Meet Simone. Meet Rachel. Meet NBZ. And Learn.

One of the absolute joys of the internet era is that it enables extremely shy people like myself to be extremely social. During the 35 years I worked within the black-mold-infested walls of various ad agencies, I probably went out for drinks with people fewer than 35 times. That's less than once a year--if you don't have a head for math.

While I was at Ogilvy, I never met Simone Oppenheimer Mandel who worked in new business at Ogilvy. But somehow, I suppose by dint of my Brontosaurus-sized social footprint we were linked in. About four years ago, Simone and her partner, Rachel Segall sent me a note and we set up a call. You know, to meet.

Simone and Rachel run NBZ, a new business, let-us-help-you-win-more-market-better-do-cooler-things-get-known-solve-problems-consultancy. Since we've met, I've followed NBZ's work, their successes, and their rise and rise and rise. I've done work for Rachel and Simone now and again--but more for the chance of working with smart, energetic, warm and funny people than for the money. A lot of people might not understand that motivation--but such is NBZ's power. You just feel better after spending some time with Rachel and Simone.

A few weeks ago, Ad Aged had a couple guest posts in the space of a week. NBZ whacked me across the metaphorical knuckles with a ruler. "What about us," Rachel and Simone asked. "Can't we write something for Ad Aged?"

Of course you can, I answered. 

And they have.

And it's here.

By the way, a lot of companies, agencies and brands talk a lot about Thought Leadership. In most instances, the phrase has the currency of Monopoly money. There's really no thinking in  the thoughts or leading in the leadership.

Like I said, NBZ, Simone and Rachel, Rachel and Simone aren't like most others. For instance,above is the Thought Leadership page of their site. Real, live thoughts. Real, live leadership. From two real, live mensches.

And now, their real, live wisdom. (This might be a C and S...Clip and Save.)

 

Here Are Ten Lessons We've Learned as NBZ

 

Hype. If you don’t believe in it, why should anyone else? Show up loud. Show up proud. This is how we built our brand and advise others.

 

Universe. Manifestation is real. Positive thoughts, clear goals, and specificity. The universe works with you when you work with it. That’s how we’ve grown—both in business and life.

 

Generosity. Believe there's room for everyone—even competitors. And always make time to give back. Building a network is about supporting, not hoarding.

 

Fail. Experiment fast, fail forward. Get things out there quickly, and don’t be precious. Speed beats perfection. This is how we move.

 

Innovate. Even when it’s hard—especially when it’s hard—break things and make things. Rebuild them better. Growth has no comfort zone, and neither do we.

 

Trust. Trust yourself. Trust your gut. Trust your vision. Trust your partnership. That’s how we’ve built a business and balanced families.

 

Act. Confidence is a verb. Act like you’ve already won. The world will follow. That’s how we create energy and optimism for the future.

 

Network. If you've built your network with intention and generosity, it will repay you a gazillion times over. The connections you nurture will come through when you need them the most.

 

Human. Be real, be raw, be human, be you.  It’s how we connect, build relationships, and acts as a natural filter or magnet for who you work with .

 

Oh Well. Not everything will go your way. Sometimes it wasn’t up to you, or you couldn’t find the time to make it perfect. Shrug, say “oh well,” and move on. Power lies in letting go. That’s how we’ve balanced it all.

Thanks, NBZ.

Thanks for being you.

And for being friends.

Man-o, Man-o, Manichaeanism.

Not to be all Manichaean about it, but you can bet your bottom diphthong that's where I'm going. Manichaeanism was, about 1800 years ago a popular religion that saw in the world a battle of two forces. Light, good, kindness versus darkness, bad and evil.

Obviously, for the purposes of a dopey blog on advertising, I've simplified things quite a bit. Suffice to say the world of Manichaeanism is a binary world. A world without gradations. A world much like the political one amerika is living through now. And has been for a while. 

You're either upstanding or you ate Buttons, the cat.

Way back in the early 60s, reactionary republican presidential candidate, Barry Goldwater said, “Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue.” It seems that 60 years later Goldwater's thinking prevails, not that of the candidate who defeated him 6.5 votes to 3.5. Lyndon Johnson.

There's a galloping trend of Manichaeanism in the ad business as well. 

Here are three or four instances:

1.
Doing ads designed to win awards vs. Doing good ads for real clients and hoping they win awards.

2.
Crafting a personal brand vs. Being good and earning your reputation.

3.
Proclaiming that being kind/equitable/fair/transparent are part of your 'core values' vs. actually being/ kind/ equitable/ fair/
transparent.

4.
Announcing you're a 'best place to work' vs. being a good place to work.

To my eyes, most of the dark side derives from trying to be acclaimed without actually doing anything worthy of praise. And too often, in too many ways, practiced by too many people Manichaeanism seems to prevail.

Ergo, short cuts and expedience win out over hard-work and diligence.

There are no short cuts to building a proper brand. Any short cut you take for expedience's sake will eventually bite you in the ass. If you don't do the hard-work of watering the rose, the bloom will eventually be off the rose.

Years ago when I worked on a major international business machine account, they had a problem. Because they made so much money selling hardware--in particular mainframes and other servers--they had underinvested in building a "cloud."

