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Issue 29: A bulletin for big ideas and better business.

Issue 29: A bulletin for big ideas and better business.

Cohorts are nonsense. Is Coca-Cola still it? Rapping in Gaelic. And Mountain Day.

Looking for fresh ideas?

You’ll find them in abundance below. In Issue 29 we take a flick through a film festival, drop into Disney’s big production number, take a reviving draught of cola, then jog up a mountain in Japan. Plus: a creative resurgence of Gaelic? Cinnte! But first, why Sir John doesn’t believe in Gen Z.

OPINION/ CREATIVITY 

Generation game: cohorts are nonsense

💬 Sir John Hegarty

Each year brings countless surveys on the attitudes and habits of ‘consumers’. Most market researchers have form for divvying up people into neat cohorts. Each group has its cliché. Gen Z are socially progressive and morally outraged. Millennials are burned out. Gen X has a problem with authority. Boomers are optimistic, and wealthy. The silent generation are (still) thrifty and stubborn. If every generation had a blanket set of characteristics, the world would be a very boring place.

Relying on
generational
stereotypes
is a trap

But boring is often what businesses want. Humdrum means unsurprising events and repeatable sales. Better still – predictable people. It’s convenient to wrap your customer up into a comprehensive and understandable set of habits and views. Paste these banalities into a Keynote deck, and the effect is (hopefully) full conviction that whatever you’re selling or marketing will stick.

Here’s the problem – cohorts are made up. Relying on generational stereotypes is a trap for brands. If your strategy is based on a truth that is widely known (or at least, believed), it becomes harder to create something with difference. Your customer is idiosyncratic, unique, and nuanced. There’s a word for a practice that assumes characteristics about people based on their birthdays. It isn’t science: it’s astrology.

THE AGENDA

✏️ Pencil it in: your agenda for the coming week

1.
Kamala Harris edged Donald Trump in a poll of US voters yesterday. Now she’s set to choose a running mate and start a campaign where it matters: the battleground states.
6th – 9th August  

2.
The Rossini Opera Festival comes to Pesaro, Italy. The concert is devoted to Italian composer Gioachino Rossini, a creative powerhouse who wrote 30 operas between 1812 and 1822.
7th – 23rd August  

3.
Art house fans will descend on Flickers Rhode Island International Film Festival. The affair brings into focus the triumphs of short films. Brevity is key.
6th – 11th August  

4.
Exam results day is a turbulent moment for students. The Department for Education’s Exam Results Helpline will open today. Anxious teens will be able to share concerns with careers advisors.
6th August  

5.
Visitors to D23 will experience the ‘Ultimate Disney fan event’ according to the entertainment giant. Admirers of the world’s most famous cartoon mouse can cheese the day.
9th – 11th August  

US / BUSINESS

Is Coke still it?

Sweet sales
Contributor: dpa picture alliance / Alamy Stock Photo

Coca-Cola’s sales are fizzing. The soft drink giant recently announced that it expects organic sales to grow between 9% and 10% this year – a higher percentage than anticipated before. The bump in growth will be welcome news for bosses at the Atlanta-based company. It attracted criticism during the Paris Olympics. While single-use plastics were banned at the games, Coca-Cola (which is the key sponsor) continued to sell bottled beverages. The soda-maker won accolades for creativity this summer, picking up a Grand Prix at Cannes for its ‘recycle me’ campaign, which used images depicting a crushed can, urging people to dispose of its packaging responsibly. It fell flat with some who pointed out that Coca-Cola sells 100 billion single-use plastic bottles each year. Sustainability credentials not quite crushing it (yet).

ON CREATIVITY

Contributor: Sir John Hegarty

WEST BELFAST / CULTURE

Gaelic finds some flow

Kneecap: OG craic
Contributor: Entertainment Pictures / Alamy Stock Photo

Languages are vanishing at an alarming rate. Irish Gaelic is classified as “definitely endangered” according to UNESCO, which reckons there are between 20,000 – 40,000 people who speak it. A rap group from West Belfast is staging a revival. Kneecap is a semi-fictitious film following the exploits of the hip-hop act of the same name. It’s struck a chord with audiences – and has 95% of the review site Rotten Tomatoes. The story follows the three MCs as they write music that helps their native tongue flourish. It’s a pertinent reminder that storytelling, humour and fresh beats can revive a cause that (lamentably) escapes the public’s attention.

