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It’s a trip.

Something absolutely fucked up had to happen for the tunnel vision to finally dissipate.

I woke up one day after a night of peak madness. I saw clearly for the first time since childhood.

Just a second ago, I had been on the top of the world. I had begun to develop an expensive taste when the ground gave way – I was on the rooftop of a lego skyscraper carelessly assembled by a toddler.

Every time I thought I hit rock bottom, I got hit in the head with a lego block weighing a 100 tons.

Egos are glass exteriors for insecure people.

Finally, I was ready for the truth:

I am a 16-year old parented child trapped in a 32-year-old’s body.

Still studying for exams. Still retaining all the information because I was scared to update my operating system: “study hard = make good money”

I am an extremist and my Jihad is against mediocrity. I am the worst boss I never had.

That’s all there was to me. Everything else was transactional - love, friendship, taking part in a conversation - those were necessary distractions.

I am not a sociopath. That’s just how I brought up. It’s just not good enough for the however many years I got left in me.

Now I’m at crossroads between what I want to retain from my past identity and what I want to undo.

I decided that writing about it is the best way to achieve ‘flow’ between my internal and external worlds, and see what peace feels like.

So I packed a bag and left to Galle and then Chiang Mai.

- - -

I still haven’t figured out a structure for this. I’m just going to tell you what I created this way. Tell me how I can get better.

#1 Angry in a tuktuk

Written to the insecure man-children on my friend’s tinder. I wasn’t entirely angry at them. I was angry at other things when they happened to me.

I wrote this while in a tuktuk to a friend’s place. I was raging already. The heat and the potholes made it worse.

The video and music makes the experience whole.

#2 Angry about some of the people I called my friends

A lot of people reached out after seeing this on Instagram asking me if I’m ok. “Yeah dude I’m just cleaning out 10-odd years of repressed thoughts. Chill.”

No I was not ok.

I felt I was subject to sexism (whaaat? a man? sexism?). A few thoughts about the women who approximate sexism’s end objective as the annihilation of masculinity. It stung because these women were really precious to me.

#3 When the ‘floodgates’ opened

This one is about an encounter with fish who crawled on land. It reminded me of the thing that I am supposed to be doing - evolve out of tradition. Try shit out, even if it meant feeling a little short of breath.

#4 Playing with a thought to see how it would come out looking

I realised how much we move back and forth between the people that we’re with in-person and our rich online aesthetic. We take from one bucket and put into the other without knowing that there’s a finite amount of water.

#5 I sat down with my loss and watched it turn into anger.

#6 Bucketloads of gratitude for Kraythiya

Sometimes, you feel grateful for hitting rock bottom. That’s when you leave your ego aside and finally see someone for who they are, and not what your attachment demands of them. My eternal gratitude to you, K. I will protect you from all the insecure tinder twats till you’re 90 and I’m 65.

#7 Revisiting the era of (m)ad-men

I am not an angry person. I have used anger as a concealer my entire adult life because people have responded well to it. It’s been efficient. It’s NOT been effective. I encountered the familiar feeling while interacting with some people from my past as an ad-man.

#8 Missing my wife in Chiang Mai

Tharu savours her food. I gulp it down to enjoy the cigarette afterwards. I’m slowly learning her ways.

Let me know which one was your favourite, if you read this far.

Your suggestions will not always be taken, but will be appreciated.

I started this substack to write about what I do for a living. I’ve now taken a step back to figure out what I want to do in the next 10 years. Which means this substack will be a part of the experiment.

If what you see is not why you subscribed, please feel free to unsubscribe.

I hate exerting myself in the morning but I’m on a new trip.

Descartes before you discard. I woke up at 6.

K and I brisk-walked to the Habaraduwa beach. It was empty save for the dogs. The sun was up.

“Where are the thunderstorms they forecasted?” K asked.

“All forecasts are 50% wrong at best.” I stopped myself before I said it out loud. I wasn’t going to be the douchebag who quotes internet truisms. I was trying to be a better person.

We walked from Habaraduwa to what seemed like the beginning of a new village.

We were soon joined by the beach dogs. We gave them temporary names for the duration of our walk.

Like humans, the beach dogs had their territories. They had their codes of conduct.

“You don’t do business in my turf and I won’t piss in yours.”

Every few hundred metres, they would hand us off to the next set of dogs.

At every hand-off point, there was a business meeting of sorts. Only these meetings were more genuine than the ones I’ve sat in.

Every ‘meeting’ started off like a street fight - dogs of both tribes running towards each other at full steam, barking (“the party war cry,” I told myself) and snarling.

At times, a few dogs would circle one weaker dog of the rival gang. The weaker dog would immediately put its head down, tail between its legs, and stand still - as if it were waiting for the deed to be done.

Whether one gang outnumbered the other or not, no violence ensued.

The aggression was the tradition. The outcome was the outcome with or without it.

Dog meetings, I decided, were a hundredfold more productive than human ones.

The dogs did less bitching.

The last trio of dogs were the closest to my heart. They broke all the rules - as if they knew that in the patriarchy, all rules are drawn in the sand with a withered dick.

They accompanied us from the edge of the beach right back to where we started, crossing all the territories in between.

The alpha was a male. A beautiful dog that I called Grumbles. K said that his demeanour resembled mine. Accompanying Grumbles (and my favourite) was Jumpy - a brown and black dog with the attention span and emotional capacity of a drunk K.

Every few metres, Jumpy would jump at K or me, sinking her teeth in playfully. She wouldn’t stop unless Grumbles gave her a warning bark as if to say “that’s enough, now - this is why people find it hard to like you.”

Jumpy would then lurch towards Grumbles and bother him to no end until some weird object in the sand distracted her.

The other dog was brown & white. She looked like she needed no name. She took a shit in the sand and smiled.

On our walk to the end of the beach, I faced the sun as it climbed. I thought I felt a migraine lurking about.

On the way back, the sun was no longer in my face but its heat pierced the back of my skull. I could taste the migraine now — equal parts wretchedness and sea salt.

“Can’t undo the headache anymore, might as well get a workout in.”

The greatest productivity guru ever, ladies and gentlemen, back from corporate Colombo with that unfortunate cameo.

I started to run.

Because that’s what this trip had been about.

Running away from people and things that blended into the Colombo smog - so I could be alone with my problems.

K was my training wheels, I hers (I hope). This stretch of the journey was the safe terrain I would soon leave behind for an unfamiliar land.

K was lagging behind. I stopped next to two fishermen who were waiting patiently for the day’s catch. Part of me was curious: why were they the only fishermen out here?

The other part didn’t want any cat-calling to sour the mood (my mood). I spoke to the more seasoned of the two.

“අයියා, මුහුදට බහින්න පුලුවන්ද?” (Brother, is it safe to get into the water?)

“නෑ දැන් බහින්න බෑ මේ වාර කන්නෙ නේ” (No, this is the “waara” season.)

He looked at me as if I were an imbecile. It hit me a minute later.

I felt like an imbecile.

The fisherman’s silence told me to ‘fuck off and find out’ (so I did).

I knew this was the “off” season. It hadn’t occurred to me that “off” in “off season” had everything to do with the traditional occupation of the area (fishing), not the comings and goings of foreigners.

A few decades ago during the warakan season, the fisherman’s grandfather would have migrated to the east of the country, where he would continue his trade for the next 6 months – with a different family – before returning to this beach.

The fisherman’s father probably didn't have that option.

Wars dehumanise our own blood without telling us.

Like his son now, he probably had to choose between stilt fishing and the good old fishing rod.

As with most western co-optations, the “off season” story had the same characters and incidents as the “waarakan” story, but the focus had shifted to the narrator: “no surf? no problem. I take my yoga elsewhere.”

The fisherman’s tale, in contrast, was told from the point of view of the thing.

“This is how the sea is.”

I went from feeling confused to complicit.

Complicit in the erasure of my own culture from the collective memory, in favour of convenient, commercial language.

“Off season. Pfft,” I laughed at myself. No wonder these people hated people from Colombo.

‘Colombo’, a state of mind informed by liberalist half truths, drunk on colonial leftovers. The thing I wanted to escape.

“ජය වේවා,” I wished the fishermen success as K caught up to me.

I broke out into a sprint.

This was not part of the plan. The plan was to pace myself. I must have known, in a desolate corner of my brain, that repression always breeds chaos.

A voice inside me told me to run.

I ran - zig-zag on the beach. I ran into the water and then away from it. The milky foam of the waves that lapped at shore turned a murky brown with every ‘thump’. My foot went into the soft sand, ankle-deep.

To a bacterium, a drop of water is the same texture as a grain of sand.

The more I ran, the more I felt something stuck in the mid-point between my throat and my solar plexus. It was struggling to come up and felt like a lump of phlegm. It tasted like sadness.

I ran for what felt like minutes. I waded water, I trudged through the sand, I walked through old rooms.