By the time they finally did try to sell their cloud services, Amazon, Google and Microsoft had already attained market dominance. I remember one Saturday morning reading an article in the Weekend Wall Street Journal about the trillion dollar cloud market. 

My client had less than a two-percent share. 

This is after spending billions on advertising promoting their cloud.

If you have less than two-percent share of anything, you should probably fold your tent. I'd bet the reason so many relationships fail is that one party feels they're getting less than two-percent share of the other party's time. That's why human relationships fail. And agency relationships too.

The two-percent share thing bothered me. It was a failure on the part of the agency to do right by the client.

Even though I had already resigned from helping run that account, after 12 years on it, I was still invested in its success.

I wrote a note to the CEO of North America--a long-time colleague and a friend.

"X," I wrote, "2-percent share. We need to do something before we get fired. We need to show we're leading the business not a vendor to the business.

"We need to sell the capabilities of all of the tentacles of WPP. I can't do that. You can. But what I can do is write a mission. What we're going to do to define the assignment, rally our forces and fix our clients' principle problem."

"What's your idea," X wrote back.

"5-2-10. A five year plan to leverage all the resources of the world's largest communications company so that our client can get to ten-percent marketshare." (I figured ten-percent was the threshold of major player-hood.Z)

X backed off.

That's not what agencies do anymore. Now, we'd make a virtual cloud-nine installation and hand out hairnets and free umbrellas. We'd produce a case-study video and claim we got a billion impressions and show some bottle blonde newsreader gushing over the "cloud journey." "Bob, today news-team seven went inside a cloud!"

I was fired about eight months later, X left about three months after I did. 

In fact, over the last five years, the agency has halved itself. That's like McDonald's closing 20,000 restaurants out of the 40,000 they operate. Or the NFL closing the entire AFC. Or a racehorse running on just two legs.

In our Manichaean universe, that's enough to win you Network of the Year.

Are You Talking to Me?

Not all that many years ago, when I was an ECD at the "Digital Agency of the Decade," I often felt like I was the only person in the agency who actually wanted to be in advertising.

I felt I was the only person who believed in telling people what a client did, why that client was important, what made them different. You know, why it would be good to look into that client.

Everyone else was off in a tangential world I simply didn't understand. 

I still don't.

They wanted to design logos. They wanted to design "experiences." They want to design "user interfaces," brand guidelines, content management systems. The most ambitious of my erstwhile colleagues wanted to create "new products."

I kept mum about this for a long time. 

I wasn't one of the cool kids and didn't want to betray my un-coolness by revealing that I didn't know what a new product was. So many people were bent on creating them, I was sure that somehow I had missed the boat.

In fact, I'd think about everything I ever bought and I wondered how many new products there actually were. Where were these new products, who was buying them and what purpose did they serve?

I thought about mops. We had a mop at home. I thought about the food I eat. We eat pretty much every day. I thought about household goods like grape-jelly and aluminum foil. For the life of me, I couldn't think about any new product I had ever bought.

A new yogurt in a tube rather than a cup isn't a new product. It's a new way of consuming an old product. Likewise, adding vanilla artificial flavoring to a cola ain't a new product, it's a variation on a theme. Even a car to replace my 1966 Simca 1500 with 425,000 miles on it wouldn't be a new product. It's just a new car--not a new mode of transportation.

Like I said, I'm stupid this way and I didn't understand why all these new products seemed so important to so many people.

I thought a lot about it. I still do. How advertising agencies (and the holding companies which are really simply big-box leveraged buyout entities that have hundreds of ugly aisles of indistinguishable products--formerly independent agencies) have decided that building platforms to communicate a brand's efficacy is considered, today, passé.

Then I started thinking about failure and relationships that fail, which is most of them. 

Most marriages fail.
There's hardly a parent-child relationship that isn't tainted by sadness.
The bond between governments and people is weaker than ever. 
As are most service relationships. Broker-client. Waiter-diner. Mechanic-car owner. Contractor-home owner. Client-agency. 

The glue that keeps the world working--if it's ever going to work again is relationships.

Relationships based on candor, honesty, trust, doing what's promised. Relationships based on coming through, being there, listening and being kind.

These relationships are based on clear, accurate, honest and warm communication. 

Communication.

When relationships falter or fail, or both, it's usually because communication sucks. Yet the advertising industry today seems to have forgotten the importance of communication.

That used to be the role of advertising agencies and advertising people. Tell people who don't know about your client about your client in a way that makes them consider your client.

Communication.

It goes back to pre-historic times. Sorry if this is triggering, but Venus of Willendorf dates from about 30,000 years ago. It communicated to the people who made and shared it. Love, lust, fertility, the potentcy of womanhood and the power of sex.

I don't care about your brand. I don't care to be screamed at. I don't care about your new logo or triple play bundle and your death-defying offer of unlimited minutes. I don't care about what tested well or what bullet points you're shooting me with.

Who are you?
What do you do?
Why should I care?

Communication.

Ms. Willendorf was a way of communicating.

It's not data.

Not AI.

Not mustard-flavored ice cream.

Or a mayonnaise handbag.

Not a celebrity as creative director.

Communication.

Get it.

h/t to Dave Dye for access to his Ammirati & Puris trove.