TBWA’s ‘disruption master’ Steve Walls shifts base from Singapore to Switzerland

This gig turned out to be a [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines].

Mumbrella! You’re ‘guidelines’ are [Edited Under Mumbrella’s community guidelines]. 🤦🏻‍♂️

Oh show us the work master disruptor

I’m very happy to Maguire

Want to meet up when I’m in town next and I can take you through it?

Just drop me a note, I’ll be more than happy to spend an hour or so with you.

A couple of links here will more than suffice, our dear Disruption Master.

Let’s do it face to face.

I’ll take you through the regional reel and highlights, you buy the coffee, we have a conversation. It’ll be civilized.

Planning these days, for the most part, has degraded into real smoke
and mirrors, alchemic BS. Hours and hours of costly intellectual garbage that consumes 80% of the campaign timeline. Without having any demonstrable effect on creativity.

Usually, it’s the thinking of one person foisted on an entire department which can only dispute it if they’ve got a death wish.

I saw a lot of examples of some masterful disruption come out of the
recently concluded Cannes show….[Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines]. And I’m pretty sure those winning agencies didn’t put out such ridiculous and meaningless titles either.

I’d agree with you on the woeful state of planning in Singapore, but think that it may be in more rude health elsewhere in the region.

Lots of reasons for that, would love to hear your pov on why it got this bad in Singapore.

Saying that planning is far worse elsewhere in the region is not a defence. 1S$ is about 10,000 rupiah, 24 baht etc, so the expectations should be absolutely higher.

The main reason would be poor quality planners who could not
make it in the west and have acquired top positions of power here.

The second reason is that no planner, however smart, really knows
if their typed up strategy translates into good creative. But instead of being flexible, if the creative doesn’t map 100% with what they have typed, they poke away at it incessantly and drain it of every ounce of goodness….till what is left resembles a squeezed orange.

They exert all their power, intimidation and persistence to shape the work exactly as it pleases them, and then if things go bad, they simply walk away. They won’t defend it with the same energy in front of the client. And they won’t pay any price if the account is lost.

There needs to be more accountability for planners as the end creative product is grown from the seed that they have planted.

“The main reason would be poor quality planners who could not
make it in the west and have acquired top positions of power here.”

You’re joking right? Have you ever worked with a good planner [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines]? No such person exists. Most planners [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines] are awful wherever they’re from, but the good few are absolutely not [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines].

Ummmm your post sounds like gibberish for obvious reasons.
Look, it’s simple. Creatives have lost their seat at the agency table
long ago. Because they have been extremely cavalier and shown zero skills or interest at making great work on real briefs. These days they are chosen so they can meekly agree with whatever the CEO or Head Planner says. They are useful idiots who execute someone else’s (planner’s) vision and take the fall if it doesn’t work out. (Strat was GREAT, but let down by poor creative).

Planners, despite talking crap most of the time still retain their seat
at the table. They’ll say some rubbish like “cats are anarchists” and no one will bat an eyelid. Even though they have no way of verifying beforehand that anarchy among cats translates into a good, enduring piece of creative. I know how much a head planner’s hourly rate is and it doesn’t compute with the things that come out of their mouth.

what a [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines] man, as evidenced here and on his numerous exchanges on facebook
someone who [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines] lol

eh, got edited, but i guess he’s [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines]

Can’t believe he fell for it. LOL. You all were just teasing him I know. We always thought he [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines]. Jerry Maguire, don’t let [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines]. No hard feelings Stevo, good luck matey, you will be missed by some of us here in the old shop. We did keep some of your links for sure, not like we had [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines] to keep, ha! Just kidding, don’t ever let the lack of [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines] un-master your disruption. But we do miss Edmund. Last CCO in here who had a pair. Was able to tell STB what he really thought. No matter, sorry the send off couldn’t have been bigger, better. Next time maybe. As a rule, if you can’t say it constructively, don’t say anything at all, right [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines]?
C.B.

“But we do miss Edmund. Last CCO in here who had a pair. Was able to tell STB what he really thought. ”

Really!!!!???
Telling a money maker, quasi government (ie. [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines]) client who can go anywhere that their work is [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines] even before the previous agency’s done a handover…not a very smart thing to do. Anyway, any fool can say something sucks….the hard part is to show how to do it better.