Why we decided to butcher some of the world’s greatest quotes and lyrics (and would now like to say sorry to history, music, and everyone with feelings).
To whom we may have caused mild discomfort
As Elton John once said: Sorry seems to be the hardest word. Or perhaps that could have been better expressed as: Apology issuance remains a critical but underleveraged stakeholder engagement strategy …
Either way, we feel the need to express some degree of remorse for the LinkedIn campaign we’re currently running, for which we’ve ‘reengineered’ the prose of some of the most admired thinkers of our time. Actually, we annihilated them. We defaced words that have inspired and moved generations, reducing them to B2B rubble, stripped of all feeling.
And we should be ashamed. But, honestly, we’re not really.
In our defence, we thought (and still think) that some B2B businesses occasionally need reminding that building a strong brand means going beyond the rational. That features, benefits, and data are only part of the story. It’s creativity that helps brands form deeper human connections with customers and build stronger relationships. Spec tells, emotion sells etcetera.
Nevertheless, we should not have deemed it appropriate to make this point by merrily mangling some of the world’s most loved lyrics and quoted words.
As an agency, we stand as one. We don’t like to point fingers, but feel it’s only fair to expose the perpetrators in this instance (especially as they’ve yet to display any modicum of contrition for their crime):
The Mastermind - Natalie: challenged the creative team to come up with a campaign to emphasise the points outlined in our above defence, not only endorsing their flippant suggestion to do so by defacing art, but actively encouraging it at every stage, even having the audacity to eviscerate a quote of one of her role models, Audrey Hepburn.
The Creative Team - Rob and Ben: verbally and visually assaulted sacred words, gleefully feeding song lyrics and quotes into ChatGPT like a pair of unsupervised adolescents, hell-bent on draining every drop of emotion from humanity’s greatest words.
As Managing Director, I should take ultimate responsibility for the poor decision-making of those individuals named and shamed above – but as the great Shaggy might say: It wasn’t me.
Or maybe that should be: Responsibility for incident occurrence resides with alternative stakeholders.
We appreciate your understanding.
Ian
