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“Where there is little risk, there is little reward.”
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Evel Knievel
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So.
I don’t read Advertising Age often. I never really enjoyed reading ‘insider industry’ magazines and now that I am not involved with agencies that much it doesn’t mean much to me except an opportunity to catchup on the news of some people and places I know.
But today a link popped up in my email:
What’s the Most Risky Thing You’ve Done in Your Career?
Ad Age Asks Participants at Detroit Brand Summit
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I clicked on it.
I figured the advertising business, while often ground down to a nub by brand managers and clients who have an allergic reaction to risk, would offer some good ‘most risky actions I have taken‘ stories.
Here is a sampling:
biggest risk was undertaking Pepsi “refresh project,” a 2010 initiative by PepsiCo to award $20 million in grants to individuals, businesses and nonprofits that promote a new idea that has a positive impact on their community. “We took money off the Super Bowl, a property Pepsi had been on for almost a quarter century, and we put it into a different idea,”
Tylenol talking about product benefits and pain relief. His team, however, advocated toward making the message about feeling better with a nontraditional campaign including events.
single biggest gamble: “Leaving BBDO to go to The Abundancy, which was a little startup incubator that was trying to do things differently and reinvent how advertising worked,”
“It was a first-ever auto reveal with Snapchat,” Lenard said. “Together we answered a lot of questions internally about who is the audience of Snapchat: Aren’t they 12-year-olds who are never buying vehicles?”
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Ok.
I worked in the advertising agency business for a long time … that is embarrassing.
If that is risk, let alone ‘biggest risk’, in today’s advertising world as outlined by some people who I assume are leaders in the industry … the industry is in a world of hurt.
As a business person I have always embraced the concept of risk … okay … calculated risk. No sane business person is flippant with risk.
All risk is assessed and calculated for ROR <return on risk> … as well as RODN <return on doing nothing>.
I could argue that between ROR and RODN you aren’t really taking any risks … you are simply doing what needs to be done to be successful.
That said.
I was sorely disappointed by how these people assess ‘biggest risk.’
Look.
Everyone takes personal risks in business.
Not everyone takes business risks. And business risk is very different than personal risk … confusing the two, or even conflating the two, in a business environment is fraught with peril.
Yes.
Business risks inherently include personal risk … but personal risks don’t have particular consequences to a larger business risk – they are more your risks than anyone else’s.
I say that as a professional calculated business risk taker. I can honestly say that any time I ever assessed a business decision or what could be construed as a business risk I never took into consideration any persona risk I may be assuming. To me it would simply clutter what I would assume is a decision cluttered already with ‘what ifs’, ‘maybes’ and ‘uh ohs.’
I always believe business risks revolved around what is best for the business … and you let the chips fall as they may with regard to you personally.
Now.
Getting back to that sad list of ‘biggest risks.’
People can confuse risk with change. Change is change. Any change includes some risk because … well … it is change.
But change, in and of itself, is not necessarily originality. And that is where risk truly resides … in something original.
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“Safe marketing is the riskiest marketing you can do.”
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Bill Bernbach
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Anything original is never safe simply because it has no real record of behavior & consequences. That means you are modeling and researching and doing a whole bunch of good smart shit to insure it isn’t just a guess … but … sigh … it is just a guess.
That is risk. Risk is a … well … thing.
Originality is a real thing … a challenging thing … and a risky thing.
And to be truly original … in some ways … you must ignore what exists and what has been done before.
You must abandon the safe and secure.
Just think about this little factoid about pretty much any great original idea that has ever happened:
- It’s effective
- It’s always preceded by a meeting in which you will hear ‘are you nuts?’
Well.
Maybe we all need to be a little more nuts.
Maybe we all need to be a little less afraid of the different.
Maybe instead we should focus on what I believe almost all business people really do know … the new and untried can generate the bigger gains then simply changing the status quo or ‘what is’.
I would note that originality has a close relationship to exceptional.
Ah.
The root of that word exceptional?
Exception <please note … that is a significantly different word than acceptable … or safe …>.
We are comfortable in our cocoon of what is acceptable and sameness but it is making ‘an exception’ … taking that slightly risky step … that truly pays off.
In business … if you have nothing to offer but used ideas, you are just a used car salesman.
And does anyone in business really want to be that?
<unless they are in the used car sales business of course>
And maybe that is why the article I read was one of the saddest business articles I have read in a very long time – there really wasn’t anything original or any monumental change. Some were personal risks and the business risks were more tweaks on existing machinery to fine tune the operation.
And maybe that is what the business world has come to <sadly> … a world in which tweaks constitute risks.
Sad. Very sad.
I know risk is difficult. But I also know it is much better than always doing the sure thing – always making the safe decision.
The problem is if you really want any progress or growth … meaningful progress and growth … risk cannot be avoided. You must seek ‘the exception.’
In the end.
I do think business needs to embrace a little more risk.
But to avoid being sad about what we do, maybe most importantly, I think business should stop calling tweaks risky. They are tweaks. They are attempts to make small big and the truly big too small.
And, lastly, maybe we need to start thinking more often “but it might just work.” I wrote about that phrase to make a point about how we, in business, are becoming far too hesitant to make changes. There was nothing in the ‘biggest risk taken’ article that convinced me my point isn’t still valid. We embrace tweaks to avoid “but it might just work” actions.
“Biggest risk ever taken.”
Shit.
These should be monumental type questions with monumental type responses.
And if you don’t have a monumental response maybe, just maybe, you need to look around what what you are doing and seeing of maybe you aren’t playing it too safe.
And, most of all, if you don’t have a monumental response, you should not try and make something small monumental.
Bigger risk deserves better than that.