It happens to all businesses. Something innocent turns into a catastrophe. And whilst sometimes you are culpable - you were lazy, taking shortcuts or taking your eye off the ball in some other way - there are other times when you do nothing wrong, but still get buried by a big pile of badness dropped from on high.
Take Q Magazine.
In recognition of a major titan of pop returning to the live stage, and doing so in the UK, they decided to make him their cover star. The singer in question - Michael Jackson. Other articles in the issue that popped thru my letter box yesterday - a feature on dead pop stars. Oops.
In Q's defense, they did nothing wrong - the issue was a long time in planning, and had already been printed and shipped before news of Jackson's demise broke.
"Michael Jackson’s record-breaking residency at London’s O2 Arena was always destined to be the year’s biggest music story, one way or another. As such, three months ago we decided to put Jackson on the cover of the issue of Q that will go on sale tomorrow and throughout the month of July, when the first batch of dates were due to take place.
Work on this issue was completed a fortnight ago and it was printed shortly thereafter. When news of Michael Jackson’s death broke in the early hours of Friday morning, it was already being distributed. As such, we have had no opportunity to change any of the editorial content within the issue. Such is the risk inherent in producing a monthly magazine – that events may overtake a story that you are committed to.
If you do take offence to any part of the issue in light of Michael Jackson’s tragic passing, I can only apologise on behalf of Q. Hopefully, you will understand that no offence was intended or meant.
I hope instead that Q’s salute to the Thriller album within the issue stands as our tribute to Michael Jackson. It remains a remarkable work by a truly remarkable pop star. We shall not see his like again."
And I guess the lesson is, even when you're doing everything right things can still go horribly wrong…probably in ways you could never have anticipated - I bet no hands went up in the editorial meetings at Q to ask "what if Jackson dies".
So it's probably a good idea to have someone somewhere empowered to respond rapidly to that disaster which will happen sometime. Before things get really out of hand.
As the World mourns Michael Jackson, it's also worth pointing out that another, equally important musical figure died today - Sky Saxon. Saxon was lead singer of The Seeds, one of the leading garage bands from 60s America, who defined the way four decades of 'white boys with guitars' went on to play.
Well, it now looks like we might have to! As well as a big old impact on sales, in just a few weeks of what is a quite light weight campaign, we've had well north of 50 inquiries. Here's a few examples...
"Apart from your wonderful sausages, are the pigs featured in your adverts for sale? I particularly like the silver one who looks like he is wearing chainmail.I collect pigs and they are great. If they are not yet for sale, maybe you might consider it! Here's hoping."
"I have always enjoyed Porkinson`s sausages, but what has attracted me to write is the beautiful silver pig which is used in your advertisements. I am an avid collector of silver and pigs in particular, and would love one of these. please can you tell me where I could beg, borrow, steal or buy him?"
"I just love the piggies in your new advertising campaign. You just have to make them available for sale, they are gorgeous. Or run a competition to win them .... I won't be the only one to want a Porkinson Piggie!"
"We absolutely adore your sausages,they're the best we've had for many years.I saw your advert in at the weekend and wondered where we can obtain the silver pig. He's gorgeous,like your sausages.
Just goes to show, there are always other revenue streams...and you may not always be selling what you think you're selling.
As someone who still has a guitar and bass in the attic (never mastered but student days' hangovers that I just can't get rid of), and who constantly feels they should be doing 'something else' with their life, this piece from Lateral Action struck a chord...
When I was young, I wanted to be a rock star.
Not a pseudo-celebrity social media rock star.
A real rock star.
I didn’t become a rock star because I didn’t try.
I told myself I couldn’t do it, or maybe I was simply afraid to fail.
Knowing what I know now, I know I could have done it.
Knowing what I know now, I know I can do anything I truly want to do.
Not that it’ll be easy… just that it’s doable.
Listen.
Skip directly to what you truly want to do.
Don’t substitute.
Don’t settle.
Do.
(So maybe I just need to bite the bullet and 'do'!)
One key point he makes, which I think I knew instinctively but hadn't heard so clearly articulated, is that the real power of UGC lies in documentary not fiction (where the quality of true amateur productions is often prettypoor); it's in people finding their voices and reasserting power over their own stories...as we have seen so dramatically in Iran.
As the film puts it about half way through, Orwell thought the future was one of Big Brother watching us; the reality is that we are watching Big Brother...and telling other people what we see.
