Bland Book
Vikki Ross and Paul Mellor
Issue 58 | March 2021
Agency
Vikki Ross and Paul Mellor
Creative Team
Copy Director Vikki Ross Associate Director, Copy Richa Arora Copywriter Henry Mawuli Adobor MD of Mellor & Smith Paul Mellor Designer Grace State Author Amy Kean
Other Credits
Founder and CEO of Futuremade Tracey Follows Founder of Frank Andrew Bloch Founder of This Ability Sulaiman Khan Social Media Consultant Sophie Blowfield Founder of Sweathead Mark Pollard Founder of Stay Tooned Kate Toon
Date
Bland Site launched September 2020
Background
Vikki Ross writes brand books all the time and is constantly disappointed when brands lack ambition. They don't have to be big and bold and shouty but they do have to be something, otherwise they're nothing and they go unnoticed.
Paul Mellor, one of the voices of the podcast Take Fucking Risks, definitely feels the same way.
All too often brands produce guidelines that are, well, bland.
They want people to read their Bland Book and recognise themselves in it - either through work they've done or people they've worked with. And she wants them to see that they shouldn't produce guidelines like this - it leads to bland communications.
Idea
When brand guidelines are bland, the communications they lead to are bland.
They are unnoticed and instantly forgotten.
The Bland Book was a collaboration between Vikki Ross and Paul Mellor intended to shame both marketers and agencies into remembering Jack Trout’s famous dictum (and book), ‘Differentiate or Die.’ Their ironic promise to brand managers was, we can make sure you never stand out from your competitors. Sameness guaranteed.
They invited industry experts in Creative, Strategy, Diversity, Trends, Social, SEO and PR to be bland too. As you’d expect, everything in the book and on the site is totally mundane.
Download the PDFs, pass them around your office or agency and see what not to do.
Results
The Twitter launch was picked up by the industry press (LBB Online, Creative Review, Design Taxi, Campaign etc) leading to humiliating recognition of poor practice in many agencies and marketing departments. Advertising professionals have seen themselves on every page and have been inspired to do better.
The Bland philosophy has been presented at conferences in Iceland and Slovenia.
Our Thoughts
It is hard for creative people to take the constant rejection of their ideas. Many clients can only buy something they’ve seen before somewhere. Anything new is not just challenging but risky. Suits and planners too fall into the vanilla trap. ‘Just do something safe or we’ll lose the business.’ How often have you heard that? When Frank Lowe presented the Stella Artois idea to Whitbread, he said: I have two routes, one is safe, one is risky. If you take my advice you will buy the risky route because it is the safest.
I’ve seen bright, sparky creatives become ground down by and others become eaten up with anger, losing all pleasure in their work. Thank you, Vikki and Paul, for your protest, made with charm and humour at blandbook.com.