I tried to cough out the knot. It refused to take the exit that I had planned for it. Instead, it sat uncomfortably between my lungs, like a child sat in the middle of arguing parents.

It begged for permission to climb out of my eyeballs. The more I ran, the more I felt the urge to weep - weep all the sadness on to the sand.

I gassed out before it could happen. I am the perfect analogy for erectile dysfunction.

In a way only overthinkers can, I stepped outside my body, stood beside it, and looked;

a broken man on a beautiful beach, too out of breath to cry.

There was now a small heartbeat on the back of my neck. I dropped onto my knees & let the salty water cool me down. A momentary respite from my own foolish implosion.

Self-control is a myth.

I gave myself a quick ice bath out of a frozen plastic water bottle that we had brought from the house.

K started to complain about some tan line that was barely visible to me. I distracted her by showing her a turtle that was trying to scale the dark green wall of the hatchery next door.

Jumpy (the brown and black dog) - still behind us - turned into the small road that led to our two-bedroom house: a cosy, western-looking upstairs house in the middle of the marshland.

‘The Wara’ (not the season, the flower), like most other houses in the south, was retrofitted with additional rooms to rent out to tourists during the ‘season’. The upstairs was in drastic contrast with the older downstairs part of the building where the owner lived. She later claimed that her family had owned the property for over two hundred years.

Like a parasitic vine that almost goes unnoticed only because it’s everywhere, the minimalist European architecture sat on top of the more elegant colonial architecture, and adjacent to the marshland.

The original inhabitants of the marsh – the fish and the birds and the centipedes – were confused by the structures that occupied their home.

Millipedes - the black and yellow ones I remember not being scared to play with as a child - lay crushed and split into two pieces, crushed under the weight of a bicycle tyre.

Many more millipedes crossed the road to go about their day, indifferent to the fate of their own.

Jumpy sniffed a 2-day-old corpse of a scorpion (also crushed). She started following us again when she noticed the neighbours.

Self-control is a myth

I gave myself another ice bath (plastic bottle procedure). I then took a hot shower.

It took me twenty years of migraines to realise that heat was my greatest enemy (and having the resources to control it, my greatest ally).

K did laundry & made scrambled eggs (three wedges of cheese instead of the normal two - “otherwise you’ll call me cheap and stingy” - that’s why we’re friends).

I walked outside.

Jumpy was outside our door, giving me her best puppy eyes. I took a deep breath and reminded myself that I was here for the solitude, not new attachments.

I lured Jumpy out with a yoghurt. We were two feet away when the owner’s dog (a small vicious fucker, the kind I dislike because of their small-man complex) broke free of its leash and chased Jumpy away.

I filled with a need to help. A voice that sounded like my therapist said, “you can’t control the outcome.”

I turned around to walk back inside.

On the way back, the owner of the house greeted me while sweeping a fish into a dustpan.

I initially thought he was a fisherman who had dropped one of his fish. Then he explained what it was:

Fish, heaps of them, crawling from one end of the marsh to the other. The garden was where their ancestral thoroughfare used to be.

Under a chair on the tile, I saw one fish flapping about and gasping for water. It probably mistook the tile’s reflection of the morning sun (what was left of it) for water.

I could tell (later) who was more confused - me, by the fish in the garden, or the fish, by the garden.

It’s funny.

For a moment, I related to that fish at a level I wish I couldn’t.

There I was.

A fish outta the water.

No friends at 21?

I don’t want to wrap my head around that.

Instead, I want to explore what guardrails we as psychology practitioners can help put to contain the loneliness epidemic. If Reddit is a true depiction of urban life in the global south, then loneliness is no longer just a western concept that we can ignore.

Behavioural science can (and should) play a role in making consumer technology harder to adopt.

A good place to start is by acknowledging one of the biggest lies we agree to live with - every waking second.

“AI can make mistakes”

No. AI will make mistakes. When ChatGPT is your therapist, this slight reframe can mean the difference between recovery and descending further down the spiral.

AI will make mistakes.

Can we repeat this until it becomes second nature to feel more uncertain with what we choose to believe.

We perceive more certainty around AI than we should

• 95% of AI projects flop

• Around 40% of answers provided by AI cites inaccurate (or irrelevant) (source)

And “AI can make mistakes” does not justify these statistics.

Anyone else thinking of the early claims made by cigarette companies?

Policy change is the more effective way to go about solving the problem, but of course we don’t know on which side the policy makers are (Zoe Scaman’s recent substack post about AI Geopolitics is mandatory reading if you want to understand what I just said)

There are also communication level interventions that the conscious AI movement (I don’t want to say ‘anti-AI’ because to ask the supreme powers who control the world to be conscious of how to use AI without melting minds can only be ‘anti-inhumane’) can employ once they are done being ‘nice’.

Enough with the laid back calls to be mindful about AI.

Enough with the counterproductive “smoking causes cancer” type of campaigns

Do not go gentle

When a bunch of megalomaniac billionaires threaten your freedom to think, you don’t think of gentle nudges, you grab it back by force.

The need of the hour is for smart, emotionally loaded communications that stop 21 year olds feel like they’re having a mid-life crisis.

Make it easy to call a friend

Be honest, how many times have you pulled your phone out and looked at your feed to avoid making conversation?

The very thing that we use to avoid people we don’t want to talk to, is keeping us from connecting with the people we care about. Why?

The effortless experience, a study commissioned by Gartner shows us that about 2/3 of the effort we think something will take is purely imagined. Apply this to any situation and you understand why picking up your phone (very easy to think of the outcome, very easy to do) or talking to a bot is easy.

The internet is the great barrier reef

Remember a few years ago when the great barrier reef was dying? I remember the ugly grey facade that had replaced the once vibrant ecosystem. That’s the internet now.

The dead internet theory is more than just theory. It is very much dying.

The engagement you get? Bots.

The followers that influencers have? Bots.

Traffic to your website? Bots

The internet is alive in small clusters and they are disconnected from each other. And the more disconnected they are from each other, the more at threat they become. They erode, one person at a time because you have to be superhuman to resist the allure of reaching a million ‘people’ instead of a mere 100. Your willpower is bought and traded, and you feel powerless about the whole ordeal.

So, what do we tell the boy who got dumped for a chatbot?

1. We are sorry. With every moment of inaction we make these stories the norm

2. There’s a lot that behavioural scientists and practitioners of behavioural science can achieve if they work alongside tech to create more thoughtful experiences. The kid needs a balancing loop to give him a fighting chance.

3. Kid, do the hard thing. Give yourself 3 days without your devices. Trust me, the world will feel a little more colourful on day 4.

Now, a word from the sponsors

I lie. There are no sponsors. But my businesses give me the time to build a consistent writing practice. One of them is called Creative Instinct. We train and consult with teams on

• creating digital products that are good for both people and profit

• improving their sales funnel

• creating better ads, websites, and other communications

with behavioural science.

• For my 100+ reader base, here’s 30% off our next public training session.

• We are also looking for pilot projects to kickstart our consulting practice in Sri Lanka. Reach out, if you want to know what kind of projects we can work on.

-End of sales pitch-

If this is your first time hearing ‘scarcity’ with reference to marketing, that’s completely fine. You’re still among the first 5% of marketers who will be consciously applying it in their work.

Behavioural science is just a clever way for marketers to keep the consumers front and centre, while hordes of tech bros bombard us with “this new AI thing that kills everything…”

In this guide, I hope to explain the nuance behind the principle. I’ll leave you with both the theory and a bastardised version of the FCB matrix to help you apply scarcity in a way that works for your category.

I created this short guide on using the guide. Click the image below to access the Canva deck.

I also tried to put this information into a lovable app that tells you which type of scarcity to use for your business and how. That’s at the bottom of the article.

This is the scarcity heuristic. If you take pleasure in hoarding complex knowledge, I’ll point you to commodity theory: any commodity is valuable to the extent that it is unavailable.

The third-person effect

We think we’re immune to advertising. The third-person effect (TPE) is highly prevalent in standard advertising messages (ones without scarcity). But when something is presented as scarce or unique, TPE inverts.

When exposed to scarcity-led advertising messages, people tend to perceive that they are being influenced more than everyone else. Why? Because we’re egotistical mammals, not so deep inside.

The takeaway for you is simple: scarcity works in communications.

On to the key question now: is scarcity nothing more than a limited-time offer or an empty shelf?

Scarcity is a spectrum

There are three types of scarcity we observe frequently:

1. Demand-based scarcity:

   “There are 3 toilet paper rolls left. I MUST HAVE THEM.”
   In this context, scarcity takes the form of status quo bias or the bandwagon effect. People want to feel safe by following the status quo.

2. Supply-based scarcity: “Only 100 made? I MUST HAVE ONE.”

   People have a status-driven reaction to supply-based scarcity. They tend to overestimate their own cleverness and submit to the influence of the message.