TOKYO / LEISURE

Climbing culture 

Mount Fuji: time to ascend?
Contributor: K I Photography / Alamy Stock Photo

Japan has a public holiday dedicated to its undulations. Mountain Day was created in 2014 after mountaineering clubs lobbied the government for a special occasion dedicated to the country’s connection to nature. This Monday people will take to the hills and stage a nation-wide appreciation of high up places. The date is significant, August is the eighth month, and the kanji for the number – 八 – looks rather like a mountain. The date chimes with Shintoism, too. The ancient religion surmises that spiritual powers exist in the natural world. We applaud countries that express national gratitude for nature. Taking a day to explore, exercise and ruminate is a sure-fire way to boost creativity.

Poetry is the clear expression of mixed feelings.

/ W.H. Auden

Weekly Inspirations

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Weekly Inspirations

Sign up to our newsletter for your weekly dose of creative inspiration.

Steven Wolfe Pereira

Founder of Alpha

25+ years driving technology transformation at the intersection of marketing, media, and AI.

He has led $5+ billion in strategic transactions, scaled AI-first companies, and held leadership roles across Oracle, Neustar, Publicis Groupe, TelevisaUnivision, and more.

Today, as the founder of Alpha, he advises boards and executives on how to govern AI transformation with confidence. Named a LinkedIn Top Voice and featured in major business publications, Wolfe Pereira combines real operator experience with board-level strategic insight.

Now, he brings that expertise to you—giving you the operator’s perspective on how to thrive in the AI era.

Unlock the 5 Secrets of Business-Critical Creativity for the AI Age

Learn why 87% of leaders say creativity is as vital as efficiency, and how human ingenuity will define success in a world transformed by AI.

Sir John Hegarty

Sir John Hegarty

Founder at Saatchi & Saatchi & BBH

John Hegarty has been central to the global advertising scene for over six decades.

He was a founding partner of Saatchi and Saatchi in 1970. And then TBWA in 1973. He founded Bartle Bogle Hegarty in 1982 with John Bartle and Nigel Bogle. The agency now has 7 offices around the world. He has been given the D&AD President’s Award for outstanding achievement and in 2014 was admitted to the US AAF Hall of Fame.

John was awarded a Knighthood by the Queen in 2007 and was the recipient of the first Lion of St Mark award at the Cannes Festival of Creativity in 2011. John has written 2 books, ‘Hegarty on Advertising – Turning Intelligence into Magic’ and ‘Hegarty on Creativity – there are no rules’.

In 2014 John co-founded The Garage Soho, a seed stage Venture Capital fund that believes in building brands, not just businesses.

Orlando Wood

Orlando Wood

Author and Chief Innovation Officer

Orlando is probably the world’s leading thinker on creative effectiveness. He is the author of advertising’s ‘repair manual’, Lemon, published by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising in 2019, and its sister publication, Look out (IPA, 2021), the ‘advertising guide’. His books are found on the curricula of communications courses; they complete the libraries of universities and advertising agencies.

Orlando is respected by both advertisers and advertising agencies because he can talk both the language of creativity and profitability. His research draws on neuroscience, the creative arts and advertising history to describe how advertising works, and how it works at its best. How the work, works.

Orlando is unique in drawing a link between advertising’s creative features and its profitability, and for showing how advertising styles have changed in the digital world. If you have ever heard the advertising term ‘fluent device’, it’s because he coined it (and if you haven’t, he uses it to describe the profitable use of recurring characters and long-running scenarios in advertising campaigns).

Greg Hoffman

Greg Hoffman

Global Brand Leader, Advisor, Speaker, Instructor & Author

Greg Hoffman is a global brand leader, former NIKE Chief Marketing Officer, and founder and principal of the brand advisory group Modern Arena.

For over 27 years, Greg held marketing, design, and innovation leadership roles at NIKE, including time as the brand’s CMO. In his most recent role as NIKE’s Vice President of Global Brand Innovation, he led teams tasked with envisioning the future of storytelling and consumer experiences for the brand.

Greg oversaw NIKE’s brand communications and experiences as NIKE was solidifying its position as one of the preeminent brand storytellers of the modern era and the leading innovator in digital and physical brand experiences. Through his leadership, Nike drove themes of equality, sustainability, and empowerment through sport in some of its most significant brand communications. That work was, in part, driven by his role on the Advisory Board of the NIKE Black Employee Network and as a member of the NIKE Foundation Board of Directors.

His role in the rise of marketing and design through that period was recognized in 2015 when Fast Company named him one of the Most Creative People in Business. He’s also been recognized for his transformative leadership in the industry through the Business Insider’s 50 Most Innovative CMOs and AdAge’s Power Players annual lists.

In 2022, Greg brings all of his brand experience to the world through his new book Emotion by Design: Creative Leadership Lessons From a Life at Nike.