15 Life Changing Lessons from Sir John Hegarty’s “On Advertising” Book

“But, I’m not a creative… ”
“Creativity is for the marketing team… not me ”
“Creativity is something we’ll think about later”

FUCK. ME.
Cry me a river you moaning sod.

NEWSFLASH BRAH

Building a challenger brand is a series of solving problems.

All day. Everyday.
Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems.

That’s why:

10X creativity > 10X budgets.
10X creativity > 10X budgets.
10X creativity > 10X budgets.

Manz just chowed down Sir John Hegarty’s book “On Advertising” like squiffy-1am-Donner-Kebab

Sir John is THE advertising God.

Primo, Secondo, Terzo of today’s newsletter

Primo: a Pithy Aphorisms Pick N’ Mix form the book

Secondo: 5 Easy Ways Challenger Brands Can Harness Creativity To Solve Fucking Annoying Problems

Terzo: I am going to sell you a special something. A special something so good. that’ll You’ll be transferring me dough immediately. My Monzo details are at the end of this email. Ta.

Trusssss Me Daddy
Me know’s ya’s gunna luv it.

Pithy Aphorisms Pick N’ Mix from “On Advertising”

1. “Process is trying to create order out of chaos, creativity is trying to create chaos to create order”
   

2. “Creativity is a preoccupation not an occupation”
   

3. A brand is the most valuable piece of real estate in the world - a corner of someone’s mind.
   

4. Do interesting things and interesting things will happen to you
   

5. A brand is not just who’s buying it, but also know about it
   

6. When irreverence touches design it creates opportunities for genuinely lasting work
   

7. Good is the enemy of great. Competent design is not too much of a stretch. But if you are trying to do something new, you have challenges on so many axes
   

8. On USA vs UK. We are two nations divided by a common language - Oscar Wilde
   

9. How can I go forward when I don’t know which I’m facing? - John Lennon
   

10. The origin of the word enthusiasm ‘To Be With God’ - John Hegarty
    

11. “I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter” - Pascal French Philosopher
    

12. Don’t focus on what you can’t say, but focus on what you can
    

13. Advertising is far more than a communications industry, it’s a problem solving industry that teaches you about life
    

14. I tell them it was a piece of madness, and as madness was something I’ve always courted… it seemed sensible
    

15. there can be no beauty without truth. I also like to believe there can be no profit without truth

Secondi,

5 Easy Ways Challenger Brands Can Harness Creativity To Solve Fucking Annoying Problems

What’s the problem you’re facing right now?
Giving you sleepless nights?
Right pain in the botty?

think about that deeply.

remember 10x creativity> 10x budgets

some ways to solve it

1.Change Inputs = Change Outputs

same inputs = same outputs = stuck
change inputs = change outputs = new way of solving really hard problems

go and look in the most random and esoterically quirky places.

Take your team to art galleries, paint balling or watching orange swans or Korean Farmers Markets or white water rafting naked.

The weirder, the better.

same inputs = same outputs = stuck
different inputs = different outputs = unlock a new way of solving problem.

2.Distraction is Not Procrastination - Rick Rubin

HANDS BEHIND YOUR HEAD FOOL
STEP AWAY FROM THE MO’FUCKING VEHICLE
STEP AWAY FROM THE MO’FUCKING PROBLEM

Leonardo Da Vinci took 5 hour lunch breaks and long naps.

Leonardo created space to do NOTHING.

Creativity needs space to blossom.

If you’re stuck on a problem. Trying to solve it at your desk or in your board room is like trying to sniff your way out of a cocaine addiction.

Utterly pointless.

• Go on a drive

• Take a 3 hour lunch break

• nap

• stop doing the doing

3.Swap Digital for Analogue

sack off digital. Phones. Laptops. iPads.
go to a room with your colleagues with paper and pen only.

Quentin Tarantino “The Pen is The Antenna to God”

Analogue connects us God.
Maybe the Creative Gods have the answers you’re looking for.
Please, for the love of God, put down you’re phone.

4.Rewrite the Question, Rewrite the olution.

Creativity is often about rewriting the question.

The Smart answer lie in Dumb question.

Rory Sutherland: “In School You Can’t Rewrite The Question, But In Business You Can”

We spend so much time agonising over the solution, yet little time rewriting the question.

Stop trying to find the solution to your problem.

Instead, write down 20 dumb questions around your problem.

The Smart answer lies in the Dumb question.

The new way of thinking lies (or hides) there.

Rory Sutherland’s famous “The Opposite of a Good Idea is a Good Idea” is a great example of this.

Imagine, you wanna disrupt the “coffee market” with a challenger coffee brand.

Coffee Example Hard Question:

How do we create a new coffee chain that stands out in the London Coffee Market?

Coffee Example Dumb Question:

Rory asks: How do we create the opposite of Starbucks?

Alas, Flat Whites or Fuck Off

5.“Courage is the only virtue you cannot fake” - Nassim Taleb

Courage is the only virtue you can’t fake.

FUCK ME. GET YOUR CHOPS ROUND THAT CHIEF

Creativity is a game of courage. It requires a flight of imagination to escape the banal shackles bland and boring.

What scares you?
What solution fills you with fear?
Go there.

Fear is a compass to unchartered and newfound lands of answers.

HUNGRY HOUSE OF CREATIVITY WITH BRAND HACKERS

Right yaaaaaa little beautiful schmucks.
Now, I’m selling to you.

I’m launching HUNGRY HOUSE OF CREATIVITY in collaboration with BRAND HACKERS. 

Launching this with my brother, self-proclaimed FMCG Nerd, James Hickson who runs Brand Hackers.

James and his team has worked with BrewDog, innocent, Who Gives a Crap, Tony’s Chocolonley, Solo Coffee, Rock Face, The Curators, Heineken (you get the picture)

why we’re doing this?

we deeply believe

10x creativity beats 10x budgets.

Creativity is the oxygen for challenger brand growth


Creativity is a tool, to solve really hard problems

Introducing creative workshops with WHAM.
10x your creativity with 10x less budgets

Brought to you by HUNGRY and Brand Hackers.

We’ve got three SICK workshops:

CREATIVE STORY - Sales & Storytelling Secrets to unlock supermarket listings

CREATIVE BEING - Creative principles to think outside the box and solve hard problems

CREATIVE BRAND - Brand Positioning & Marketing - how to use creativity to make your brand STAND OUT.

Who’s this for?

big corporates wanting to really understand how challenger brands think.

scaling challenger brands who are looking to rekindle their creative juice.

Who we’ve worked with?

We’ve run these workshops for Vita Coco, Cawston Press, Boundless Snacks, Islands Chocolates, White Mausu.

How to work with us?

We work on a bespoke basis and have 2 slots per month.

Reply to this email and we can set up a call with myself and James.

Toodle Pip, Bon Voyage