3. Time-based scarcity: “Only 2 hours left to buy? I MUST HAVE IT.”

   This kind of scarcity has a lot to do with FOMO (fear of missing out). Loss aversion plays a significant role in getting people to change their behaviour towards what’s being sold. (Loss aversion is built on the observation that humans are twice as sensitive to losses as to gains.)

I want to spend less time explaining theory and more time covering application. That starts here:

Drawing the box to operate within

Knowing the three different types of scarcity doesn’t do anything for your commercial interest. Knowing when to apply them can make some difference. Knowing how to… that’s the proper stuff. The rest of this post is about those two things.

The reaction to scarcity changes with culture

In low-context cultures like the US, people tend to react more to scarcity. In high-context cultures like France, people are not as affected by it. Koreans respond more to scarcity-led messaging compared to Germans.

Of course, the “average” Korean and the “average” German don’t exist. Culture (and geography) dictates what is perceived as “scarce.”

It changes with regulatory focus

At times, people focus on achieving their ambitions. Getting that raise, chasing love, buying a huge house. We are in a promotion-focus mindset when we do these things.

At other times, we try to avoid negative outcomes by playing it safe. Wearing a mask to avoid contracting the flu, cancelling plans to avoid going to work hungover, etc. This is prevention-focus regulation.

People in a promotion-focus mindset respond better to supply/time-based scarcity. The others (prevention-focus) respond better to demand-based (“only 3 toilet paper rolls left…”) scarcity.

Very important: some people are inherently more prevention-focused, while others are more promotion-focused. There are no humans who are 100% prevention-focused or 100% promotion-focused. Don’t read this and do a shitty audience segmentation.

Scarcity affects different product categories differently

Supply-based scarcity impacts purchase behaviour on experiences. In one study, supply-based messages performed three times better than their demand-based counterparts.

For tangible products, a mix of supply-, time-, and demand-based scarcity can work depending on things like:

• Whether it serves a hedonic or utilitarian need

  Supply/time-based scarcity tactics work better with hedonic products, while demand-based interventions work better with utilitarian products (e.g., mouthwash).

• Whether it’s a high-visibility or low-visibility product

  High-visibility products (like the car you drive) are bought to enhance one’s status. These products sell better when they use supply-based scarcity tactics. Low-visibility products work better with demand-based messages.

• Brand fame impacts the effectiveness of scarcity

  Demand-based tactics are less effective when used by famous brands (high mental availability). People are familiar with the brand. They might already expect it to be in high demand (“It’s good. No wonder it sells more than the other brands.”)
  

  With unfamiliar brands, demand-based scarcity shows more promise (“I don’t know this brand, but it seems to be selling fast”).

Mapping channels to scarcity type

Now that you have an idea of how to ‘tweak’ scarcity for your product, you need to find the best channel to drive your scarcity message. Advertising is a weak force of change, but it’s more effective for driving supply-based scarcity messages.

Demand-based scarcity works better when communicated via point-of-sale communications and/or design cues. Here’s an example:

Recently, we advised our client to park all the staff cars in the car park facing the main road instead of their designated behind-the-office spots. This created the ‘empty toilet paper roll aisle’ effect, influencing more people to visit the showroom (even if they didn’t have a strong purchase intention). Everything else was kept the same (i.e. ad spend, dealership events, promotions), and allowing for seasonality, the client saw a 1.4x increase in walk-ins in the month they did it.

Advertising and POS are probably just two points on the spectrum. Test different channels for different scarcity interventions. Tell me what you find out.

What happens next?

Hopefully now you’re equipped to ask these questions when someone suggests that you use scarcity in your communications:

“what type of scarcity?”

“are we selling a prevention-focus product or a promotion-focus one?”

“what cultural knowledge about scarcity exist?”

“Are the channels we’re using to communicate scarcity the right ones?”

In my point of view, the hard part starts when you have answered these questions. There’s no AI model for this bit. This bit is called “being creative”.

When people are aware that the sense of scarcity is a marketing gimmick, they develop a psychological reactance (the feeling you get when have to pay tax) to it, preventing the message from being effective. This means two things:

1. Slapping “limited time offer” on every message might not work after some time

2. Even the most brilliant intervention gains familiarity after some time

This is a good time to remind yourself that behavioural science is not a replacement for creativity. Nothing is an alternative to creativity.

Scarce resources

Here’s a list of 7 well-cited journal articles on scarcity effects, courtesy sci-hub.box .

Here’s a systematic review of these articles

I’ve put them in a notebooklm project - you can access it here

Here’s the lovable app I created. It’s my first one. If you can make it less shit, please do. You don’t need my permission (a link back will be appreciated). Also FYI, this is not a replacement for human think. It’s just a happy side quest I got to go on.

Best of Substack this month

Kyla’s Newsletter

The Most Valuable Commodity in the World is Friction

Good morning from Orlando, Florida! This is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber…

Read more

a year ago · 1283 likes · 134 comments · kyla scanlon

https://substack.com/@philosophyminis/note/p-167948321?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=kdcpe

Big Think

Bonhoeffer’s “theory of stupidity”: We have more to fear from stupid people than evil ones

By Jonny Thomson…

Read more

a year ago · 449 likes · 76 comments · Big Think and Jonny Thomson

Until next month.

Everything they tell you about travelling is true. It helps you get out of your head. You activate the neural pathways that allow you to look at things like a tourist - a valuable skill to bring back home and apply in your work.

Only thing I dislike about the whole experience is the bit where you have to come back and adjust to normal life. Sneak into my DMs if you know how to shorten this period of adjustment.

With that, we proceed to our regular programming.

Autonomy, Relatedness, Competence: the three most researched contributors to intrinsic motivation.

Most marketers haven’t even heard about self-determination theory. And that is not their fault. Our marketing courses introduced the customer as our deity. Then it forgot about them in the very next lecture.

Naturally, marketers think in terms of communications tactics and nothing else.

Don’t read this and add 20-slides of motivational theory in your next presentation. Instead, put more focus on the customer and less on your flashy tactics (the way God intended).

Great marketing does not have to cost a great lot. The only requirement of great marketing is to be relevant. Relevant to potential buyers and relevant to the business context.

Marketers burn through resources by trying to force-fit solutions to their context. Take the small business trying to imitate big business marketing or every person who has done a fancy CGI stunt and have nothing to show for it.

Great marketing happens when you have foot in the market you’re selling to and a foot outside of it (preferably somewhere business decisions are made). Great marketing doesn’t happen by following what you read in a book out of context.

Great marketing is 100% about money. It’s now about good karma (open a dog shelterO. The longer you go thinking that marketing lies on the outskirts of business, the more you will be ridiculed by finance people. Understand the assignment,

Admit it. Companies want to work with big agencies not because big agencies are empirically better. Big agencies are safer (i.e., no one gets fired for working with a big agency).

Fudge worked for 2 years with a big financial services client. Our work directly contributed to an additional net turnover of ~100million USD. We los the account because a 100 million in incremental revenue doesn’t feel to some people the same as getting to say “we work with so and so”.

This is relevant for small businesses because unlike big brands, you don’t have money to waste on mediocrtity.

If you’re not a vainglorious name dropper, check out Fudge - the science led creative company. We have 2 empty slots for October ‘24

I get it when clients say “I don’t need an agency to do this”. “This” refers to slapping text on images and sticking them on a social media feed. Believe me, you social media feed is not going to give you disproportionate results. You need it to be interesting enough for when your potential buyers has a job-to-be-done.

I love tik-tok for this reason. You don’t want do play a volume game there. You want to do “interesting” stuff so that people see you more.

What marketing needs is not another fad to latch on to. What it needs is some honesty.

No doctor has a track record of curing cancer 100/100 times. No lawyer wins all cases. Still, somehow, all marketing and agency folk has 100% confidence that their strategy will work.

Accept that some (or most) of your work can hover around the “average” or “below average” mark on the spectrum. That will free you up to do your best work.

I have been involved in the last 3 presidential elections in Sri Lanka. But I prefer to know nothing about politics. What you see below is an observation. One that might be a little obvious to the politically intelligent.

Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

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The root cause for the mess we’re currently being dragged into, is the ethno-religious nation state - the blurring of the line that the west created during the renaissance.

How does old men manipulate their constituents along the mainstream fault lines of race and religion?

Whether it’s Sri Lanka or the US, the play seems to be the same.

1. The great conservative liberator
   The mistakes of previous rulers weakens the nation’s position. The great liberator, the chosen hick by the common voter, is put in a position where he has to prove his worth. He launches a war on terror. How he wins the war on terror or whether he wins is immaterial. He does it and wins the hearts of the populace.

2. The good and the evil
   For the great liberator to sustain his political interest, he has to make sure the populace remembers his heroism. He ignores the truth (i.e., both sides of the conflict has good and bad actors) and falls back on the easiest of the faults - ethno-religious ones.
   
