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Articles by Damon Stapleton
Boost for startups involved in space, Earth observation Original
Advertise your job vacancies 2 days7 days30 daysBy Industry Show more Eight startups involved in space and Earth observation innovations have received funding through the Earth Observation Frontiers Enterprises Innovation Support Fund (NEOFrontiers EISF). Launched in 2021, the NEOFrontiers is an innovation funding mechanism designed to drive the growth of the local space sector through increased public investments.
Damon Stapleton wrote a book to provide a 'few creative bullets'
By Damon Stapleton, co-founder and chief creative officer at The Monkeys Aotearoa So, if you want to know why the book has a weird title – Keep shooting until you see the f*ckers smoke – you can blame my grandfather. But you will have to read the book to find out why. However, the idea for this book was born when I was promoted to executive creative director at the tender age of 30. The promotion was a couple of years too early. I didn’t really know what I was doing.
Damon Stapleton wrote a book to provide a ‘few creative bullets’: ‘Use it as a creative paramedic or machine gun’
By Damon Stapleton, co-founder and chief creative officer at The Monkeys Aotearoa So, if you want to know why the book has a weird title – Keep shooting until you see the f*ckers smoke – you can blame my grandfather. But you will have to read the book to find out why. However, the idea for this book was born when I was promoted to executive creative director at the tender age of 30. The promotion was a couple of years too early. I didn’t really know what I was doing.
Alice down the digital rabbit hole
Media fragmentation, the rise of internet connectivity, increasingly smarter phones, two recessions and a global pandemic later, it felt fitting to use a few quotes from Lewis Carol’s 'Alice in Wonderland' to give context to brands going down (and getting lost in) the ever-expanding, digital rabbit hole.
A line is a dot that went for a walk
This is a quote that I think about a lot. It comes from the great artist Paul Klee. Anybody who knows me has heard me say it. For me, it perfectly sums up the tension between closing the deal and creatively staying open. Anybody remember the great movie, The Man from Pluto? No, me either. This was almost the name of a film you probably do know called ‘Back to the Future’. Here are a couple of other fun facts. The time machine in the film was almost a refrigerator instead of a DeLorean.
WTF is creativity anyway?
Have you ever had one of those moments that just stays with you? It might have happened years ago but it will be a normal Wednesday and the moment just pops into your head. Maybe, it’s just me. Well, here is mine. I was a young creative and we had a client who was not easy. To be honest, he scared the creative department because he had the ability without much reason to make your life very difficult. You could end up working weekend after weekend knowing that what you were doing was a waste of time.
Starting again. Sometimes nothing is the gift
A couple of years ago I was in the middle of Mumbai in a place called Dharavi. It is what the West would call a slum. It is where Slum Dog Millionaire was filmed. It taught me a valuable lesson. It taught me that when you have nothing but you have people you can do anything. Trust me, in Dharavi there is very little wealth, what we call process or technology. But the people move mountains. The people move mountains. Fast forward a couple of years and I find myself starting again. We began with nothing.
Why does emotion matter?
The 2020 Olympics started on Friday, 23 July 2021. As you can tell by that non-sensical sentence the world is dealing with some weird shit. I think we can agree most people thought having a major global sporting event in a city full of Covid was a pretty bad idea. It was also clear many of them lived in Tokyo. I have to confess when I heard it was happening I thought this was not going to go well.
Relax, reality comes later
Imagine you are four guys in Liverpool in the early 60s. One day you decide you want to be famous. Ringo starts to tell everybody that the 4 lads are a band. This rumour spreads. They dress like a band and go and hang out with other bands. A couple of groupies start to wave at the fab 4 in the streets. After a couple of months they walk into a trendy club. Everybody stops. The girls start screaming.
Creativity. The goal that was too interesting
Some things stay with you don't they? You ever find that? A piece of film, a painting or some words that you think about over and over. Every couple of days it just pops into your head. Ok, maybe it's just me. Anyway, here is one of mine. Above is a clip of the great George Best playing for Northern Ireland. He is facing the great English goalkeeper Gordon Banks. Gordon Banks wants to kick the ball. He throws it up into the air and the ball has left his hands.
