The first Virals?

Everything is new. Or is it? No. Of course it's not – no matter how much the poppets in the digital industries might tell you that it is. When you look back on your childhood, can you pinpoint the thing or time that made you you?

For me, it was around the time of Man About the House (1973 -) and I Claudius (1976) that I began to realize that some of the TV title sequences I saw made me want to watch the programmes and others didn't. I began to understand that this was no accident.

At the same time (and long before) I was playing the games that kids the world-over play: two-balls. You know. You chuck two-balls up against a garage wall, your house wall…anywhere there's a wall. We threw the balls to accepted rhymes, why they were and how they came to be I don't know, but they were about brands. At the time I had no idea what a brand was (it was just a word) or even less the impact they would have on my life.

"PK penny-a-packet. First you chew it then you crack it. PK penny-a-packet." 

And, "North, South, East and West. Cadbury’s chocolate is the best."

I have no idea how they came about. But they have stayed with me. And since so many kids did the same thing I think that they could possibly claim to be the first virals.

A spoonful is nice but a bucketful makes you sick

Last week Starbucks thrilled us with a new bit of customer experience. Well new here. You give your name along with your order. They write it on your cup and then, when it’s ready, instead of shouting out your order, they shout out your name. The idea being that customization and personalization will make you feel special, valued, wanted, unique and so on.

I wonder how many wags availed themselves of the opportunity to do a Bart and Lisa calling Mo's Bar? "Dick!" "Fanny!" "Flaps!" Or working in a group: "I." "Pick." "My." "Nose." or "I." "Eat." "Squirrels." Geddit? Of course it works both ways. There have been stories of employees writing naughty things on the cups too. The potential for jolly japes is endless.

Personally I think it's a bit of froth. What exactly is this supposed to do? So you show that your barista has an attention span of more than 30 seconds and that they can write. How does that make me feel special when everyone knows what the game is?

In the coffee shops I frequent they're making my 'thing' as soon as they see me stomping towards the shop. More often than not it's sitting on the counter before I've reached it and they've been doing it for years...without knowing my name. That makes me feel special.

It's a saccharine-coated gimmick straight out of the Have A Nice Day handbook. But they should be careful, because a spoonful is nice but a bucketful makes you sick. It's enough to curdle your organic milk. And now we have Starbucks home coffee machines and energy drinks. But I think that their efforts would be best spent on getting the basics right. Get the product right first, because a Hoover doesn't blow. "It." "Sucks."

Is that Shag pile or a bit of Axminster?

MI5 have got it all wrong. MOD: waste of money. SAS: no need for that sort of thing. And Q's finest invention was his own job creation scheme, because there was no need at all for garrotes in wristwatches, guns in Astons or lasers in Montblanc pens. No. All 007 needed to put the willies up Rosa Klebb and co was a PowerPoint presentation. 

You're sweating now aren't you? Feeling a bit 'I'm on my way to the dentist'. You're back in one of those bizarre hessian-lined rooms, full of the kind of furniture that is more Outpatients’ waiting room than stimulating work environment. There's tea and coffee in those industrial chrome and black flasks and you're massaging the ever-so-slightly red and numb finger you just 'did-in' trying to get the fecker to dispense. And as you take another Custard or Gypsy Creme off the paper doyly you try not to smirk as you think of their colloquial name Pikey Crunch. (You have to entertain yourself somehow because there certainly won't be any entertainment to be had here.) And then someone followed by roughly six to eight others opens the door and says, "Oh. Did you book this?" It's a near mandatory and momentary distraction from your new-found hobby of printing coffee rings on the feint rules of your A4 Red and Black. 

If brand names are containers for memories, then PowerPoint has made the ultimate transition: it is a Super Tanker. In much the same way the I blame eBay for the rise of designer bag smash and grabs on Bond Street (because now every scally knows what he or she is looking for and what it's worth) I blame PowerPoint for the portentous tragedy of the day I put my iPod in the fridge. The damage to the frontal lobe is accumulative and when I hear the word PowerPoint I look for the nearest scart lead and search for the nearest beam or light fitting. 

More twirls on the Waltzer than presentations – rotate, push, split, left to right – feck! And often all in the same slide. "I bought it. It's there and so I will use it all… at the same time." Are we in Big Fat Bastard Company or Carpet World? Is that background Shag pile or a bit of Axminster? And there's clearly something in the coffee. Has to be. How else do you explain 10pt orange Brush Script on a turquoise background? Come to think of it, that would also account for the mad charts: layer after layer of lines, shadows and text boxes – like pissed-up Highway Codes – which do anything but chart or put anyone in the picture. Oh. And arrows. There must be arrows. I think it's the law. And there most certainly should be a law against simply reading out what everyone is looking at, and long stretches for those who use a laser pen to point to each word as they speak them. 

Why do they do it? Why brand themselves bores before they open their traps? I try not to use it, but if I do it's a typographic backdrop: big type to emphasize important thoughts. But the presentation is me – me and a customized thingamajig of some kind, which is related to both the client and the task in question. They're what some call Propriety Tools, tools. But they're more like creative corkscrews. They open up conversation, get people yapping and participating rather than staring at a screen or a wall. Information flows. Insights flow and, importantly, you find out what lies behind the assorted labels around the table. It’s a creative way of presenting and gathering information. And isn't that what we're selling?

It's Magic!

This post is not the one I was going to thrill you with. But I'm thrilling you with this one instead because of a chance meeting I had this morning with my one-time employer, the magnificent Martin Lambie-Nairn.

We chitty-chatted about what had happened in the 24 years since we last clapped eyes on each other. I told him of the highly regarded companies I had joined to prove (to myself) that they were as creatively bereft and process-led as I had imagined them to be. McKinsey-ite theology rules in such companies and, sadly, it is the people who do not have a creative bone in their bodies who then cascade 'ideas' down to the (lowly) ‘creatives’ to 'work-up'.

Ideas will never be the product of flow charts, indices or percentages: those things inform. Ideas are borne of things that cannot be explained. They come from people who cannot be classified. So we should dispense with the trite "ideas can come from the cleaners" bollocks, because they do not. This is what companies say when they are trying to be ever so achingly PC and collaborative. A 'truth' or an insight may come from the cleaners, but an idea will most definately not.

In any given presentation there is always a moment when, having answered all questions and ticked all brief boxes I say, "I can't explain any further, but it is right. You have to trust me." And that's because what I do - we do - is, to a great extent, indefinable. That's why some of us can do it and most others cannot.

As Martin said. "They want to make it a science. And it isn’t.” No further questions, your Honour.