   The clergy is given a political responsibility to serve. But there should also be a bad side. It is not effective to niche down to one particular organisation. It has to be broad enough so that it can be adequately hated.
   
   The liberator now hires mercenaries, good and bad, to play their roles. The “bad” actors represent an entire ethnicity/religious sect. They blow things up. They look and talk the same way, in real life and in the propaganda films of hollywood. The “good” actors call for the annihlation of the “bad”. Both sides work in concert to silence and confuse the vast majority who is in the middle.

3. The great conservative liberator is outed
   Government funded actors don’t always act according to the script. They are deeply ideological and once they are set up, the hatred grows rampantly. As pandemonium breaks, the great liberator lets loose the fact that he has in fact been serving his own personal interest at the cost of the majority.
   
   Religious extremism is addictive but an economic crisis can disillusion the masses in seconds.

4. An atypical alternative emerges
   He promises a difference. His atypical nature makes him more believable. He fails to deliver anything substantial. In the meantime, the paid religious actors commit heinous crimes that cause the loss of lives and makes the previous regime look like the better option.

5. The voters look for a better, more conservative (secure) option
   They pick someone with no political training, no track record. They make promises that are hard to keep. The public eats them up. The country falls into chaos. The paid actors (let’s call them ISIS, or BBS), are nowhere to be found.

We will rinse and repeat this cycle until there’s a clear separator between the rulers, the technocrats, the heads of religions, and the judiciary (or maybe the European Union could grow a spine, but enough wishful thinking)

The world is seeing an unprecedented mental and spiritual crisis. There needs not be any other metric to suggest the failures of our religious institutions (It’s the only fucking thing they are supposed to do).

(i) This is not a definitive list. This is my opinion. There are many great books out there on any given subject, I don’t think anyone can define the ‘10 must reads’ without at least a bit of doubt.

(ii) For each resource, I will give you the link to purchase, watch or visit. Some of the things on this list are not free. For those of you who can’t afford it, I will provide the link to a pirated copy as well. Use with care.

With that in mind, here’s tl;dr.

1. The JWT Planning Guide [2-hour-read]

2. Truth, Lies and Advertising [Book]

3. The Long and Short of it [2-hour-read]

4. Century of Self [4-hour documentary]

5. Alchemy [Book]

6. How Brands Grow [Book]

7. Man’s Search for Meaning [Book]

8. The Effectiveness Code [2-hour-read]

9. Strategy is Your Words [Book]

10. The Deck of Brilliance [Website]

01. The JWT Planning Guide [2-hour-read]

Stephen King (the strategy guy, not the horror guy), was one of the pioneers of the then infant discipline of account planning. Strategic/Brand/Communication planners of today consider this the bible of planning.

King introduces a 5-step process that covers the diagnosis of problem, picking media channels and writing the strategy. It is a bit of a tough read. With some commitment, you should be able to finish it off in one sitting.

“But I am not a strategy person. Why is this important to me?” you ask.

Most brands and agencies have left behind the two important parts of creating brilliant solutions, for the next shiny media channel: Diagnosis and strategy. In a culture that glorifies finding the solution to problems you don’t understand, having a clear framework that includes diagnosis and strategy will be helpful to non-strategy folks too.

Available for free download here: http://plannersphere.pbworks.com/f/JWTPlanningGuide.pdf

02. Truth, lies and advertising [Book]

In my opinion, this is one of the best books written on advertising. Jon Steele shares his experience as a planner in this book. The key takeaway for me, was how Mr. Steele approaches research with a healthy dose of skepticism.

Before this book, I would naively follow research findings, the way it was given to us. I felt like an idiot after reading Mr. Steele’s take on research. For that, this is my favourite book out of this list. And Mr. Steele is the ultimate bad boy for this edition of Brand Fetish: the newsletter.

Buy it at book depository (free shipping worldwide): https://www.bookdepository.com/Truth--Lies--and-Advertising/9780471189626

Download the pirated version here. If you download this, make sure you read it and buy a copy when you have the means.

03. The Long and Short of it [IPA Report]

You can’t say ‘advertising effectiveness’ without saying Les Binet and Peter Field. These gentlemen analyzed 996 IPA case studies over 30 years, across 700 brands in 83 industries to publish this revered document.

The biggest takeaway for me:

As in any healthy relationship, finding the right balance between the short-term and the long-term is the best way to build brand and achieve sales. Great relationship advice, ladies & gentlemen.

Buy it on Amazon here.

Read the pirated version here.

If you’re the lazy kind (I don’t know what you’re doing all the way down at #3") here’s a presentation some kind person online had done.

04. The Century of Self [Documentary]

On the surface, this is a grainy, 4-hour documentary that looks all prepped to bore the living fuck out of you. As a principle, I don’t watch anything grainy and I don’t have the patience to watch anything for 4 hours. But ‘Century of Self’ will get you hooked in the first 10 minutes. And look out for the ultimate bad boy of the century and Freud’s nephew, Mr. Edward Bernays.

Watch it on Youtube.

05. Alchemy [Book]

I have feelings of incredible proportion for this book by the modern-day legend, Mr. Rory Sutherland. Rory is the Vice Chairman of Ogilvy UK and one of the people who inspired me to nose-dive into Behavioural Economics.

The book is based on Rory’s experience with human behaviour, psychology and the many interventions that Ogilvy did for their clients.

The biggest take-aways for me;

1. The ‘average’ person doesn’t exist. Don’t try to sell to the ‘average’ person

2. The opposite of a good solution can be another good solution

3. There is a vast difference between how traditional economics expect humans to behave, and how humans actually behave

Buy it on Book Depository

Download the pirated version here.

06. How Brands Grow [Book]

Part 01, is everything the cover says: “What marketers don’t know”. I’m formally trained to be a marketer (‘a Chartered Marketer, as the British would say’). But none of things on this book were on my text books.

It negates the “esoteric quackery concerned with segmentation, differentiation and how buyers perceive brands (e.g. brand personality)” with evidenced based marketing, using the scientific approach to building brands and not what marketing theory suggests.

I nicked these 7 takeaways from the ‘How Brands Grow Speed Summary on brandgenetics.com

1. Continuously reach all buyers of the category (communication and distribution) – avoid being silent

2. Ensure the brand is easy to buy (communicate how the brand fits with the users life)

3. Get noticed (grab attention and focus on brand salience to prime the users mind)

4. Refresh and build memory structures (respect existing associations that make the brand easy to notice and easy to buy)

5. Create and use distinctive brand assets (use sensory cues to get noticed and stay top of mind)

6. Be consistent (avoid unnecessary changes, whilst keeping the brands fresh and interesting)

7. Stay competitive (keep the brand easy to buy and avoid giving excuses not to buy (i.e. by targeting a particular group)

Buy it on Book Depository

Pirated version: I can’t find a pirated version for this one. Sorry.

07. Man’s search for meaning [Book]

Victor Frankl was an Austrian Neurologist who was captured by the Nazis and put in a concentration camp. He survived the atrocity and reflects back on what kept him alive in this book.

“That’s a sad story. How does it help me become a better marketer?” you ask.

You may not know it, but you are in the business of manufacturing meaning. Why would someone feel more athletic wearing Nike? Why does your Nucleus Accumbens light up on a fMRI test when you see Coca Cola branding and not Pepsi?

Small strands of meaning, associated with colours, shapes and feelings.

Buy it on Bookdepository

Pirated Version Here.

08. The Effectiveness Code [Report]

Cannes Lions and WARC released this publication in 2020. James Hurman and Peter Field puts forth their analyses of 4,863 effectiveness award entrants and winners from 2011 to 2019 in this publication.

Creative commitment, the collapse of creative commitment over the last decade and the effectiveness ladder are the key themes on this report that I found interesting.

The report, and the 06 mini-guides on each of the rungs of the effectiveness ladder come with a whole lot of examples. I turned each of these levels of the ladder into a training session for my colleagues at FUDGE.

It is available for free on the Cannes Lions website. However, seen as I am too lazy to dig for it, I’ve re-uploaded it here.

09. Strategy is your words [Book]

Mark Pollard is a modern-day sage. I wouldn’t have read or watched most of the stuff I spoke about previously if not for him. He is also someone who has helped me make some tough choices regarding what I wanted to do for a living.

So before I speak about his book, please go check out his ‘consciousness streams’ on Instagram. Follow the Sweatheads blog, take his 100-day course.

I’ve rarely had a client who spoke freely, without hiding behind big words. I don’t blame the ones who do. I’ve rarely met an agency person who can go 2 sentences without using a combination of big words that requires an entire acid trip to make sense of. Sometimes, I do it when I run out of things to say.

We focus on the ‘engineering’ the human will, without understanding the mechanism through which we make sense of our lives, ‘WORDS’. It is impossible to reframe behaviour without words. The ability to play around with words is one of the most underrated skills a marketer needs to have.

