Research among global/wandering planners

John Shaw, Rapier From the APG’s ‘Noisy Thinking’ event on the topic of

‘Global or Local Planning ‒ Which Would You Rather Do?’

49 planners (mostly heads/CSO) with experience of global planning or working abroad (mostly both)

(speaker notes in italics throughout)

Most valuable things about global/multi-country planning

(cultural variation is important: but so are big challenges like scale & complexity)

Dirt

‘authentic and gritty’ to Western youth

‘old-fashioned and undeveloped’ in Chile

‘coal dust in the lungs’ to Australian miners

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1latJ7K8zc

(This is also a story about dirt…)

(The Sprite campaign was originally developed for a small number of Asian countries including China. It was very

successful and eventually ran in over 50 markets. However, the original commercial did not run in China. Its

gritty, urban, slightly dirty feel was not considered culturally appropriate and a ‘cleaner’ version

incorporating bright colours, celebrities, and a helicopter was successfully used instead. To many in China at the time, dirt symbolised lack of development. Although some younger urban Chinese understood the ‘reverse

aspiration’ that might come from grit, Sprite is historically strong throughout China, partly because it tastes better than Coke unrefrigerated. Not stuff we knew at first.)

‘the US team viewed us with fear and suspicion to start with but by the end they were producing brilliant work and drinking as much as the Brits of an

evening’

(when the British travel, we feel it is our mission to persuade citizens of other nations to drink as much as we do)

‘Discos in Mexico City, Latam parties in NY, F1 in Rio, coffee on the hill looking over the Forbidden City,

Grand Hyatt 86th floor restaurant with Tokyo as backdrop, lying by the pool in Rio...what more could a poor boy from Manchester wish for?’

(an honest view, possibly shared by more than admitted it)

‘No one is quite sure where I am or ought to be’

(I know this feeling. You may not be in control of your schedule but there is a strange freedom in being

nowhere to be found.)

‘Microsoft launch of windows 95. 5 countries asked about what they think

about the future of computing. Women all worried about the impact on creating a deeper divide between the have and the have nots. Men, excited for possibilities of a more competitive tool that will help them

and their children get ahead.’

(doing global work can make it easier to see what the really big human themes are)

‘and to think that it all happened with the planner in SG, the creatives in Lon

and the client in Chicago!’

(to some people this would be a nightmare, not a positive. But it’s satisfying when it works.)

‘Interviewing a young lad in his Mumbai apartment where a mattress was his only real possession other than a Sony digital camera. His

pictures were amazing…’

(global can give access to new experiences like this. But you have to fight hard to get into the real world, not just the hamster wheel of airport/office/bar/hotel). My own

version of this follows on the next two slides…)

(when I got out for a day in Mumbai, the helpful people at Ogilvy Outreach took me to a ‘chaul’, a not strictly legal dwelling that can nevertheless be bought and sold. This one contained three generations in two rooms and from the outside it looked a bit doubtful. But inside I found a kitchen a lot more orderly than my own, and a family

working very hard to pay for private education. It was a good reminder that appearances can be deceptive, and

of the value of first-hand experience.)

‘My first day on the global xxxx business, the singapore client asked me to apologize to the entire room because she said I made them feel stupid they did not understand my strategy. That was a pretty unusual

start. From there, I realized a strategy was only as good as the culture that

can absorb it.’

(again more nightmare than joy, but valuable)

Worst things about global/multi-country planning

(you’d expect the travel, but you’d better also be prepared for bureaucracy and politics, and for many challenges in getting great work. The work featured more in ‘worst things’ than among the positives. LCD = lowest common denominator.)

‘out to watch groups on the Concorde, back that night on the Redeye’

‘Just those huge meetings, in windowless rooms with cookies the size of your face to break up the

boredom.’

‘Way too big meetings. Way too many layers of people. This absurd business of 'comments'; that just encourages

people to 'comment' usually negatively. No decisions. A sense that you're not

actually developing ads to run out there in the real world but just developing ads

for a good meeting.’

(this was one of the bleaker views, and there’s satisfaction when those things are overcome. But sometimes it feels like

you have at least one hand tied behind your back)

‘At its worst, working on a multi-country business is like having to host a successful dinner with the Borgias, the Simpsons and the Adams Family

as guests. Keeping a coherent conversation and reaching a

consensus on anything are only part of the challenge and sources of stress..’

Most valuable things about working in a different country

(there was quite a variety of response here and some of the themes are big ones; learning, personal growth, a new life)

‘being much more connected to creative work internationally’

‘an appreciation from first hand of iconic and world class things’

‘The weather, food, feeling liberated and free from the rules in this country. A feeling that anything is possible. In the UK people talk you out of doing

things unless you are amazing. We are a very critical nation. In the US people respect you for having a go, even if

you're crap at first.’

‘Probably not what you mean, but: apparently I'm a lot nicer in French. A creative director I only ever spoke to in French, was taking a new job that meant he had to learn English. He

asked me to speak to him in English, but quickly asked me to go back to French. Apparently I'm a softer, more

gentle person in French…’

(so if you’re ever getting mad at your French colleagues, remember that they probably sound nicer in French too)

‘you become part of a tribe of people who get it - they are an open, curious tribe of people. to be an immigrant is a universal mindset, whether you're in advertising or you drive a cab. for most it's hard to go back to living in

the same way when you go’

(even if this sounds a bit elitist, for me there’s truth in it. You always feel a bit different for having adapted to

somewhere else)

Worst things about working in a different country

(actually, not that much, from our movers, except some loneliness at times and the need to stick with it for a while.)

‘living an E.T. kind of life - land in a strange place, get distracted by new things, get marooned, get adopted by

kids who dress you up in strange clothes, manage to learn enough language to get by, and eventually

escape being cut open by the dissectors’

(I suppose if I’d wanted to I could have inserted an image here of someone being dissected. But I decided against it)

‘Being effectively deaf, dumb and illiterate (in China)’

‘I had a very cool pair of retro slacks that I thought made me look hip. I later learned people thought they were incredibly daggy.’

(Like a good globalist I thought “I should look up what daggy means, exactly”)

(it’s probably the first time the phrase ‘neglected sheep’s anal region’ has been used in an APG talk. See, global means you learn stuff)

‘It was just a lot more difficult for your personality to come through. It took a long

time to be able to use charm, humour, irony or nuance of any description.’

(I think it’s a myth that Americans, for example, don’t understand irony. But we Brits may not get to use it as much as

we love to)

‘god this is like therapy. forcing everyone to speak YOUR language when you are the

only English speaker present. I know English is the 'business language', but it

puts a strain on building a strong relationship. We work in comms, yet they couldn't always express themselves as

fluently as they deserved to.’

(my plan was for it to feel like therapy, so it worked. But it is indeed embarrassing to see really smart people forced to use

English when it rarely works the other way round)

Global is not just about the cultures, it’s about the scale.

It’s big time.

But the costs are not just personal (there are compensations) but in how you work, and often in the work itself

Actually going to live and work abroad is a bigger step

It might change your life

But you’re curious aren’t you?

(because you’re a planner)

(for my own views, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RL_PSY2bKZM&feature=plcp)