Creativity. The truth is not enough
The Oscars used to be about look how good we are at making movies. Now, it's just look at how good we are. I recently read this line in a story in The New York Times. The fallout in terms of viewers has been astonishing. There has been a 59% drop in viewers since last year according to Nielsen. Or, to put it more plainly, last year just over 23 million viewers watched the Oscars. This year, just under 10 million people watched the same show. There are probably all sorts of reasons for this. Covid.
Advertising. A restaurant without a kitchen
When I was growing up I never lived in a house. I lived in many hotels because my father was a hotel manager. This gave me a unique perspective on the chaos that is needed to create order and desirability. I would watch coffee-fuelled staff rush to clean rooms before the next guests arrived. Every weekend there were sweaty porters stumbling up stairs with mountains of luggage desperately trying to get the suitcases in the rooms before the guests got there. The chaos needed for the illusion of order.
2020. A space odyssey
Just put one f**king word down. It is a strange feeling to start writing without knowing what you are going to write. It is a feeling of absolute uncertainty. It is so powerful that it can cause paralysis. You can't do what you know you must but you also can't do anything else either. And, there is also this vague annoying terror mixed with an excitement kind of feeling as you stare at the white space in front of you.
Advertising's Most Useful Power During This Crisis: Humor
Lately I've been thinking about the 1997 movie Life Is Beautiful. Based on a true story, the film is about an Italian Jew who was imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. To protect his son and others in the only way he knew how, he used his sense of humor and gameplay to distract them from the everyday atrocities. The heartbreaking story showed us that even if we feel powerless, we have a great ability to console, protect and serve others through creative communication.
To Be Human
"We are very, very small, but we are profoundly capable of very, very big things." —Stephen Hawking What is it to be human? A week before the coronavirus infected the world, I was trying to answer this question in a discussion with my 16-year-old son Jake. It was a discussion all about the great film Blade Runner. It covered replicants, robots and A.I. The question asked was could machines ever get human rights?
Sometimes a yacht needs a horse
In my head, I went through all the answers I thought he could give. But I was way off. I was in a hotel room with jet lag, watching an odd documentary with subtitles. It was about building super yachts in Monaco. I wouldn’t call it riveting. However, as it got towards the end, one of the boat-builders was asked a simple question. What is the craziest thing you have ever been asked to build on a yacht? Now, in my head I went through what I thought was opulent.
Why creativity is like having fun underwater
Why creativity is like having fun underwater DDB regional chief creative officer for Australia and New Zealand Damon Stapleton examines the recent flop of the movie Cats, which seemed like by all measurements a guaranteed success, and how this plays into creativity. “It’s the possibility that keeps me going, not the guarantee.” – Nicholas Sparks. The Notebook 40 million dollars is a lot of money. That is the loss Cats is expected to make. It is a re-occurring event in film.
Having fun underwater
40-million dollars is a lot of money. That is the loss Cats is expected to make. It is a re-occurring event in film. A sure-fire winner that fails. In 1980, one of cinema’s biggest box-office flops, Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate lost 37-million dollars, which today would be equivalent to 144-million dollars. Both had fantastic directors, many smart people looking at every detail, a great script, a stellar cast and plenty of budget. Yet, they both failed. Ask yourself why?
You are never lost in Mumbai, you are just on your way
My problems began where most problems do: Being friends with a Bulgarian art director. Art directors have a strange need to collect or find things. Combine this with being in Mumbai, and the unique Bulgarian trait of finding danger where there is none, and what you have is an interesting afternoon. Alexander Kalchev, my friend and colleague, had decided to find a Bollywood poster store in a street called Mutton Street. Even though we bought posters, I am still not 100% sure this street exists.
The future of advertising: What will it look like in 500 years?
The future of advertising: What will it look like in 500 years? It’s easy to imagine what the world might look like in ten or even fifty years time, but what will New Zealand’s biggest sectors look like in 500 years’ time? Thanks to our friends at Tech Futures Lab, we went out to some of New Zealand’s most inspiring business leaders and asked them to imagine a far, far away future.