So, buy this book here. It is worth the investment.

10. The deck of brilliance

“Pick a position & fuck”. The Fudge(TM) brand book has that line on the page about consistency.

The point is, all good brands have a clear angle on how they want to tell their story (yes, I also flexed my agency). The deck of brilliance curates 52 different ways of storytelling with examples. It is a brilliant resource I use to train my colleagues. It is also my go-to place when I write my own video scripts.

It was created by the duo Juggi Ramakrishnan & Todd McCracken and is available free on https://deckofbrilliance.com/.

And that’s it. 10 things that changed my outlook of marketing/advertising/strategy. Hopefully you will at least read a few of these and do marketing better.

Until the next article, enjoy the theme song for this Substack.

A lot of the summer camp course material, including what you are going to see next, comes from Mark’s book, ‘Strategy is your words’. If a lot of your work has to do with finding meaning, and you only have the money to buy one book, I recommend that this be it. I spoke about it more in my last article.

Day 07 of the 100-day summer camp is titled ‘Truth is disobedient’. The class video is a poem about love, sacrifice, hatred, coming of age, and everything else that only the truth can elicit.

It gave me goosebumps. Every time I replayed it in my head, it got more and more detailed. It got louder, and each time I felt love, hurt, anger, more and more intensely.

So, I had to transcribe it. I have to share it before I explode. Don’t mind the silly typos.

Truth is disobedient.

One of the most obvious things to say about strategy is that it is a search for truth.

Perhaps a less obvious thing to say is that truth is the trailer trash of business.

Most businesses are not comfortable with truth and they would prefer not to see it. They struggle to respect it. They're not sure what it's doing around. And that is to say that most business people don't really do 'truth'.

You only need to spend a day or a thousand in offices and workshops and meetings and emails and searches to realize that truth is a difficult thing to have and to express in business. And that makes sense because if you think about truth in life and in the history of humanity, truth doesn't always end well and it often involves the threat of violence.

So, the truth might require someone to coerce it out of you.

“Tell me the truth. We won't leave here until you have.”

Truth test relationships.

“Tell me the truth, you've never lied to me. Would you?”

Truth starts criminal trials.

“I swear to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”

So, truth is difficult. And it would be totally understandable if you didn't want anything to do with truth and just lived a life turned away from it to avoid pain. It's a valid coping mechanism.

[It’s] difficult if you wanna do strategy though, because you need to kind of dig into it, and I think there's a journey for many strategists which is from banal truths; truths that are obvious, that lack energy, that borderline cliché, to what I would call edge truths.

And there are two ways to look at the idea of an edge truth. One is that an edge truth might give you, your clients, your company a competitive edge, a competitive advantage. Another way to look at it is that an edge truth just happens to be very very provocative and out there.

I'll tell you a story. Banal truth litters the early years of your strategy life as you seek to fit in and survive and pay off debt but over time your ear will develop a disdain for the banal. In its stead, a zeal for the extreme will appear.

This journey to the edge may take many seasons. You'll read case studies, research papers, strategy books, books about those books, and so much research you won't know what to do with yourself when you're not reading research.

Your ideas will test themselves in public and they'll report on how they fare. And no matter what you live, and this is critical, you'll suffer but you'll live.

Love, travel, jobs, loved ones, awards and titles will come and go, come and go.

Mud laden step by sludge schlep you’ll plug to the edge of strategy’s domain of knowledge to find truths that give people a competitive advantage. This journey will turn you radical. As you reach the edge the land ahead will disappear into a cliff.

Above, dark clouds will grind, and lightning will crack. Below, sharp rocks will rabbit punch fishing boats and heave waves around their necks. The wind will rip your clothes asunder. Naked, you’ll stretch for the horizon and glare at the storms.

“Aye, is this it? Is this all you have for me? All this reading and researching and writing?

All the late nights and working weekends? All the timesheets?

The timesheets! My thoughts were only for them. I didn't wanna sell time in the 1st place. Time isn't even real, but you took it all!”

The storm will hold its choke grip. You'll take a crouched boxes stance, plant 1 foot back until its dividend the dirt. The storm will hurl ogre whales and now world trolls at you. It will slap you in the face with goblin bats.

A mini-golf course of all the holiday parties you ever attended will flying saucer at your head. A death breath of a trillion ping pong balls will pummel your skull. Flying fish zombies of all your failed relationships will purge from a hole in the sky. And there are a lot of them, so they'll fall for hours.

It will hail feedback.

Still, you will grid and stand and soak. After days, the wind will abate, and you'll emerge raw from the cliff with the colossal hall of storm truth. Now you'll see people as they are, witches as they want others to see them.

And you allow them that while also looking through them. You'll also see yourself with clear eyes because you'll no longer need a mirror or camera to look at yourself. You'll see truth everywhere like Patagonia vests and anklet socks on Wall Street, and early fall and the mini-skirts shorter than hats that swarm the streets of Manhattan Soho in spring.

And hear your strategy will take a turn and you'll shift from obedient truths to disobedient truths. You might even leave behind the ideas of ‘right' and 'wrong'.

Intense stuff.

I hope you read it and felt it wreaking havoc in your soul. Here’s a photo that describes how I feel every time I watch the video.

Last night, I considered not writing this.

“Fuck it. I’m going to rant. All 35 of my readers deserve nothing but the real hardcore stuff”, I thought as I woke up a short while back.

I’m going to start with a vague assurance of my impartiality, while being slightly biased.

Now, I’m not anti-award. I’m pro-truth. I understand that there are awards that are given based on clearly demarcated metrics. I know that when it comes to my line of work there is a strong correlation between creatively awarded campaigns and their effectiveness.

For example, it is easy to understand what went into awarding a brand the ‘Most Valuable Brand’ in a category, judging by the title. i.e., Possibly data about awareness, increasing purchase intent, greater price elasticity, penetration, frequency of purchase.

But, what the fuck goes into measuring the most loved brand of the year?

What is love?

noun

1. an intense feeling of deep affection.

   "babies fill parents with feelings of love"

   Similar:

   deep affection

2. a great interest and pleasure in something.

   "his love for football"

First off, I don’t know who the awarding body is. That alone should warn you of the perils of believing this garbage. But, I have interacted with most of the brands on this list.

I don’t love them. I don’t feel the same way a young basketball player might feel about owning a pair of Air Jordans, when I’m getting a new internet connection. I don’t lust after my Samsung. I have no special attachments to my Gilette. I think about McDonald’s, if I’m hungover.

“Okay, maybe you’re right about brand ‘love’. But you can’t refute the data about what brands people choose”

Let me answer that with an analogy.

In school, all the girls want to date the good looking guy. Plus points if your parents have money. But it doesn’t matter if the good looking guy can’t get an erection or is a violent drunk. Sure, he’s prom king. But people with all the information might not choose him.

And now, the theory.

This is the neurobiological framework presented by Antonio Rangeland and his colleagues of the Neuroscience department of Caltech.

People form representations of the choice they have (i.e., “What can I choose from”) based on internal (e.g., “I’m thirsty”) and external factors (e.g., “My friend bought a coke”).

If you read the piece on masturbation last week, you will know how the brand’s distinctiveness and how well they create / change our perception of external factors will eventually lead to these brands being ‘chosen’ more.

A value is assigned to each choice based on the internal and external states (in Pavlovian and Habitual systems) or the expected outcome (in goal-oriented systems). Based on the this value assignment, we choose.

So far so good.

After we purchase, we either go into post-purchase dissonance or are instantaneously gratified about the choice made.

With time, we gather more experiential evidence about the purchase. And this influences the choice of re-purchase.

For FMCG, this effect is easy to measure over a period of one year (i.e., you run out of biscuits, you get more biscuits). For an airline, during COVID, in a third-world nation, not so much.

So, we are not awarding people’s choice if we don’t consider the experience the brand delivered upon purchase. We need to consider the delta between what’s promised and what’s given, and how that has impacted the initial choice. And even then, it shouldn’t be because everyone in the category is equally shit and there is no clear alternative.

We are awarding a company’s ability to spend money on media. It’s not a bad thing to have money. It is actually crucial. But it is also why awards for brand value / brand performance exists.

here’s an example:

The awards.

Reality:

In the few days of lockdown (third wave), more and more people have criticized the Telco market leader in Sri Lanka.

But Axiata’s problem isn’t specific to the lockdown. When I was working with them in 2017-18, it was still their number 1 problem (although at the time, their solution was to hide comments). They’ve been onboarding more customers without increasing their capacity for years.

They have been patching up the symptoms while being too stingy to fix the cause. Contradictory of a brand who claims to bring the future, today.

The conclusion

People’s choice, brand love, best of the best, and most other gangrenous plagues are used by the big bullies of the corporate world to create an illusion of choice where there is none.

