I caught up with Ken the other day. It had been a minute, and there was much to discuss. Ken was curious to know when I moved to the Bay.
I’ve found that the question people really want to ask isn’t when, but why? Ken was a journo back in the day, so it didn’t take long to pry that answer loose, although it’s a story for another time.
These days Ken runs a successful writing business, and had a storied advertising career in between. I’m ever so slightly, oh ok, quite a bit envious of people that can pivot.
I’ve always been a bit of a one trick pony myself, complicated by not being great at staying in my lane, but at least these days I remember to indicate before swerving into traffic. Ken generously described me as a ‘creative entrepreneur.’ I’ve certainly given a few things a nudge, albeit with mixed success.
We talked about writing, as Ken had just penned a useful piece on the importance of reading what you’ve written out loud. It helps not just with rhythm, but you also find out pretty quickly if you’ve written too much.
My problem is commas. Usage and number. Hughesie pulled me up on it a long time ago, observing that I used one every time I took a break, rather than where they might actually be useful, or required, and reading out loud was helpful in working out the right amount. Back then, when I was still on the lung darts, breaks were frequent and so commas were plentiful.
In any case Ken’s piece reminded me just how useful talking out loud can be. Who knew I’d need to be reminded of that.
Ken also seemed interested to know if I’d written any case studies. He reckoned they probably wouldn’t be as much fun to write as the profile pieces that I’d done a few of, but I might be quite good at them all the same.
I went back to him far too quick - another rookie mistake I thought I’d grown out of - before thinking of a smarter response. It took me a week to realise that I was already writing my own, and posting them here.
I’d been choosing to call them case stories instead.
I figured one has a bit more colour and shade. A case story has less ‘yay, aren’t we clever’, because we did a thing, and a bit more ‘what the …?’ because we did a thing; often accompanied by a salient lesson that probably should have been learned in an earlier chapter; a bit like a fable.
Or sort of like having to show how you worked out the answer in a maths exam, rather than just giving one, so they knew you didn’t just guess.
Something else I’d been guilty of.
In a case study the outcome, or destination is important. In a case story, it’s the journey, and what happened along the way. The dead ends and twists in the road. The potholes and the passing lanes.
Here’s one I prepared earlier. It’s a typical second act - a bit of a yarn about unfinished business, digging deep, and coming up ever so slightly short.
Buckle up.
Five years after building the giant fern sand sculpture on Te Henga, it was time to build another. After the last adventure I probably should have bowed out gracefully and retired hurt.
But no, that would be too easy. The scars from shooting myself in the foot last time were healing nicely, and importantly, there were more lessons that needed learning.
As part of their coalition deal in 2005 the Greens wanted to run a ‘buy New Zealand made’ campaign, and since I already had one lying around, perhaps the stars were finally lining up? Well, no, not really. Opportunity and trouble smell quite similar, and while for a minute everyone got quite excited until they didn’t, it became obvious what needed to be done.
After carefully making sure all the toys were thrown well clear of the cot - rather than create a campaign for someone else - we’d build our own IP.
No client meant no money, which by any reasonable measure should have been the end of the matter. Or at least a bloody big clue. But again no, apparently not. The degree of difficulty increased, and we boxed on regardless.
As a marketing tool for exporters, Steve and I created ‘The Made From New Zealand Project’. It was to be an online community for New Zealand businesses who wanted to make their mark, and a bunch of assets to help them leverage their New Zealand-ness.
Given that the Facebook was less than a year old, and Google was still a useful search engine, yet to fully morph into the black hole for advertising dollars that it is today, an online community combined with an e-commerce platform for all seemed like a smart, if not a complex and overly ambitious idea at the time.
The fern would be our calling card.
Part art installation, part media event, Steve and I carefully planned an even more ambitious Waitangi Day launch on Santa Monica Beach. Los Angeles was an important beachhead for many exporters and a major media market to boot.
Named ‘Tā Moko’ by Māori Television, it was a passion project pure, but not so simple. I was yet to learn that passion and reason aren’t always great playmates. But it wouldn’t be long.