What will advertising be like in 500 years?
This is an article that chief strategy officer Rupert Price and I recently wrote for Idealog Magazine. We were asked a simple question: "What will advertising be like in 500 years?" Now, Rupert and I are not very good at thinking ahead. Even when it comes to what we want for lunch. And 500 years is a bloody long time. But we gave it a go. And then we went to an unplanned lunch. Enjoy. Image source: Gallo/Getty. “It took millions of years for man’s instincts to develop.
The future of advertising: What will it look like in 500 years?
What will advertising look like in 500 years? “It took millions of years for man’s instincts to develop. It will take millions more for them to even vary. It is fashionable to talk about changing man. A communicator must be concerned with unchanging man, with his obsessive drive to survive, to be admired, to succeed, to love, to take care of his own.” – Bill Bernbach. Change is a very seductive thing and of course very easy to see.
The risk of not taking risks
In a recent interview with Empire Magazine, Martin Scorsese said that he didn't think Marvel movies were cinema. As you can imagine this statement caused much gnashing of Twitter teeth. So, to explain his position, he wrote an article for the New York Times. This is a paragraph from the article that sums up his position. In the past 20 years, as we all know, the movie business has changed on all fronts.
So, what happens to 'once upon a time'?
In his excellent book Blowing the Bloody Doors Off, Michael Caine tells the story of meeting John Wayne at the Beverly Hills Hotel on his first trip to the United States. The great actor gives him some advice about what he should and shouldn’t do when he becomes famous. He tells him not to wear suede shoes. When Michael Caine asks why, John Wayne tells him that when you are famous, you will be at the urinal and the guy next to you will see you.
I hired the guy who brought a clown as a support person to a redundancy meeting at a previous company. Here's why.
This is a plea for naughtiness. Naughtiness is defined as mischievousness, prankishness, a type of disobedience. For about a year, I have had this re-occurring thought. Has creativity become a formula because of how ideas have to serve so many media channels? Useful, practical Swiss army knife ideas versus impactful, sharp steak knife ideas. This thought pops in my head every couple of days. It comes from something I wrote a couple of months ago.
Swimming with clowns
This is a plea for naughtiness. Naughtiness is defined as mischievousness, prankishness, a type of disobedience. For about a year I have had this re-occurring thought. Has creativity become a formula because of how ideas have to serve so many media channels? Useful, practical Swiss army-knife ideas versus impactful, sharp steak-knife ideas. This thought pops in my head every couple of days. It comes from something I wrote a couple of months ago.
Phineas Gage is a strange story we should all know
13 September 1848 was not a good day for Phineas Gage. Until that day, the handsome 25-year=old had worked his way up to the position of foreman. By all accounts, he was very good at his job. Shrewd and capable. Somebody you could depend on to get the job done. But, unfortunately, on that day, none of these fine qualities would help him. He was working with a four-foot iron rod to tamp down some blasting powder. And through sheer chance, the iron bar created a spark as it struck a rock.
The power and problem of intuition when it comes to creativity - but why you should listen to it anyway
You have to choose the move that feels right sometimes; that’s what intuition is. – Magnus Carlsen. World Chess Champion. Grandmaster at the age of 13 and 148 days. On January 17, 1977 Gary Gilmore was executed by firing squad for two murders he committed in Utah. His final words: "Let’s do it". In 1988, Dan Wieden read these final words in a newspaper and said if we changed that to ‘Just Do It’, it would work perfectly for that little running shoe company we have as a client. Nike.
450-million dollars for peacock feathers
This is Salvator Mundi. The world's most expensive painting. It recently sold for 450-million dollars at Christie's in New York. Image from Damon's Brain. Most experts thought it would get to about 200-million dollars. They were very wrong. However, the gigantic sum paid is not the most startling facts about this masterpiece. What is far more eye-watering is many don’t believe it is real. Many experts feel that it was done by Da Vinci’s workshop rather than the master himself.