These are merely PR stunts. Because people rarely have ‘choice’, they imitate others. People don’t have a need to feel affectionate towards a brand. and PR stunts help create the illusion that ‘others’ are picking and loving, and fucking these brands.

While this mimetic theory keeps the advertising industry alive. Awards are meant to recognize those who prove themselves through action.

If the intention is to award the guy who everyone wants to sleep with, judge the winner not by size of his penis but at least by his ability to hold an erection.

P.S. I would’ve wrote this faster. But Dialog wouldn’t let me.

-End of rant-

Do you agree? Drop me a line.

Do you think its garbage? Drop me a line.

“Brand loyalty is dead.”

“TV is dead.”

It feels ballsy to proclaim something dead. It’s a prelude that makes uninteresting regurgitations of pop-marketing, slightly more bearable.

Starting an article with “________ is dead.” makes you feel like ‘The Ancient One’ from the Dr. Strange. Trust me, I just did.

I’m ready to bet anything that you’ve encountered someone that has claimed something to be dead. Maybe you have done it. I’ve certainly done it when I was younger and stupider.

1. Brand loyalty is not dead

Brand loyalty exists. However, loyalty is an exception. Most buyers are not loyal. That has always been the case.

People don’t care about brands the way marketers think they do. That shouldn’t be misinterpreted as the death of loyalty. Loyalty is, for the most part, insignificant. But no. Not dead.

2. TV is not dead

Nope. Not dead.

However, there is a minority who don’t watch broadcast television. I own a TV. But I don’t have a subscription for broadcast or network tv services. I can imagine a world where everyone can go about life without access to broadcast TV. But that doesn’t mean TV is dead. If at all, it means that TV is dead to me.

3. Mass Marketing is not dead.

This is a popular myth that the modern digital ‘gurus’ propagate. There are significant long and short term gains to be had from mass marketing.

Instead of saying '“mass marketing is dead”, say “higher creative commitment leads to higher marketing effectiveness”. That is, higher the number of channels you invest in, the better your marketing effectiveness is.

4. Facebook is not dead

“Facebook is dead” is the digital marketing alternative to “TV is dead”.

Facebook is reaching maturity. According to Statista, it’s grown by 19% since 2019. In terms of growth, the platform is in 4th place. And that’s a good thing (for Facebook). Investing in Facebook marketing is still a good idea.

At this point, I want to remind you that this is not a evaluation of the relative good/bad of the channel. Facebook is still a data-thieving asshole.

For reasons I’ve mentioned here, don’t listen to people when they say these next three things are dead. They are not.

5. Advertising is not dead.

6. SEO is not dead.

7. Account planning is not dead.

It is not easy to kill these things. Death of these things would mean that people change the way they behave drastically. But we are creatures of habit. And changing habits take longer than we would like to admit.

Think about me when you come across the next article about something being dead.

Have I missed anything? Comment below.

Stay kinky.

P.S. This article originally appeared here.

I am an agnostic atheist. I appreciate religion in that without religion, there wouldn’t have been exponential growth in storytelling, art and science. This week, I’ve been reading a book titled ‘An atheist’s history of belief’. Matthew Kneale, in the book, takes the reader through religions from 77,000 years ago to more recent inventions like Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and more.

It’s mostly broad strokes. I am not qualified enough to comment on whether his predispositions affected the conclusion of the book. This is barely about the book. This is more about something that was playing in the back of my mind as I was reading the book: Religions popped up faster than digital marketing agencies at the time. Only a handful survived the test of time. And almost all of them followed a set of rules in their storytelling, that helped them gather a mass following over time. This is an attempt to draw a parallel between these rules and what we do, when we tell stories about brands.

1. It’s easier to please one God.

All major religions, the versions of them that exist today, were polytheistic. Pantheons of Gods who were responsible for each aspects of people’s lives were often led by one main God. Temples were built to honour each of the Gods. Each God would have a priest with whom they would negotiate.

Almost all of them transformed into monotheistic religions within a few centuries (although not willingly). Leaving aside the logistical efficiency that allocating all resources to one God would bring about, it also united people by giving them a common identity.

Lesson: Try to get people to associate your brand with one thing, not multiple things. Build memory structures and reinforce them through your messaging.

2. Pick the right influencer

Who can influence your audience on what you’re selling? Fortunately for our prophets (or their messengers), the choice was not as complicated as it is for today’s marketers. When it came to a new religion, the process was simple;

Get the Queen to endorse it —> The Queen endorses the King to endorse it to the people.

Lesson: The religions that made it, had royal patronage. Brands that make the most of their influencer budgets pick influencers who have authority over a subject, and with a loyal following. And they collaborate with influencers in devising creative ways to cut through the clutter rather than follow a one-size fits all ‘influencer marketing’ approach.

3. Identify and solve real problems

Diagnosis of human problems that you can solve in order to get them to buy your product, is the single most overlooked marketing activity. For a long time, Arabs were sidelined and neglected by empires looking for global dominance, the prophet Muhammad promoted a nationalistic vision to them, where they gain back what was rightfully theirs. Force and rebellion were the two key ingredients that motivated Arabs to join Muhammad’s cause.

While most prophets were not alive to see their visions transform into mass-scale religions, Muhammad succeeded in unifying and getting thousands of people behind his cause during his lifetime.

Lesson: Identifying the problem is three-quarters of the battle won.

4. Strategy is not eternal

The God’s word and the books that entail God’s word, have changed to fit political agendas, forged to topple empires, and even to win over new converts. Most religions that started out being apocalyptic, transformed into those that promised eternal life. Those that demanded celibacy, resorted to being happy with monogamy. Religious and political institutions changed the prerequisites for a happy afterlife depending on the actions they wanted their constituents to take.

Lesson: Strategy should change to complement the other social, technological, political forces that are changing the way people behave.

Any lessons I missed? Let me know by replying to the newsletter e-mail or commenting here.

For some it means "work- non work balance". In my line of work, this thought is not that useful. Your brain does not just switch off after 5 p.m. If you believe in this version of work-life balance, you're lying to yourself.

For others (the majority), it means "life-not life balance". Symptoms of this include (i) waiting for the weekend, (ii) waiting for it to be 5 p.m., (iii) glorifying "work-life balance", etc. If you belong to this segment, I sympathise with you.

To me, the concept is nothing but corporate propaganda designed to make employees disassociate from their individuality between 9 and 5.

I ran a survey with 200 small-business founders and CEOs. Only 60 participated (of which around 15 were agency founders. Their responses have been removed). The main question was: “Do you even think about marketing?”.

Here’s what I found:

• Most founders think about marketing

• Most founders think their marketing can be better

• Most founders identify the primary function of marketing to be increasing sales or demand

• Paid ads is the one thing they have all been wanting to try out but haven’t been able to

• Not everyone (contrary to my assumption) sees value in having a marketing strategy

• Almost all participants do intensive research on their market and category (interesting gap between research and strategy there)

Of the people who think strategy is must-have (majority), the reasons for having a strategy are:

• It creates visibility for the brand

• It helps prioritise resources

• It lets them set direction upfront

More people think that a clearly defined brand is important (compared to the number of people who think marketing strategy is important). Why?

• Create longevity to the sales pipeline

• Lifetime customer base

• Top-of-mind awareness

• Loyalty

• Increase price elasticity

Their biggest strategy frustrations:

• What’s been sold as strategy is not real strategy

• It’s not affordable

• The right people are not available

• Inconsistent messaging across channels

• Taking people from leads to sales

• Understanding analytics and putting that to use

• Monitoring is difficult

It would be irresponsible of me to tell you that these findings are conclusive. The sample size is small. Do your own research before coming to conclusions.

The next bit is self promotional

People always tell me “It’s a small industry. Everyone knows everyone. Don’t make a big fuss when someone doesn’t pay you”

To this I say “Fuck that”

I’m not afraid to be cancelled in a circle of high-society snobs (it’s always the ultra wealthy, politically connected ones that default).

This is why I always make a conscious effort to work with youthful challenger brands with open-minded leaders. People who appreciate that their expertise is not my expertise and vice versa.

I will give you my all. Just pay my people on time.

Would you read this book?

I’ve gone and invented a new word: “De-inventing”. I looked for the opposite of “re-inventing” and didn’t find anything that would be a good enough “fuck you” to our incessant need to always “reinvent”. Here are nine slides about it (click to view).

And that’s all for now. Follow me on LinkedIn. And always remember, you’re no better than a medieval peasant at judging whether a piece of advertising works.

Ta.

The last few months were incredible. I didn’t write as much as I’d liked to because I was spending 90-hour weeks, split across 4 different businesses:

1. Fudge is almost 5 years old. My partners and I continuously learn and unlearn how to run a creative business. We’ve been productising our services. We also decided it’s time to hire A-grade talent.
   