There are 2,500 year old bird nests still in continuous use
The Fred Perry sportswear logo was almost a pipe - Perry was a keen smoker - but his business partner thought this would put off women customers
As a cold-blooded insect, flies are slower in the early morning and evening when the air is cooler, and speed up in the heat of the day
C, the single-letter codename for the head of MI6, dates from when the first boss, Captain Sir Mansfield Cumming, signed himself "C" for Cummin
Streetlights cause problems for bats
The pilot and co-pilot on a passenger plane are not allowed to have the same meal in case they both get food poisoning
The Queen has an allotment
Scotland has the lowest age for criminal responsibility in Europe
Hitachi makes trains
Pak Do-ik, the North Korean footballer, is still known as "the dentist" among Italian football fans for causing them pain by scoring the goal that saw them beaten 1-0 in the 1966 World Cup
Just finished a great article by Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker, on how and why underdogs win when the odds are stacked against them. Which raised some interesting questions in my mind about the implications of this for businesses.
Because the answer can be boiled down to one simple lesson (if you like, it's Eating The Big Fish in one line).
It's not simply a case of zigging while others zag, in that 'do the unexpected'/'do your own thing sense' (good as that might be). It's about a much more knowing, deliberate, even aggressive breaking of the rules (whatever these might be, whether formally agreed or unwritten conventions). Because, more often than not, these rules are defined by the strong to defend their position.
This is a situation many smaller/'weaker' businesses and brands find themselves in, but which they do nothing about. Instead, they stick to rules and conventions that reinforce their position, as if they are scared to do otherwise, or locked in by training that says 'this is the right way', or simply because it just feels 'wrong' in some way; not the honourable 'done thing'.
The fly weight shepard boy vs the heavy weight Philistine warrior is the archetypal expression of this rule breaking. Settling major battles using champions engaged in one-on-one combat was fairly common in Biblical times. But like pistols at dawn, there were clear rules of engagement. Champions, fully armoured and sworded up, would meet in no mans land, observe formalities, cross swords and fight.
But what did David do? He rejected the armour and sword as too heavy (unconventional…some would say foolish), then after engaging in some long range 'banter', charged at Goliath, possibly gaining important territorial advantage in the process (bad form), before shooting him in the head from a distance (like Indy in Raiders). And that definitely wasn't on!
So David won, but he did so by breaking the rules (albeit rules that favoured the much more powerful Goliath): he cheated, he was dishonourable, and he was happy to cause 'offense' by ignoring popular convention. But he walked away victorious.
In fact, the Bible is great for such rule breaking victories. There's Gideon's 300 defeating the Midianites thru deception. Or even Jesus' pacifist self sacrifice precipitating an unstoppable revolution, where the Jewish people were expecting, and the Roman's could have defeated, a conventional militant rebellion.
MG illustrates his argument with many such rule breaking examples. And he quotes political scientist Ian Arreguin-Toft, to provide some numerical underpinning. Examining every war fought in the last 200 years which conformed to the David vs Goliath mismatch (in this definition, Goliath's forces had to be at least 10x as powerful), Toft found that David still won 28.5% of the time (possibly surprising in its own right). But where the David force was a rule breaker everything changed, and they won a staggeringly improbable 63.6% of the time.
From the original David via early revolutionary America (ironically), Vietnam and on to post-conventional war Iraq, it's only in breaking with expectations that the weak can fight on an equal footing.
The problem with this tho, and why it's a difficult lesson to for us to learn and apply elsewhere, is that when you view David thru the eyes of Goliath (remembering that we in the west are usually in a position of strength, militarily speaking, nowadays), you see something not altogether positive: irregulars and insurgents willing sometimes to step over that line generally accepted to mark the boundary between right and wrong, good and evil, to defend what they see as their rights and freedom. Even to be a terrorist, in our current perceptions.
But that shouldn't disguise the fact that David's is a good strategy for those in a position of weakness, not just in war but sport and business. Nor does it mean being aggressive and 'war-like' in your approach. And neither is it an argument for anything goes anarchy. Some laws and rules are universally right and proper, and there not to be broken. Plus you don't want to end up in prison necessarily!
Rather it's an argument for not playing by 'rules' and practices that simply favour the strong and reinforce the status quo. And to do more than play lip service to this ethos. Because there is a far greater chance of success in (really) breaking free of the constraints set in place by those on top or in power...to the point admittedly that you might well feel you are (or even be accused of) 'cheating', or being 'dishonest'. It's about not being scared of causing 'cultural offense' or being 'socially horrifying' (to quote Gladwell)...in whatever context it is you opperate - telling retailers your brand will never prove promote for instance.
Just remember that 'they' would say that wouldn't they. And would you rather gain advantage or lose appropriately?
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