Banging the Drum
This was the first advertorial I wrote for ‘The Drum’ promoting our new Learning and Skills practice – it’s pretty brief but my favourite bit is ‘they believe they can just hide, hire and wait to retire.’ Don’t know if anybody is really like that left but it sounds good! This is the first time I’ve actually mentioned ‘in public’ what I’m actually up to!
If anybody out there is interested in finding out more about what it’s all about feel free to ping me!
The New Normal
About Atmosphere
As founder and principal strategist of Lateral, (best known for it’s many award winning campaign’s for Levi’s Europe, Stella, Nintendo, Channel 5), I deluded myself into believing that I really was actually critically objective. I now realise that for the most part agencies will almost always end up coming up with ideas they can make, as opposed to what’s right for the client.
After spending years complaining that clients don’t ‘get it’ we decided to do something useful and help; hence our Learning, Skills and Development practice. We like a good bit of mind expansion and frankly the Drum is a perfect partner. It’s remarkably liberating, especially from a consulting point of view.
How I learned to stop worrying and love the Byte.
Most companies go through similar patterns when adopting new thinking and technology into their business. It’s not unlike the grieving process.
Denial
Somebody in the business does actually appreciate that something is happening and tries out online trials to ‘see if anybody is interested’. These largely fail as they were tactical and had no bearing on what the consumer actually wanted. This is understandable, it’s all about gaining confidence.
Anger
It’s all Rubbish! The internet is broken! Why are they taking this piss out of my clever hashtag, complaining about my product on our marketing twitter account. THEY ARE PICKING ON ME! It’s my ball and I’m going home (to the land of telly ads). After this kind of flip, there is normally a flop as you start to realise that your consumers aren’t actually out to get you.
Bargaining
I’ll be your best best friend if you like me. Have some stuff for free, write a nice review, *please* and I’ll make you an ambassador. This bit can be pretty embarrassing, even more so than Anger. However it does contain the recognition that your consumers are really where it’s at and that you do have to listen and adapt.
Depression
The Status Quo. With all the will in the world trying to solve all the problems of the business through marketing alone just doesn’t cut it. Departments need to work together, everything needs to be reorganised. From product, to research to consumer affairs – they all need to play nice. But they don’t, it’s a mess and I can’t fix it!
Acceptance
Eventually the business itself mutates and moulds itself around the new reality. That things are different, but it doesn’t have to scary.
So where is your business today? Are you bang in the middle of an age of disruption where everybody and everything is fair game or have to taken the first steps to embrace change and flourish.
It’s clear that leaders don’t have the luxury of devolving all responsibility for their digital footprint to third parties anymore.
In the new corporate landscape the Generalist is the new Black. They ‘get’ it – and in most cases the ‘it’ isn’t necessarily ‘This is how it works’, it’s ‘this is how to learn’.
Evolved businesses appreciate people not jobs. Having a group of strategically minded, informed generalists each with specialist skills tends to lead to quicker consensual and qualified decisions. They appreciate where the opportunities lie and where value can be created.
Of course you often find that the understanding of these decisions is inversely proportional to seniority in the business who may believe they can just hide, hire and wait to retire.
Which is why we started constructing a series of groups workshops and events for senior management to explore and expand with peers the opportunities being presented.
You’ll get an overview of what you need to know and the ability to use it in your business. We go well beyond marketing, enabling business leaders to not only free their own minds, but also be equipped with the tools and processes essential to grow their business.
We talk a great deal about businesses and individuals who *want* change & recognise opportunities. However it’s the excuses that make us chuckle the most. Go to the Drum website and enter our competition to find the best excuse for denial, stagnation and procrastination for your chance to win a place on one of our workshops.
Up in the Atmosphere 
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