In Ireland a few years back they had a spate of traffic crimes.
People being booked for speeding, reckless driving, illegal parking.
It puzzled police that the same person was committing all the offences.
A Polish person called Prawo Jazdy.
I say ‘person’ because they couldn’t be sure of the sex.
Sometimes the offender was disguised as a man, sometimes a woman.
Sometimes disguised as old, sometimes young, different colour hair, with or without glasses, bearded or clean-shaven.
Always a different disguise.
What puzzled them was why would anyone go to all the bother of disguises over traffic offences?
And why would they always use the same name?
There were over fifty different offences on record.
The descriptions were different each time, but it was always the same person: Prawo Jazdy.
For a small country like Ireland, fifty offences committed by the same person is something to investigate.
So one of the backroom staff went online to see what she could find out about the Polish criminal: Prawo Jazdy.
Lucky she did.
It turned out that Prawo Jazdy is actually Polish for “Driving Licence”.
Every time the Irish police stopped someone for a traffic offence they’d asked for their licence.
Then they’d copy all the details: sex, age, address, name.
But they hadn’t really been copying the name.
They’d been copying the words Driving Licence (in Polish) printed at the top right corner of the licence.
In June 2007 a memo was circulated around the Irish Police.
It read (in part):
“Prawo Jazdy is actually the Polish for driving licence and not the first name and surname on the licence.
It is quite embarrassing to see the system has created Prawo Jazdy as a person with over 50 identities.”
You see, the Irish police behaved the way most people behave.
Here’s some strange words in a foreign language so that must be his/her name.
We never think further than the obvious when there’s no indication that we should.
Because actually, really thinking is hard work.
That’s why the mind defaults to the easiest solution.
And of course defaulting to the easiest (most obvious) solution is the enemy of creativity.
In any meeting you’ll get people who think their job is to spot what’s wrong.
Not to spot what’s right.
Because spotting what appears to be wrong (the obvious) is easy.
Spotting what’s right (the unexpected, the possible) takes a lot more thought.
As Buddha said “Act, don’t react.”
Absolutely right Dave.
I was teaching this Russian guy English and he just could not get it.
He told me. “I have all the words in my head, but I just can’t get them in the right order.”
He’s a very intelligent computer expert, so it wasn’t his intelligence letting him down.
I don’t teach by hammering the grammar. He knows the rules. That would be a reaction.
I’m unconventional in my teaching methods. I tried to imagine what action was
going on in his brain. It was simple. His neural network wasn’t “linking the words.”
So we played. I love to play, because teaching should be fun, not boring.
I wrote down a series of words in a jumble on a piece of paper and handed it to him.
He looked confused, so I said “Did you ever play “Join the dots as a child?”
He said “Yes” Okay, I said “Join the words with a line to make a sentence.”
I sat back and told him nothing. He took his time on the first one, then began to accelerate.
He got all five sentences correct. So then I took away the paper and told him:
“Now join the dots in your mind.” I asked him a question, he closed his eyes
and answered me in perfect English with the words all in the correct order.
He said: “It’s easy!” I said: “You’re right!”
I find helping to empower people is such great fun.
Too many people struggle on their own to switch their lightbulbs on.
That’s why Copywriters and Art Director teams working together work so well.
1+0=1
1+1=11
Very nice anecdote, Dave!
“really thinking is hard work”, so true it hurts.
However, regarding teams the opposite case is maybe as common: Everyone positive and brimming with confidence, the sales people eager to run – and no one wiling to see the obvious flaws in the plan.
I would say that genuine thinking shall not be ‘optimistic’ or ‘pessimistic’ but real…
Back in the sixties I went on a school trip that involved an overnight train from Ostend to Munich.
In the wee small hours, we stopped at a station. “Where are we?” asked one of my mates. Another took a look out of the window and said: “Some place called Gleis”
A couple of hours later, we stopped again. Same question. Same answer. WTF?
“Gleis” it turns out, is the German word for ‘Platform’.
Some years ago an American friend of mine was stopped here in Malaysia for some minor traffic infringement (and probably on the off-chance that the police could extort some coffee money). The 2 policemen asked him for his licence, which he duly provided. It was obvious they’d never seen one before, and they weren’t quite sure what to do. After a couple of minutes they came back to the car. “Mister, your name is Organ Donor?” We called him Org for quite some time after that.
You know, ‘Gorilla’ God bless him, has just gone into the hall of fame as one of the all time top 100 ads
and for the life of me, I still can’t get what it was all about. To me it’s just a Gorilla bashing a drum kit
that happens to be purple, and so it ends up as a Cadbury’s ad. If there’s anyone out there who could
explain to me the thinking behind this ad I would be most grateful to know because I just don’t get it.
I can tell you why it worked Ken, but it’s not why everyone thinks it worked.
No one actually saw the ad rushed out and bought a bar of CDM
.
What happened was that the brand was getting delisted in most places (CTNs, etc)
If it’s not there you can’t buy it, so sales went down.
When the ad ran it got lots of coverage (The Sun, etc).
More people saw it online than on the TV
So the salesman can show the shopkeeper figures for thousands of young people liking the ad.
The shopkeeper starts to restock the brand.
Which means people can buy CDM when they’re browsing the chocolate rack.
So sales must go up.
It worked as a trade ad really
Sorry, fat fingers, i meant Kev of course
Thanks for that Dave.
Now that really makes sense to me as an advertising campaign!
That’s the first time I’ve ever heard that CDM could have been delisted.
That revelation must have sent an earthquake through their Marketing Department!
I was talking to a Brand Manager today about your books and the concept of Disruption.
She was explaining how new CEO’s jet in every few years and they have to present and how
new CEO’s can arrive like gunslingers shooting up the joint destroying all predecessor’s work.
The company always seems to be getting everything together to show the new team and
then they all clear-off and another lot get flown in from somewhere else and they have to
start the process all over again. I understand the need for disruption to keep things fresh
but what I understood from this person was that disruption for disruption’s sake can be
as harmful as it is good. Russian businesses work very very hard. Is it a global thing?
I wonder, if in this high pressure world everyone lives in today, at what point does working
too hard become detrimental to delivering quality creativity? I don’t know why but I imagine
these committees of experts in agencies now, a bit like a casino for Russian Roulette:
A crowd of experts sit around a table, eyes shut, gritting their teeth, straining constipation.
Everyone terrified, wondering who will squeak first?
Could breakfast meetings be harmful?
Could working too hard be make people creatively constipated?
Are too many people having boiled eggs for breakfast?
Just read an interesting piece by Claire Beale in Campaign about the Fuck Off Fund.