Being brave: Is it all it's cracked up to be?

The opening story sort of bit

I recently stared death square in the face. Or at the very least fluttered my eyelashes in the general direction of it. Like all good dramas, it started in the big Tescos.

So, there I am. Strolling past the homeware section on my way to the wet wipe aisle. Obie-wan is in the trolley, attempting to pull mop heads off the shelves. It’s quiet and I’m already fantasising about the dirty pleasures at the Deli counter.

Everything was going as well as it could when you’re doing the big shop.

Then, at the far end of the store something was afoot in the Tesco Mobile area. A commotion. A man, holding a display phone in each hand rips them clean off their security wires in one seamless and I must say sultry action. It was beautiful. Arms akin to Alijaz mid-flow in a Paso. This wasn’t his first rodeo.

He slipped the phones into his coat pockets before calmly setting off towards the exit and thus, me. The alarms were sounding. The Tesco Mobile staff were stunned into silent dis-action and this zero-fuck giving chancer just continued his merry dance towards freedom.

At this point Chance The Robber was about 30 metres due north, heading in my direction. It was a wide concourse type of aisle populated only by an elderly couple touching up bathmats and a young mother cursing Pampers for having the gall to charge £9 to stop your child shitting the bed of an evening.

I had always fantasied about being a hero. I’d often thought that I could disarm a terrorist if given the opportunity because I’ve watched a bit of UFC and once beat the hardest kid in middle school in an arm wrestle.

My first instinct was to take him down.

But I had time to think.

What if, whilst I’m performing a rear naked choke on Chance, someone steals Obie? That elderly couple did wave at him as we walked past and although he’s a Jedi he is still just a Padawan learning his craft.

What if Chance the Robber was a high-level Ju-Jitsu practitioner?

What if he was concealing a blunt, heavy instrument?

Like a butternut squash?

Next, my thoughts moved onto whether or not I give a toss if Chance is making a quick buck on Tesco’s behalf. They will have insurance. And I think they got a good deal on that Mel B image? Why should I risk death by autumnal squash for a company that charges £1.80 for a litre of Almond Milk?

So I stood aside and watched the spectacle unfold.

Chance walked towards me, he got close. So close that our shoulders made gentle but affirmative contact and I was able to pick up the sweet scent of a bag of green as he wafted past. Obie was now brandishing a toilet brush, impressing me hugely with his Jedi instincts. Chance waltzed past the Krispy Kreme stand, meandered past the flower display and slightly picked up the pace as he passed the bloke at the security lectern who was completely oblivious to the high-stakes heist going down in his manor.

He was clear. Bravo, sir.

Chance was brave. I was not.

I had time to weigh it all up and decided that my Cobra Kai karate skills would have to stay undercover for now.

And for my favourite new anti-hero, he's two phones better off.

The industry relevant bit

If you ask any creative person in the industry what it takes to make brilliant work, being bold or brave almost always follows in their answer. Be brave for your clients they say, make bold decisions and stand by them.

But it’s easier said than done. There are too many variables at play that prevents people from signing off on ideas that might scare them a little.

If an agency knows what works, knows how to get results and is making healthy amounts of GP in the process, why should they dare to be different? Do they need to be bold?

Is it that the demands from marketers are to shift units faster, get sign-ups quicker, help them get promoted sooner and therefore the tried and tested and pure performance driven tactics are the order of the day?

Is it that people are thinking too much, like me in the big Tesco? Thinking about all of the things that could go wrong instead of the positives? I mean, I could have featured on page 8 of the Croydon Gazette but the thought of being the first person ever to have their head caved in by a butternut squash was too overbearing.

Is it quite simply that people are being bold in their own minds and compared to their own contexts? Did the creators of that Dettol ad think that it was pretty god damn bold compared to what they usually put out?

Who really knows?

But what are the consequences of holding back, in a creative sense?

Firstly, your best and brightest minds will get frustrated and likely leave.

Not being brave could put you in a category, you’ll be known for doing X really well and therefore all of your incoming briefs will have the same objective and you’ll churn out the same solution for ten different clients a year. And then your second best and brightest minds will get frustrated and likely leave.

