Now here's a thing. The Met Police Commissioner, a certain Mr. Bernard Hogan-Howe, is introducing "Total Policing", and to celebrate the fact he has posted a very exciting letter outside Scotland Yard.
In the seventies it was the Dutch who pioneered Total Football, giving the Germans and Argies a run for their money in the 74 and 78 World Cup Finals.
But what, exactly, could Total Policing be? Have we, to date, been subjected to Incomplete Policing?
I think we should be told.
So many people are talking about the need for a ‘big idea’ that it may be time to go back to first principles. In 1983, David Ogilvy wrote this:
It will help you recognize a big idea if you ask yourself five questions:
1. Did it make me gasp when I first saw it?
2. Do I wish I had thought of it myself?
3. Is it unique?
4. Does it fit the strategy to perfection?
5. Could it be used for 30 years?
When I graduated from my trainee scheme at Benton & Bowles in 1983 they gave us all a copy of Ogilvy On Advertising. Today you can pick up a copy on Amazon for a penny.
Del Monte announced last week that it is to give its bananas a second skin, by packaging them individually in petrol stations and convenience stores, and marketing them as a "natural energy snack on the go."
This ridiculous attempt to manipulate consumers was covered in some detail by Mark Earls over a decade ago in his book Welcome To The Creative Age.
Mark was deeply shocked by the 'added-value banana' he found in a petrol station in 2000, which was described as a "fresh banana snack" and positioned as "fruit on the move." He railed against this patronizing attempt to control what he already knew - that a banana is clearly pre-wrapped by nature, that it is nutritious, and that it can be eaten on the go.
We know all this, and don't need marketing to add anything more. But after another ten years of analysis by the world's biggest fruit producer, apparently we do.
For those of you who frequent crowded drinking establishments, I strongly recommend the Rogano Crouch. Named after the legandary Rogano's bar in Glasgow (est. 1935), it involves cradling the pint right into the armpit with a twist of the wrist, thus ensuring minimum spillage.
Invented by my father in the forties when he was a student at Glasgow University, the hold is a boon when surrounded by braying office workers on payday.
I was very taken by this comment on meetings by Joseph Heller in Closing Time, his brilliant follw up to Catch 22.
“…the art of conducting without dissension and bringing to a close on time a meeting lasting two hours that was pleasant, uneventful, uninspiring, and unnecessary. What dissonance appeared was managed neatly.
A final anonymous proposal that all anonymous proposals no longer be given even perfunctory consideration was referred to the executive committee for consideration.”
Food for thought for those of us who spend too much time in meetings...