Like the earlier iteration, Made From New Zealand was about getting stuff done as much as anything. Seeing Orlando Bloom on television in a striking but simple Huffer tee at the ‘Return of the King’ premiere sparked a thought.
To fund the project, we made tee shirts. 10,496 shirts to be precise - the distance in kilometres between Aotearoa and California - a ridiculous number, and selling them all was always going to be a massive ask.
It was four years before Kickstarter, and crowdfunding hadn’t been invented. We had all the makings of a crowdfunding campaign though, and the tee shirts, bound by a magic thread, were excellent merch.
Air New Zealand came on board, then ASB, Westpac, Telecom, Saatchi, NZTE and thousands of other companies and individuals followed. The tee shirts became our currency and somehow the story captured the imagination of New Zealanders from Palmy to Prague and everywhere in between.
Tem summed it all up pretty accurately in an interview on the wireless:
“When they first came to me I thought, that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard - but I’m in.”
And with us they were.
Mark asked Sir Ed to help, and after Lady June had rummaged around in the laundry, a climbing sock was donated to the cause. Steve had it ragged’ - pulling each fibre apart and then re-spinning it with a kilometre of our finest merino. A piece of this thread, representing the DNA of the New Zealand character was sewn inside each shirt.
It wasn’t just the shirt that was coming together, it was the story.
Photos: Jane Ussher
After being blessed by local tangata whenua, Rena and Tem led off. On Waitangi Day next to the Santa Monica pier, we built the giant silver fern sand sculpture, still the size of Eden Park, and again created by installation artist Mike Mizrahi.
Ex-pats from all over the states and as far away as Canada came to help. Air New Zealand gave shirts to passengers on their two flights into LAX, and NZ5 flew overhead for a squizz.
Māori Television, TVNZ, TV3 and KiwiFM were all there to broadcast the event, with local US coverage on ABC and Fox.
Tā Moko was our mark on the world.
The day after, a thick blanket of fog covered the entire Los Angeles area. We couldn’t see a thing. Had it arrived 24 hours earlier, we would have had to call the whole thing off.
Luck wasn’t always riding shotgun. I’d anticipated the event would drive shirt sales, but this proved to be way off the mark. People wanted to help build the fern, but once we’d built it, they reasonably assumed help was no longer needed.
The second fatal flaw - completely tangled with the first - was I’d completely miscalculated how long it would take to sell ten thousand tees. Well, it wasn’t so much a miscalculation as it was just having no clue at all. Turns out it takes longer than you think.
A project without a deadline is just an idea, and while a deadline is a great way to create urgency, if you miss it, you’re fucked. Ask any retailer stuck with Santa stuff in January.
Waitangi Day had a nice symmetry about it, but it was too soon. These were good times - pre GFC - with a good summer, and many businesses were still sauntering back from the break.
When you’ve reached the point of no return, the only thing you can do is leap and hope you make it. Steve and I got our hustle on, one tee at a time. There are no shortcuts when you’re under the pump. The yards were hard ones, but one tee became five, which turned into ten.
On the other side of the ledger, days turned to weeks and into months. Unlike the tee shirts, things were unravelling at the seams. Any money coming in went straight back out to pay the bills.
We dug even deeper and with the support from so many up the front and behind the scenes - you know who you are - we snuck over the line. Just. Although not before I found the hard truth in the saying; ‘to lose one’s shirt.’ The irony being that in this case, it happened by ending up with too many of them.
The other day I heard someone casually talk about ‘failing fast’. Well done if you can do it. Half your luck in fact. Passion and drive often block a hasty retreat. Sometimes they become blindspots so big you can’t even see the exit sign.
If you carry the stubborn gene, as I do, you’ll know failures can often be brutal, messy affairs - uncomfortable, agonisingly slow, and embarrassing in ways that make you determined never to end up there again.
But here I am. Both richer and poorer for having pushed the boat out.
As Devo was fond of saying; it doesn’t matter how you get into something, only how you get out of it.
“Besides matey,” he often added, “no-one needs to know how the sausages get made.”