Perhaps more damagingly, you’ll give the impression to graduates and junior people that this is how you do it.

But do we want to be perverting our youngest creative talent like this? I for one, do not.

So I’ve tried to call-out some different types of brave along with some examples of bold work made my brave people below. At the very least they will highlight the lovely pieces of work that can be made if you stick your neck out a bit and take some risks.

The Top 5 list-y sort of bit

‘Being brave’ is a broad term and can come in lots of different guises. It doesn’t always have to be about having the idea that harbours hundreds of ASA complaints.

1.    Taking a stand sort of brave

Taking a stand means staying true, following through and ensuring you practice what you preach across every corner of your business. You might have been mistaken for thinking Nike is a good example of this with ads like the Colin Kaepernick one. But they’re not. Disguising profit as purpose is just slimy.

But fascinating companies like Dr Bronner’s seemingly are a good example. Their cosmic principles are baked into their blood but it takes guts to stick to them as revenues rise to +$120 million. Capping their most senior execs pay to five times as much as the lowest paid employee is just one little nugget of niceness they do.

 2.    Being a bit naughty sort of brave

Paddy Power? Poundland? Brewdog? Being a bit naughty usually means your work will get talked about. Positively or negatively, it doesn’t really matter. The last thing you want is for nobody to care either way, so being a bit naughty is actually very good. But there’s a difference between being naughty and outright thievery you scrappy little rascals.

3.    Being yourself kind of brave

I find it difficult to be myself. It usually results in me losing a job or scaring my neighbours. But I think being yourself, out there in the creative or any industry will only lead to brilliant work. Mark Denton Esq is an example of this. He’s the kind of guy that finds edible anuses made of chocolate amusing, so he did some work for the Edible Anus Company, and it was brilliant.

Having the courage to voice unpopular opinions, to vocalise weird ideas, to challenge clients and colleagues, to speak your mind in the name of creativity – it’s not always easy. But if you can find an outfit that loves you for you and lets the real, unfiltered you come to the surface it will only lead to great things.

Dan Kelsall is another example of someone who is himself what seems like 100% of the time. And he’s made ads like this for recruitment firms, so proof is in the pudding isn’t it?

4.    Going with your gut type of brave

Nearly my favourite ad of all time (behind some Guinness and Creature Comfort ones) Cadbury’s ‘Gorilla’ nearly never got made. But Juan Cabral (with Fallon at the time) and Phil Rumbal (Marketing Director at Cadbury at the time) had a gut feeling. ‘Nuff said, bruv.

5.    Doing something never before done sort of brave

It’s not a bold act to make something really big and float it down a river. Not anymore. A bold act is taking a human being to the border between earth and space and telling them to jump.

Being bold is making a 3 minute (insanely superbly wonderfully executed) spot all about wombs, vulvas and periods.

Stand-out work is made when it hasn’t been made before.

The Conclusion-y bit

So is being brave all it’s cracked up to be? Well, yes.

For people who make work, being brave could be the difference between a life fulfilled and a life nullified.

For brands everywhere who are making woke, worthy, bland and boring trollop. Pull the other one, try actually standing for something and taking some tangible action for what you say you believe in. Or at the very least be a bit fucking naughty.

For people who run places that make work, perhaps it’s more about not seeing ‘being brave’ as a choice or a behaviour to consciously adopt. Perhaps it’s about recognising that it should be a natural part of what the creative process means. Listen to Nils Leonard’s view when he says:

“there is no such thing as creative bravery, only true creativity. Forging the genuinely new — and then bringing others on the journey with you as it becomes reality — is the definition of creativity. And it’s always brave, because the new is always the hardest thing to comprehend before it’s real”

And if that institutional mindset switch will take time to address perhaps it’s about creating an environment that encourages the kind of care-free abandon that leads to your people acting more like their kooky selves, which in turn will lead to them verbalising more of their kooky but brilliant ideas.

Once those ideas are flowing it then just comes down to what is probably the bravest thing of all:

Trusting your people.

And for anyone wondering if I’d take Chance The Robber down given another go? No. But I did eat an undeclared sausage roll on my way around the big Tesco.

That one’s for you, Mel.