Flagging A Global Purpose #11 #cong22

Synopsis:

An idea to move us from purpose washing to unifying under a global flag

Total Words

585

Reading Time in Minutes

2

Key Takeaways:

  1. Purpose-washing is alive and well
  2. We need collective identity
  3. We can transcend boundaries and border
  4. A global identity for a global purpose

About David Gluckman

David Gluckman was born in Port Elizabeth, South Africa on 1st November 1938, the day that Sea Biscuit and War Admiral fought out the Race of the Century at Pimlico Park, Baltimore.  Educated in Johannesburg, he joined a local advertising agency after university and soon fell in love with business. He made the pilgrimage to London in 1961 and worked as an account executive on the introduction of Kerrygold butter into the UK.  Always a frustrated creative, he escaped into brand development in 1969, met a man from a drinks company called IDV, and his life changed forever. A lover of cricket, he considers his greatest achievement bowling the West Indian legend, Joel Garner, first ball in a pro-am 6-a-side tournament.

In 1973 David invented Baileys, the world’s most successful cream liqueur, which has since sold over 1.25 billion bottles.

Contacting David Gluckman

You can connect with David on LinkedIn or see his book ‘That Sh*t Will Never Sell’

By David Gluckman

There’s a lot of talk about purpose by brands these days.  In a way it reminds me of ‘sportswashing’.  People will forget about torture and abuse as long as they have the opportunity to love their local football team, whoever owns it. And if it’s winning, people conveniently forget who the owners really are.

I suppose purpose is a convenient way of helping people forget about the real issues.  If a gambling company offers to become carbon neutral by 2030, does that become their purpose, rather than persuading the less well-off to part with their hard-earned money in a futile bid to get rich.

Everybody knows the house ALWAYS wins.  So carbon neutrality is all very well, as we make our way to the food bank.

One of the more exciting takes on purpose cropped up a year or so ago when I had occasion to have a Zoom conversation with a 30-something Swedish fellow called Oskar Pernefeldt.  Oskar had come up with a brilliant idea.  A world flag.

Think about it.  Religion has a flag that enables it to transcend borders and boundaries.  It may not always be comfortable, but you can be Catholic in Buenos Aires or Budapest.  Or a Jew in Johannesburg or Jeddah. Your religion is the flag that binds you together.

I heard an eminent scientist the other day say that even if the UK can become carbon-neutral by 2050 or whenever, all it takes is a couple of mega-cities in China or India to cancel out all our efforts.  Or another mad Putin war.

We need a collective identity that makes us all feel part of a Global whole.  Jews feel that.  Catholics and Muslims too.  And there has been some success in uniting the Gay community across the world.  They all have flags of a kind.

 So why not all of us?  When will we begin to feel we are citizens of the planet?  We have a common cause now that will affect the survival of everyone.  We have to band together to reverse Climate Change.  A global identity to which we all espouse is a great start.

You definitely have something there, Oskar.  Build it and they will come.

October 28, 2022 2022 Purpose No comments yet

THE WORLD’S GONE MAD. OFFICIAL. #48 #cong20

Synopsis:

Coming soon.

Total Words

696

Reading Time in Minutes

3

Key Takeaways:

  1. Coming soon

About David Gluckman:

 David Gluckman was born in Port Elizabeth, South Africa on 1st November 1938, the day that Sea Biscuit and War Admiral fought out the Race of the Century at Pimlico Park, Baltimore.  Educated in Johannesburg, he joined a local advertising agency after university and soon fell in love with business. He made the pilgrimage to London in 1961 and worked as an account executive on the introduction of Kerrygold butter into the UK.  Always a frustrated creative, he escaped into brand development in 1969, met a man from a drinks company called IDV, and his life changed forever. A lover of cricket, he considers his greatest achievement bowling the West Indian legend, Joel Garner, first ball in a pro-am 6-a-side tournament.

In 1973 David invented Baileys, the world’s most successful cream liqueur, which has since sold over 1.25 billion bottles.

