The temptation to excel at what you do and, just as importantly, to be recognised for that is huge. It’s not always a good thing. Last night, finally got a chance to watch Michelin Stars – The Madness of Perfection, William Sitwell’s look at how a guide that started out as a simple way for motorists to find something to eat has evolved into a gastronomic obsession that makes and breaks restaurants and chefs.
(The Michelin star story itself is actually an amazing story about the evolution of a brand, but I digress …)
I saw immediate parallels with the advertising and design industries, where the drive for gongs can be equally strong and can also lead to an obsession with detail that any beyond the industry, and many within it, simply do not see, and certainly do not care about.
As one creative director used to say, never forget that most consumers are watching your “art” with their tea in their lap. In other words, they have no interest in the kerning of headlines or the particular way that a photo was retouched or the animation technique you used to curl the logo through the open window of a car speeding at 140 km/h over an ice face … They’ve just waiting for the next bit of the news.
The temptation though for creative marketing people, just like with chefs, is to shift the goalposts to align with what the industry is looking at rather than what the consumer sees; to become so interested in ‘getting it right’ (supposedly for the customer) that ironically the whole point of the project – to tell a story to a consumer in a way that makes them feel impelled to act – gets drowned in a surge of technical amazement.
Of course there’s a payback: the right to put a credential beside your name, and maybe a cup on your mantle, that so many others cannot claim. At least not this year.
Exclusivity is a siren – it distracts people, some of whom are already amazing at what they do, to hunt for that amazing song. In the case of Michelin, the Sitwell programme suggests, it even takes some out of the world of bringing people happiness (the whole point of cooking) and into a world of relentlessly seeking credentials. The plot is lost. So much so that, as Marco Pierre White pointed out, these culinary adventurers don’t even cook anymore. Instead they pursue empires built, in the case of Michelin endorsement, on one, two, three little macaroons on a page. Empires that surge and ebb on the basis of those little marks – as diners too feed on the Michelin mania.
I’ve certainly got nothing against prizes. I am a radical meritocrat. But it is one thing to win for your work, and quite another to work for what you will win.
My job as a marketer is to make people fall in love with inanimate objects. Nothing less. But, as the programme last night reminded me, nothing more either.