Gentle anarchy never hurt anybody
There is probably a weird German word for it. A word for that strange feeling you get when you see an idea and it makes you happy and jealous at the same time. I looked at my phone screen and saw this picture. It is a picture of a see-saw that goes between the Mexican and American Border. This simple idea lets children play with each other even though they are separated by an impenetrable steel barrier. Think of the anger. Think of the pain that exists on either side of that steel line in the sand.
Advertising: Making it mean something
After Cannes, I found it difficult to write anything. It felt like everything had been said. It had been dissected in a million different ways. Image from: Damon's Brain. There is a frenzy after Cannes to explain what it all means. And normally, I would be right there. This year, I needed a moment. I tried to move on and ignore it all but something kept gnawing away at me. I felt I needed a rant but I didn’t know what I wanted to rant about.
What if nothing is changing?
There is an advertising urban myth about a company needing to sell more baby powder. Basically, all the brightest and the best would come into a room each day and try and brainstorm how they could sell more baby powder. They would look at communication, distribution and pricing. At the end of each day, a cleaner would come in and clean up the room. While she did this, she would listen to what they were saying. At the end of three days, very little progress had been made in selling more baby powder.
Talent is never a single malt
Talent. It's one of those words. Like the word, creativity. Everybody nods and agrees that you need it. These days, everybody, says they need talent desperately. What is also perhaps true, is that the changing structure of our business, from consultants to in-house agencies and everything in between means all sorts of people are perhaps figuring out what this word actually means for the first time. © Donato Fiorentino via 123RF The question is, what is it? Part of the problem is the word.
Norah Jones, KFC and forgiveness
We had been waiting almost an hour. An hour is a long time to wait. You start playing weird games in your head. I will count to thirty. When the big hands gets to the five, I am definitely out of here. You also silently seethe. Actually, it wasn’t that silent. By now, the crowd had started slow hand-clapping. There was no communication. Where was the support band? Where the f#ck was the actual band? People had got babysitters who were getting paid by the hour.
Yes, but what about Pablo Escobar's hippos?
I will get to the hippos later but first, pornography. I know, that sentence surprised me too. Mark Ritson was on stage in Miami and had been telling a story about Veet. You know, the hair-removal cream. At one point, sales had gone up exponentially and the company had tried to find out why. What was causing it? Packaging? Advertising? Distribution? No. Not even close. Men watching huge amounts of pornography online.
If you keep doing that you will go blind
"TV is dead. Have you seen that new John Lewis ad. Pretty cool." Somebody said this to me about two weeks ago. It kind of stuck in my head. Only in advertising could you say this and nobody would think you were weird. Except, it is pretty weird. When I pointed out how strange that statement was, the person triumphantly said, “yes, but I saw it on Facebook.” I went and got a coffee. Last week, Nike released its powerful Dream Crazier spot.
What is madness worth? Lessons from Vince and Tony
We will get to the painting later. We need to go back 48 hours. My little obsession with obsession and madness began with a story I had read on the plane to New York. Now, it is important you know that I know very little about skateboarding. Yet, even I know who Tony Hawk is. The story was about him doing the first 900. This happened at the X-Games in 1999. It is a trick that is ridiculously difficult because you cannot see the skateboard twice while performing it. One of those moments is the landing.
Anybody want tickets to Fyre Festival?
There is an adage in advertising that says nothing kills a bad product faster than good advertising. Of course, that is assuming the product actually exists. The recent documentary Fyre on Netflix is about a music festival that became a slow-motion car crash in the Caribbean. It was sold by influencers and models on Instagram as a baby Coachella on Pablo Escobar’s Island. It turned into Lord of the Flies for rich kids with yoga pants.
Anybody fancy building a dangerous cathedral?
There is a story about three men who spent their lives quarrying rocks. When asked what they were doing, one replied, "Breaking rocks." The second said, "Earning a living." The third said, "Building a cathedral." Perception. In advertising, it is often aimed or focused at the client or the project we are working on. We are always looking outward. It is very seldom that we have a clear point of view about ourselves.