   I discovered how much I hate the process of looking for talent and hiring.
   

2. Cranial, my new born, is a brand strategy studio. My clientele comprises of small business that find me on the likes of Upwork and Fiverr, as well as more established clients that find me on LinkedIn.
   

3. Deva and I restarted our first venture. Viral Cube (we’re changing the name) brings our learnings from Behavioural Science to make post-click-engagement more effective (i.e., what happens after someone clicks/sees an ad).
   

4. Finally, ‘Obviously Works’, a full service agency that I set up in the UK (need to make my brown ancestors happy)
   

How do I feel? Like I’m bringing up 3 infants and one toddler, and they all have different mothers.

Here’s a book that you might find interesting. The most important take away for me is the difference between “work” and “creative work”.

Get the book

Smaller businesses don’t get the strategy they deserve.

Half of all small businesses in the US and two-thirds in the UK don’t have a marketing strategy.

At first I thought this is symptomatic of the corporate myopia that’s rampant in the world today. But that’s not it.

Most business owners can’t situate strategy within their operating system. They are lost in the syntax.

“What is marketing strategy?”, “What is brand strategy?”, “what is content strategy?”, “what is creative strategy?”. When does one start and the other one begin? Are all of these things needed?

Here’s my attempt at answering this:

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The single most annoying thing I heard this month is “you know there are many other agencies out there, right?”

The same client told this to my team on 2 separate occasions.

Who am I to stand in the way of my clients’ happiness? So I fired them.

If someone says this to you and continues to pay for your services, here’s why you should fire them:

1. They don’t really want to find another agency. They want to scare you into doing what they want

2. They think that the empty threat will somehow motivate you to work harder for them

3. If you tolerate this once, they will do it again and again.

4. These are usually the same people who want a “special” discount on everything

5. Self-respect

The 90s were great. Except I was 6 years old in 1999. All I remember is an aesthetic. Unlived memories define us as much as lived ones.

Until next time.

I’m sure these are problems that expand beyond marketing and advertising. But I keep thinking how we could get more done or even better, take more time out for ourselves, if these senseless work practices are done away with.

So, if you are in a position to stop the unnecessary sadism, do it. Let people be productive, go home worry-free because they can finish work within office hours, and do whatever that relaxes them. This way, they will work again the next day with the enthusiasm that gets work done better.

If you are a victim of these things, try saying these magic words;

“Can we try _________ instead? I’ve read on this awesome newsletter that ____________ can make us hate your face less.”

Without further ado, here are the 04 things you do at work that can make you unfuckable to your significant other.

01. Have too many meetings

Whether it’s on zoom or it’s physical, meetings take away from the time you have to be productive. It is the one way to make sure loud people are heard. But people who are not fast reflexive thinkers who might be able to add value will not be able to contribute. It’s the number one productivity and creativity killer.

At Fudge, we try not to have meetings. When we do, we timebox it so that everyone stays on topic. And no meeting goes without actionable steps and responsibilities given to those who are involved. To engage everyone, everyone at Fudge uses online documents and presentations where everyone can comment their thoughts OR have a discussion on our whatsapp group.

02. Try to take control where you shouldn’t

I started out my advertising career in account management. Back then account managers were called many names (‘Glorified Peon’ was the most used). Something that they weren’t called out for, is sometimes wanting to please everyone involved in the process.

Pleasing everyone means taking control over every aspect of a process, even those that are outside your control. Not having control over things you you don’t have control over, can often be internalized as a lack of skill on your part. This leads to anxiety, which leads to depression, which leads to burn out.

I’ve burnt out multiple times for this same reason. One thing I’ve always noticed is that the people whom you tried to please so hard, will get on with business as usual (as they should). However, your recovery from burnout will take time, and often be misconstrued as something else.

03. Try to figure out what boss wants

This is something I’ve heard too many times than I care to admit: “Our directors think like this, so we will have to give them this”. Forcing yourself and other people to think like someone higher up the ranks, is just an invitation to limit the quality of your work.

(A) It links back to your wanting to please everyone. (B) It’s just lazy thinking. To clients / peers who tell me this, I usually respond with two questions: (1) Why did they hire someone with your skill/experience if they just wanted to replicate the existing thinking within the company? (2) What does that tell you about yourself?

04. Timesheets

As someone who makes a living from creative thinking, timesheets are the ultimate slap in the face for me. I can’t confine my thinking within work hours. Am I going to charge you overtime for the work my brain does when I’m asleep? (Some of my best ideas happened in my sleep).

Replace timesheets with trust. I can’t speak on everyone’s behalf but I know for a fact that creative professionals and timesheets don’t make much sense together.

What are the other things you do at work that doesn’t make any sense to you?

How it all began.

It all started in May. The monsoon season brought too much sun and too much rain. The plants on my balcony were gyrating to the tune of the howling winds. I closed the door that leads to the balcony.

The floor was already flooded because the wind brought the rain in through the doors. Even on the 6th floor of a building, you’re not free from floods. “Times are so weird, it’s raining fucking horizontally” I remember telling my wife.

I remember being angry; I loved the rain. I couldn’t enjoy it because outside our apartment, there was a ship full of acid and plastic caught on fire, sinking slowly, releasing all the chemicals on to the shores, maybe 500 metres from where I stay.

Where I stay, is also one of the hardest hit by the 3rd wave of COVID. Young people were dropping dead, and the government was not doing anything.

When you live in a 3rd-world shithole, these should be easy-to-live-with occurrences. But nothing is digestible, when clients don’t pay on time. You’re running a startup, and suddenly you’re responsible for 10 people. And I hadn’t slept decently in a while.

My wife received a call from her best friend. “A gig” she said. It was followed by the nice dopamine hit.

The gig

A 250-page annual report, to be designed in a week. It was for a charity. Most charities, by design, give their management a big ego boost that makes them feel its ok to treat other people like shit.

250-page report. Within a week. At a little less than half the industry rate.

I said no. And they sent me the report they won a bronze award for, in 2020. It was either designed by someone who had just learnt photoshop or someone with Tourette’s.

But of course, design is the lubricant that helps meaning penetrate tight holes. This club had done a lot of good work. They deserved to win Gold. Their choice of designer had blown their chances away. And they wanted to make amends.

I remember seeing this and immediately thinking “I can do better on powerpoint”. And then I agreed to do it.

The first draft will be sent within 7 days of receiving all the content from the client

Mistakes

I was directly liaising with the honourable president of the club. She was full of youthful energy that I knew had started to fade away for me. Eager to win gold and rub it all over the previous president’s face. Eager to show all the boys who’s boss.

She reminded me so much of myself. She was like me, but without needing anti-depressants to preserve the youthfulness.

So, when my client wanted to two options for the theme for no reason, I nodded my head. When the content that was supposed to be finalized before we started designing, was not finalized, I didn’t say anything. When they changed the content only to inform us at the point of previewing, we had no complaints.

Nearly a decade of training to deal with incompetent people, gone to shit thanks to my infatuation with my past self.

And then on the 10th, we were told about a 13th June deadline to submit the damned thing.

Enter Dialog Axiata

Our art director had just lost all connectivity. He’s not one to complain. But he was complaining, and that meant shit was going south. The “couple of hours” the upload was to take had become 14 hours with 2 hours more to go.

And in the middle of the lockdown, I picked him up at his place, brought him to my apartment building, which was already quarantined after they discovered a Covid patient.

The final 24 hours

We set up a war room. 2 designers. Our art director laying out images on what we thought was an approved layout. Myself, as a makeshift designer, working on changes. With every set of changes sent, we get new changes for reasons that included “we decided to change this copy” to “I don’t think it’s nice”.

Our art director, looking for images that weren’t yet uploaded. I was falling asleep on my laptop.

2 black coffees, strong. 9 cans of Redbull and 4 packs of cigarettes.

The final final 24 hours

My prefrontal cortex was done working. The mammalian brain was up, wanting to wipe out civilizations, to attack without provocation.

And our dear client was calling us, or leaving a whatsapp message every hour or so. The main theme of her messages: “I think you guys are lying about the work being done.” The nerve.

48 hours past the “deadline”. And we finished. At 2.30 a.m. on my birthday. I had finished proofreading the document by 3.30. And we upload the file.

At 5.30 a.m. we had uploaded 15% of the files. Fuck you very much, Dialog.

At 5.50 a.m., I receive another seemingly composed message with a condescending undertone. There’s no stopping the inner demon (the inner demon has a fragile ego) now. Not after this message.

Lessons Learnt

Empathy without concern for self, is the fastest way to moral decay.

Cheap work has a way of costing you more than you make off it, one way or the other.

Cheap work doesn’t make clients happy, you will both feel you’re owed something from the other (but you’re not).

If you’re in Sri Lanka, and using Dialog Axiata’s services. Stop.