Contacting David Gluckman:

You can connect with David on LinkedIn or see his book ‘That Sh*t Will Never Sell’

By David Gluckman

I will not pretend to be able to foresee the future or predict the way that ‘civilisation as we know it’ will lurch into the next millennium.

But I know how I’d like to change things now, going into the next decades of the 21stcentury.

Look at this. And gape with disbelief.

“On Thursday night in Montgomery, Tommy Tuberville told his supporters about the sterling military record of his father, an American G.I. who landed on Normandy Beach in D-Day and drove a tank across western Europe, earning five bronze stars and a Purple Heart at the Battle of the Bulge during his deployment.

Despite being of an age at which American men pick up military history as if by osmosis, Tuberville did not seem familiar with the politics of the European theater: In his speech, the new senator described how his father took part in “liberating Paris from socialism and communism.”

Now Tommy, despite his potato-head surname, has just become a person of substance.  He’s been elected to the US senate, as a Republican member for Alabama.

He is one of that elite group who is going to prevent Joe Biden and his team from unpicking some of the lunacy of the Trump administration.

If in the next two months, Trump declares the earth to be flat, it will pass in the US Senate, a group, one assumes, containing people of the same intellectual heft as Tommy Tuberville.

Here’s a simple formula for changing all that. Starting now.

  1. We should abolish party politics.  Elections should be about appointing local people who we believe will benefit our community.  They in turn, will band together with like-minded people, to determine what our laws should be and how we should progress as a society.  Your vote would be based on what you believe, not what your party or your leader tells you to believe.
  2. As a tribute to the senator from Alabama, we should introduce the ‘Tuberville Statute’ that requires all people standing for public office to undergo an IQ test. Scores under 120 need not apply. That would probably eliminate Tuberville, but it’s in a good cause.
  3. People running for office should be subjected to the same ‘Civic test’ as immigrants applying for citizenship of a country. This would definitely eliminate Tuberville.
  4. No person who will be over the age of 65 when their term of office expires, will be allowed to run for high political office. It’s time the elderly stopped running the world.  People mapping the future should have a future themselves.  Tuberville, I think, would qualify on age grounds.  But luckily for us, he’d fail the other tests.

The thought of some terminally ill, mentally deficient geriatric deciding that his time has come – so let’s take a billion others along for the ride – is too horrific to think about.  But it’s also not outside the bounds of possibility.

Well, that’s it.  My formula for a better world. Now.  Tuberville has finally pulled the plug on sanity.

Let’s make America, and everywhere else, sane again.

November 18, 2020 2020 Society 3.0 No comments yet

Time for Companies to be Called to Account #20 #cong19

Synopsis:

Coming soon.

4 Key Takeaways:

  1. Coming soon

About David Gluckman:

David Gluckman was born in Port Elizabeth, South Africa on 1st November 1938, the day that Sea Biscuit and War Admiral fought out the Race of the Century at Pimlico Park, Baltimore.  Educated in Johannesburg, he joined a local advertising agency after university and soon fell in love with business. He made the pilgrimage to London in 1961 and worked as an account executive on the introduction of Kerrygold butter into the UK.  Always a frustrated creative, he escaped into brand development in 1969, met a man from a drinks company called IDV, and his life changed forever. A lover of cricket, he considers his greatest achievement bowling the West Indian legend, Joel Garner, first ball in a pro-am 6-a-side tournament.

In 1973 David invented Baileys, the world’s most successful cream liqueur, which has since sold over 1.25 billion bottles.

Contacting David Gluckman:

You can connect with David on LinkedIn or see his book ‘That Sh*t Will Never Sell’

By David Gluckman

Since my book was first published, I have travelled abroad quite extensively, talking to students and ‘performing’ at business conferences.  One of the things that has really struck me has been the change in attitudes amongst liberal-minded, community-conscious people of all ages and all over the place.

In Sydney last September, I listened to Derrick Kayongo, a Ugandan living in the USA, talk about recycling used bars of soap in hotels by sanitising them, reprocessing them and making them available to people in Third World countries. Apparently when Derrick started his venture, there were 800 million bars of soap thrown away in US hotels.

