes, I’ve made a positive film about ads. I’d once believed that our systems of commerce might go away, and with them, all unwanted commercial messaging, but they haven’t yet, and won’t soon. Advertising, in fact, may actually be an innately human act itself.”

Thanks, Doug.

Yes, it is possible to feel good about helping to sell something. That’s the upbeat part. On the other hand however, this documentary seems to strike a somber note. You can’t listen to a eulogy and not feel like something has come to an end. So let’s enjoy this -- and wonder what will come next.

For more info: Check out www.artandcopyfilm.org and http://dougpray.com/

You can catch a show at the Hawaii International Film Festival (735B Iwilei Road in Honolulu to be precise) where it is playing from October 15, or some other places in the US, because it’s not yet scheduled to play in Germany.

Neu im Regal: Diedrichsen. Eigenblutdoping

mario.gamper — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 23:35:33 +0000

Interessanter Essay zu den Möglichkeiten persönlicher Entwicklung: Jenseits der Alternativen von Weiterkommen und im Kreis gehen – mit dem bürgerlichen Bildungsroman auf der einen und der 68er Batikromantik findet auf der anderen Seite, findet Diedrichsen ein Drittes. Den Loop. Wer sich im Loop befindet kommt nicht voran, und entwickelt seine Erfahrungsmöglichkeiten dennoch weiter. Lesenswert nicht nur für Fans von Minimal Music, bzw. Minimal Techno.