The soft silence of Tokyo
Imagine you are in a city of close to 15 million people. You are walking down a large street. It is a lot like 5th Avenue in New York. For a couple of seconds, you are happily staring at one of the beautiful window displays. You turn around and your child is gone. The worst feeling in the world. This had just happened to a woman as we were driving down the same street. Our driver stopped the van suddenly and jumped out.
So, how's the pitch going?
My first big pitch. I had a pitch jacket that made me look like a featured extra from Miami Vice. I was sh!tting myself and had a fixed smile on my face in the futile attempt to appear professional. I remember the senior suit saying to me, “the client wants to look you straight in the eye. He wants to stare at you to make sure you are not going to f*ck him over.” The suit kept saying, “look him in the eye.” Over and over. Like it was a mantra that would keep him safe.
There's a reason they say a picture is worth a thousand words
Years ago, I was asked by a client to write some ads. There was a catch. He wanted me to write ads about nothing. He had no facts to communicate that would persuade anybody to use his company. His competitors had far more advanced platforms and it would be another two years before he caught up. For two years, he wanted “feel-good ads” – his words, not mine. Six months in, he called me in to say that he liked the ads but they needed more facts.
The undeniability of Redwoods
There is a type of silence that happens now and again that makes you smile. When this silence happens and you look around, the other people with you have exactly the same expression. I was in Las Vegas to judge the London International Awards. The jury was full of some of the most talented in the business. I learnt a whole lot from them and their collective wisdom. There were many arguments and different points of view but now and again there was a fantastic silence.
The rise of the internet class
Lately, I have been followed. The man who is following me has good hair and dead eyes. It would seem wherever I go on the internet, he pops up. He is young, very young, but is constantly telling me that he has the wisdom and the secret stuff that can help me. He keeps telling me he is very rich and desperately wants to help people. This is why he will help me become very rich, too. He always seems to be at a mansion with a couple of Ferraris in the background. The snake-oil gospel of success.
The tango of Donald Trump and Nike
Outrage. Hatred. These are not normally words you would say are the way forward for a brand. In the past, a brand has always tried to have a position that was not controversial. A position where you attacked your competitors and nobody else. You stayed in your lane. Stuck to your knitting. I was interviewed last week about the new Nike ad and what I thought would happen. I believed that it had been thoroughly thought through and was going to be very good for business. It has been.
What do you want creativity to do?
"What can creativity do?" Last week, I was asked this simple question. I have been asked this four-word puzzle a few times in my career. It is a strange question. You intuitively know the answer, but find it hard to be particularly articulate. I started to give it some thought. Creativity is many things.
The love story of an engine and a compass
Years ago, I was lucky enough to work with two giants in the advertising industry. Out of respect, I am not going to name them because they would want it that way. One was a suit, the other a creative. They were both very impressive. They liked each other. They also used to fight a lot. Invariably, the argument would be a clash about research and proof on the one hand, and the power of imagination on the other.This created a strange tension in the agency.
Enough plankton, and you sir, have a whale
It has been a couple of weeks of belief and varying degrees of success. From the rescue of the incredibly brave football team in those very dark caves in Thailand to England getting to a semi-final in the World Cup and an unlikely South African hero called Kevin Anderson, who with his dodgy knees beat Roger Federer, the greatest of all time, to make a Wimbledon Final.Watching all these news stories, I noticed something a little strange. Take the cave story in Thailand.
Stranger Things: The Cannes Edition
Damon Stapleton won 12 Cannes Lions this year. Of the overall experience, he says, "I was looking for a sign for a couple of days. And there it was." I was walking down a little back street in Cannes. I reached one of those fashion outlets that always make me think they are a front for something else.In my head, it was the Marseilles mafia smuggling huge wheels of cheese, fake wine and millions of questionable Moroccan cigarettes.
Do you speak creativity?
"Doing stand-up in Poland." This is a phrase that we used to say at an agency I use to work at many years ago. It referred to a bad meeting with a client that involved a creative presentation. It would feel like you were in the middle of Warsaw in a comedy club, trying to do your routine. The only problem was, nobody understood what you were saying because nobody in the audience spoke English.I had always wondered about these meetings.
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