Customers only ever use this line when something goes wrong. And it’s too late at that point. Exit marketing, enter PR and damage control. If you swap out your traditional marketer’s lens to a behavioural economics lens, all of a sudden your customers don’t shut up. They tell you everything you could need to bolster your marketing function and more.

Watch what they do.

Our brains have three main layers - the lizard layer, the mammalian layer and the higher-primate layer because we’ve evolved from lizards to mammals to primates. However, the older the layer, the stronger the control it has on your basic physiology.

The primordial lizard in you succumbs to hunger, fear, aggression among other basic instincts but lizards aren’t social creatures - no, that bucket of piss starts with the mammalian layer of the brain.

Mammals exhibit social behaviour - that’s one of the characteristics that define mammals other than fur and tits. To evolve social behaviour, the animal needs to have a feedback mechanism to understand if what they’re doing is socially acceptable or not and that’s where it starts.

They observe how other members of their social group reacts to them and then course correct to ensure they’re playing a game everyone else wants to play. These tendencies are amplified by primate brain which exhibits complex social behaviour, like caretaking, sibling bonds and even trade.

Fast forward to the modern age. While there are still those of us that pull a door that says push, that’s only because of bad design. Switching out a plate handle to a bar handle on the “pull” side of the door drastically reduces the number of people who can’t read.

The bottom line is, people’s behaviours aren’t random. They’re predictable to a degree and are generally a product of progress, circumstance and functional, social and emotional context.

That brings us to…

Jobs Theory

Now don’t take this as an excuse to creepily watch people. Instead, I’d like to introduce possibly one of the most scalable frameworks I’ve come across. Clayton Christensen (RIP), a professor of marketing at Harvard, formalized the insight generation process with Jobs theory.

If you want to learn about this in-depth, I highly recommend his book, ‘Competing Against Luck’ (Pirated version here). The framework was used by AirBnB when they were a teeny tiny startup, and by multinational behemoths like McDonalds.

The basic premise is simple - your customer isn’t a psychographic, nor a demographic, it’s not even a person. It’s a behaviour. Allow me to validate the person insertion there - when someone is rushing to the hospital because one of their friends just met with an accident, it doesn’t matter how empty their fridge is, they’ll only go shopping when they’re done with their current goal.

That isn’t to say that they’ll never go shopping either. The real “customer” there, are the set of behaviours involved in your buying process.

How Jobs theory (or some of you might know it as Job-to-be-done theory) is applied can’t really be filled out in a single blog post but we’re hoping just bringing you this information is useful.

If you want to know more, let Wele know and we’ll pop out a handbook or manual for that purpose but I will attempt to simplify the process as much as possible.

01. Define the goal

Sticking to old sayings that have lost meaning, “A customer isn’t looking for a quarter-inch nail, they’re looking for a quarter-inch hole. As bluntly as possibly, as critically self aware as your ego will allow, write down the goal your customer is trying to accomplish.

Let’s take a cakery as an example.

Eg: To stop feeling hungry.

A cakery would love this Job.

02. Progress

Find out how far down the process of achieving the goal your brand actually makes an impact. What does that mean? Write down the individual actions they do from being aware of the problem to completing the goal and circle the step your brand steps in.

eg: To stop feeling hungry after I get to the city

A cakery in the city would love this job.

03. Circumstance

Add the circumstances that govern the interaction.

eg: To stop feeling hungry when I get to the city, after my morning commute to work.

A cakery in the city might think they’ve found a new market! Cake for breakfast!

04. Functional, Emotional and Social Context

Add the functional, emotional and social context that influence the situation.

eg: To stop feeling hungry when I get to the city, after my morning commute to work, but also to avoid feeling embarassed if one of my friends or coworkers catches me with a slice of cake in the morning.

A cakery in the city can choose to open in the afternoon and save costs or allow people to place orders in the morning that they can open in the evening to even out cashflow.

How important is each one?

There isn’t a cookie cutter answer for that - each situation throws different weights to each of these aspects. In simple situations, use your gut and common sense, a lot of these situations are pretty intuitive. In more complex situations, apply the scientific method, have a control and 3 different treatments and observe which aspect creates the most impact.

Wait… how did I get here?

The customer IS always right. Jobs theory exploits that fact but that doesn’t mean what they SAY is right, it means what they DO is right - you just can’t argue with that.

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For most marketing professionals, operations are fast-paced, stressful and seemingly never-ending. As with most situations in life that consume your attention to the point you forget why you started in the first place, the key is to take a step back and rework the basics once in a while, because there is a difference between working in the business and working on the business.

Here's what I think is the most crucial skill:

Constantly update your working model of what marketing is 

There are roughly three blanket statements that run-around, ass exposed, with little to no justification. 

1. Marketing is common sense.

2. Marketing is an art. 

3. Marketing is a science.

If marketing is common sense, we're all doomed and should be out of a job, because the thing about common sense is that it's common. You don't need to be a professional to achieve it. Common sense is a basic pre-requisite for most jobs and hardly a star item on a CV. 

If marketing is an art, we're possibly more fucked because a few artists do really well, and even then, they do well long after they've died and the laws of demand and supply come in. A great legacy but a terrible career. 

Marketing has to be treated as a science for your lives as marketing professionals to make sense. The scientific process is one of observation, hypothesizing and validation. 

Where do you start? 

If marketing is a science, then what parent subjects lend to the field?

Marketing is the study of buyer behaviour, and the development of potential solutions that better resonate with existing behaviour. We've compiled this list of parent fields that we think succinctly explain marketing without too much paralysis. 

1. Psychology 

2. Sociology 

3. Economics 

4. Behavioural Economics 

If these topics are outside your domain of knowledge and you're a marketing professional, I have good news and bad news. 

The bad news? 

You're behind. The marketing world, especially the biggest brands, leverage each one of these fields with great efficiency. If your brand becoming the top dog in your industry feels like a pipe dream, it's because the people who work there know these fields (and more), and they leverage it to run circles around smaller brands.

There's a whole law around this in Byron Sharp’s ‘How Brands Grow’ that was in our reading list that you can dig in to here. The law of double jeopardy states that MORE people buy bigger brands and they do it MORE often, effectively knee-capping smaller brands. 

The good news? 

The information you need to effectively use these concepts are freely available on the internet. It's better to catch-up now, than to catch-up five years from now when your competitors have grown even more and the fields themselves have progressed further, exponentially increasing the gap between your brand and top-dog status. 

Where do I go from here? 

From our perspective? Straight to the subscribe button at the bottom of the page. Overall? Find out what marketing really is. There isn't a perfect answer but there are some answers that are better than others. 

Globally, coke has been in the lead for some time in terms of mentions. And most of the sentiments towards the brand has been positive. Pepsi on the other hand, leads the share of voice game in a few countries and has seen mixed sentiments (And they wish to thank their internal ‘agency’ and Kylie Jenner for the negative sentiments).

All arguments that I’ve witnessed about the Coke vs. Pepsi wars usually come down to taste. Taste is subjective and vague. So, logic and rational thinking can only take you so far if you want a definitive answer.

To put the conundrum to rest, a bunch of neuroscientists plugged some people on to an fMRI machine (an fMRI is like an MRI but it measures brain function as opposed to anatomy. Let me know if you want to learn more about that).

First, a blind test. The results: Majority of the people thought that the cup with Pepsi in it was better tasting. Nothing out of the ordinary.

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During blind tests, more people report to like Pepsi, in terms of taste.

They were then split into 2 random groups. One group was presented Coke (with coke branding) and the other with Pepsi. And these are the results.

During the blind tasting, the area of the brain responsible for decision-making and interpreting sight are activated. This is a typical response.

When the brand was queued in, some people from the coke group had activations in their Hippocampus, dlPFC (Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex), mid-brain and the Ventromedial PFC).

The vmPFC intercepts sensory information. The Hippocampus, dlPFC and the mid-brain area light up when it identifies culturally relevant information.

To put simply, some people’s brains lit up when they saw what they had was coke. The same effects were not seen with Pepsi.

This might have something to do with the way the two have been marketed over the years.

Coke has been focusing on being distinct. If you take a look at their campaigns, they have most of the time revolved around love, joy, sharing etc.

Pepsi, on the other hand, has looked at leveraging the popularity of pop icons for the most part. But taking a look at their successful campaigns, they don’t have the centrality and consistency of emotions that coke ads have.

Also, the downside of basing your success on multiple celebrities, is that (a) their popularity can only be short term and (b) their controversies can affect you.

This is another example of distinction vs. differentiation. If you don’t know the difference between these two, read this article from last Tuesday. It is about mental masturbation.

P.S. I’m not a neuroscientist. I am learning about neuroscience so that I can add value to our clients at FUDGE.

P.P.S. I’ve simplified the study about coke and pepsi because language on journals can be a bit too much at times. I’ve uploaded the journal article here, if you can’t stop yourself.

Until we write to you again next week, stay kinky.