Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Heart Is Like A River That Needs To Grow Stronger Every Day

The river of life is immense. It has the capacity to receive, embrace and transform. When our hearts are small, our understanding and compassion are limited. We can't accept or tolerate others. But when our hearts expand and grows strong, these people with their shortcomings don't bother us anymore. Once we have a lot of understanding and compassion we can embrace others regardless of our differences. We can accept them as they are, and then they have a chance to transform. So the big question is: how do we help our hearts to grow strong?

Each of us can learn the art of nourishing happiness and love. Everything needs food to live and love to grow. If we don't know how to nourish love, it withers. When we exercise it in full and support our own happiness, we are nourishing our human ability to love. That's why to love means to learn the art of nourishing our soul's happiness as well.

Valentine's day celebration to me is a celebration of true love. True love gives us beauty, freshness, solidity, freedom and peace. True love includes a feeling of deep joy that we are alive. In the beginning of a relationship, your love may only include you and the other person. But if you practice true love, very soon that love will grow and include all people in your life. Love runs deep in our lives. We must nourish our love and to help it continue to grow from strength to strength. From smile to smile till our cheeks hurt. 

Saturday, February 11, 2017

Intimacy In The Age Of Everything All At Once

On the Super Bowl last Sunday, Budweiser’s support of immigration and Audi’s props for pay equality were indeed brave. But what I think really makes them work is their interesting intimacy. Intimacy is shocking. It is honest. It brings up awkward things. It speaks to you knowingly about the undergarments of your life, the things you do when no one else is around. Is anyone looking? Did you really say that? How did you know that about me?

What if advertising said something so surprisingly intimate that it made you feel vulnerable? Intimacy tells us: They know what I am thinking. It creates an indelible bond between a company and the individual. Intimacy makes us remember. Big Data and research are vital in the creation of this kind of relationship, but they are just the beginning. With enough money, every advertiser can buy the same data. It is not intimate to say things everyone already knows.

Instead, we must go beyond common knowledge to find the things in-between the well-trodden paths, the things that signal that a company understands and is one of us. These things are the essence of a big idea. Success in this search will determine who wins the Big Data battles. The people who can help you do this are the most valuable people in commerce.

Today, in an age of always-connected social media and customizable television, there is perhaps something to strive for that is even more powerful than mere intimacy. Inside creative ad agencies, we call it mass intimacy. Mass intimacy is the replication of this kind of feeling over a wide, even global audience, yes. But it’s also a snowballing kind of momentum created when we experience an intimate message and realize that it’s going to millions of people around us at that same moment. It is the very best, pure uncut drug form of this effect.

We once called it fame. But it is more than that. It speaks stunningly to us alone. Yet we can’t wait to share it because we know others just saw it too. Mass intimacy is not something that comes merely from a creative idea. It takes strategic brilliance and unheard-of media thinking. But the result can be historically affecting. We can have people sharing the most intimate, emotional message—think about it—in seconds. 

Thursday, February 9, 2017

Grizzly Bears Flee America's Classrooms In Terror Following Confirmation Of Betsy DeVos


The recent senate deliberation on the confirmation of Jeff Sessions as attorney-general was a perfect snapshot of the new political discourse, or lack thereof, in Trump's America: a female Democrat was silenced for reading a letter by an African-American civil rights icon about the voter-suppression record of a senator from Alabama, on the grounds that such records were false defamations of his character. Alternate facts with a side order of racism and a pinch of misogyny sprinkled over the top. Disgusting.

If Betsy DeVos can be Education Secretary, on the basis of having guns in schools to protect us against Grizzly Bears, then anyone in the USA can certainly become a proud gun owner and do whatever it is you to do with them. We can't let hatred and fear be the loudest voice.

Friday, February 3, 2017

Your God Is What You Pay The Most Attention To

A celebration of the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers who have never stopped redefining the business of creative communications–storytelling in advertising is still fundamental to our experiences. Even with the incredible explosion of technology, we all still love stories. Once upon a time, religious icons gained their power from the people. The more they were prayed to, the holier they became. Now, the new church is technology which is ultimately about people, sanctity has been replaced by celebrity, and the populace worships at the secular altar of fame. But the power of pop icons is still contingent on the people. If your company radiates emotional openness, then your products or services will become a beacon drawing people closer in. Product + Personality = Brand.