Visiting a local street market in London last Autumn, I came across a couple of young men selling a vodka brand called SAPLING they’d created.  “What’s so special about it?” I asked.  “Well,” one replied “apart from tasting great, we also undertake to plant a tree for every bottle of vodka we sell.”

In Athens, early in the year, I listened to a captivating story told by a young Dutchman of Kenyan origin.  His name was Paul Kangangi.  His tale was about a Dutch journalist investigating work practices in the Cocoa fields of Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire.  His conclusion?  That owners of all the major plantations were using kidnapped child slave labourto work the plantations.

The result of his investigations was the launch of the world’s first ‘slave free chocolate’ brand.  It’s called TONY’S CHOCOLONELY, it’s reputedly the biggest-selling chocolate brand in Holland, and it’s now being sent abroad for export.  This says a lot about the people of Holland who bought into the ethical basis of the TONY’S idea.  It’s also a very good chocolate.

The stories above are all about individuals or small groups trying to make a difference to help improve the lot of the communities we live in.  The time has come for large organisations to front up and join the crusade for better living.

Rumour has it that the global chocolate giants like Nestle, Mars and Cadburys are planning to go ‘slave free’ by 2025.  By that time, the management who made the promises will all have moved on and there’ll be a new corporate approach which probably won’t have the ‘slave-free’ manifesto built into their business plans.

I am intrigued by the stance taken by the drinks companies and the betting organisations. DRINK RESPONSIBLY, whispered in a drink advert is hardly likely to persuade a binge drinker that he’s losing control.  And WHEN THE FUN STOPS, STOP is a catchy phrase which will have absolutely zero impact on some poor unfortunate soul who has become enslaved by a gambling machine.

The trouble is that to take the quantum leap that they need to take, they will have to admit that their products are bad for us. And that is a tough ask.

But things are changing.  Social responsibility and care for the community are top level issues in Scandinavian countries.  And I even read recently that a corporation as large as Unilever is considering culling those brands in their portfolio which they consider are being harmful to the community and the environment.  (I wonder where they stand on Palm Oil?)

If I was starting out as a new brand consultant, I would build into every brief that I received a directive TO LOOK FOR AN ELEMENT THAT WOULD CONTRIBUTE TO THE WELL-BEING OF THE ENVIRONMENT AND THE HUMAN COMMUNITY.

This is something I ‘preach’ when talking to business or student groups these days. It adds to the innovation challenge. But it should not be beyond the reach of intelligent creative people.

September 16, 2019 2019 Community No comments yet

Ideas from the Inside the Box #96 #cong18

Synopsis:

Ideas come from a wealth of sources, take time to form and clients need to educated on how to buy them.

4 Key Takeaways:

  1. ‘Morning after’ test
  2. Look at the info you have
  3. Never stop looking – everywhere
  4. Learn to buy as well as sell ideas

About David Gluckman:

David Gluckman was born in Port Elizabeth, South Africa on 1st November 1938, the day that Sea Biscuit and War Admiral fought out the Race of the Century at Pimlico Park, Baltimore.  Educated in Johannesburg, he joined a local advertising agency after university and soon fell in love with business. He made the pilgrimage to London in 1961 and worked as an account executive on the introduction of Kerrygold butter into the UK.  Always a frustrated creative, he escaped into brand development in 1969, met a man from a drinks company called IDV, and his life changed forever. A lover of cricket, he considers his greatest achievement bowling the West Indian legend, Joel Garner, first ball in a pro-am 6-a-side tournament.

In 1973 David invented Baileys, the world’s most successful cream liqueur, which has since sold over 1.25 billion bottles.

Contacting David Gluckman:

You can connect with David on LinkedIn or see his book ‘That Sh*t Will Never Sell’

 

 

By David Gluckman

Kick starting #cong18 in Ashford Castle David shared his life time of ideation, the hard work involved and sources of ideas.

See David’s presentation below.

See David accompanying presentation slides below.

David Gluckman #cong18
December 5, 2018 2018 Ideas No comments yet