This week's idea
From a man who made a Marvel film about a god of thunder and somehow made it the funniest one:
"Don't compromise. Don't take advice from losers. Do your own thing."
Taika Waititi didn't say this in a book. He says it constantly, in interviews, on stages, in the way he works.
And sitting in a room at Cairns a week ago, watching six different speakers from six different industries all make the same argument in six different ways - be weirder, be braver and be more unapologetically you.
Useful takeaways
Distinctiveness isn't a performative personality trait. It's a decision you make, and it's usually uncomfortable.
The name of your thing is the first creative decision you make. It tells people exactly how you think.
The people least qualified to evaluate your idea are the ones who've never shipped one.
Where people get this wrong
Most people read "don't take advice from losers" and think it means ignore all feedback. So they go rogue, stop listening entirely, and wonder why nothing lands.
That's not the lesson.
The principle isn't be contrarian for its own sake. It's know whose opinion is load-bearing.
There's a difference between feedback from someone who's backed themselves and shipped something into the world, and feedback from someone who's watched from the sideline and found reasons why things won't work.
One sharpens you. The other just makes you smaller.
How I’ve applied it
When a client is stuck in "but what will people think" territory, I redirect to a simpler question: what do you actually believe is right?
The strongest brand work I've seen starts with a clear point of view, not a clear audience. The ones that struggle are usually trying to please everyone before they've decided who they are.
That's wallpaper marketing. And there's enough of it already.
Storytime
In 2020 I kept having the same conversation.
Students and junior talent trying to break into the industry, asking me the same questions, running into the same walls. The industry felt like a gilded cage - everyone could see in, very few could figure out how to get through the door.
I got tired of repeating myself. So instead of another coffee catch-up, I built a resource:
I called it Sh*t. What Now? - because that's exactly what people were feeling when they were trying to get in. Not "career opportunities in marketing." Not "pathways into advertising." The raw, slightly panicked state of mind of someone staring at an industry that wasn't making itself easy to enter.
A few people in the industry thought I was taking the piss and that it would be a few rough videos and then nothing. Which, to be fair, is what happens with most podcasts.
Then they saw who I was interviewing.
Tom Goodwin, Julian Cole, Beth Freedman and Rose Herceg to name a few. A stream of people who had no obligation to show up, but did - because the idea was clear, the audience was specific, and the name told you exactly what kind of conversation it was going to be.
Twenty-four episodes, with over 5,000 views and downloads, apparently that puts it in the top 5% of podcasts globally by completion rate.
I'm not telling you that to brag. I'm telling you because when I started, the feedback from the sideline was lukewarm at best.
The people who encouraged me earliest were the ones who'd done something themselves. They understood that the idea was the point - that naming something honestly, for a specific person, in a voice that didn't sound like everyone else, was exactly why it worked as well as it did.
The sceptics came around eventually. They usually do.
Thanks for reading, and see you next week!
Murph