I blogged a rather paltry 11 times in total last year, don’t feel bad, I had better things to do. 

But to be honest, aside from starting work at Naked and getting married I blame advertising and planning really.  It doesn’t feel like 2011 was as good as it should’ve been for the industry, progress made, but a bit on the slow side. In fact to quote a bit of Dickens:

“IT WAS the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way- in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only”.

So to get me motivated this year (albeit it negatively) here are my reflections on 2011:

 The language is still shit. Did you know every time someone says engagement or participation a fairy dies? We also need a wider range of verbs in marketing.

We still didn’t realise that a lot of stuff touted as new i.e. participation (a fairy didn’t die unless you are reading this out loud) is in fact old. It’s always been inherent in us and been happening pre-Dickens.

We keep making words up to make us sound clever or create some headlines. Good to see the first one for 2012. Ergopsychonomics. (Again making something old sound new in the process).

People kept telling me there was only one way of marketing and that something else was dead. I should have put this at number 1 to be honest. The world would be boring and very uncompetitive if there was only one-way of doing things. Oh yeah you’re right, it is…but the point is it shouldn’t be. 

We still keep hanging on to the past. OK people are watching more TV than ever before but it doesn’t mean anything. It’s the wrong question. It still doesn’t mean they are watching your ad, it doesn’t mean they care. Jees, we still spend $ billions on TV based on ratings from a 1,000 set top boxes. Technology I might add that cannot tell if people are putting the kettle on, having a dump or using their smartphone to do a multitude of things whilst your ad is on.

Last but not least we keep mistaking what is right for what is easy. 

Anyway…onwards and upwards. Here’s to a cooler more interesting industry 2012