An electric shock
Out for a duck
Out for a duck
Sir Nigel Gresley was an imaginative man.
A gifted inventor.
Probably the most famous locomotive designer associated with the London and North Eastern Railway.
He designed arguably the most famous locomotive in the world: the Flying Scotsman.
And as well as being a great engineer he had an eye for beauty.
Designing engines with muscle and elegance.
The attractiveness of his locomotives were not wasted on the advertising department of the LNER at King’s Cross: many of his engines appeared regularly on posters, luggage labels and booklets.
Anywhere the company could take advantage of the locomotives’ impressive good looks.
But when LNER were able to prove that their engines were not only safe and stylish but very, very fast, they had a real marketing property on their hands.
On the 3 July 1938, driver Joe Duddington climbed into the cab of the Mallard: an A4 class locomotive with sweeping art deco lines.
Joined by fireman Tommy Bray, and the inspector, Sam Jenkins.
Attached to the engine was a dynamometer car full of charts and instruments to record their speed.
Turning his cap back to front, Duddington took the helm and they started their outward journey from Wood Green.
Resting at a siding in Barkston, thoughts were collected and packed lunches eaten, as Jennings and Bray made the fire up, right to the doors of the firebox.
The train left at 4.15pm, rising through Peascliffe Tunnel and on to Barrowby Road Junction, where the line levelled out on the way to Grantham.
Work on the line meant that the train slowed to 24mph temporarily then gradually picked up the pace, passing through Stoke Tunnel and heading uphill towards Stoke summit.
Passing Stoke Box at the top of the climb, Duddington gave the Mallard a head of steam at 85mph.
And she jumped to it like she was alive.
After three miles the speedometer in his cab showed 107mph, then 108, 109 …
Before he knew it the needle was at 116mph.
Bray and Jenkins shovelled frantically.
Duddington nursed her through Little Lytham at 123mph.
The excited passengers in the dynamometer car urged her on.
And then for quarter of a mile they all held their breath as they reached previously uncharted speeds of 126mph.
The Mallard had booked her place in history, clinching a new world record for steam locomotives.
So it feels very fitting that a statue of Sir Nigel Gresley should be commissioned by the Gresley Society Trust.
And unveiled at King’s Cross Station next year: the 75th anniversary of his death.
A seven-foot-tall bronze figure of the man, created by sculptor Hazel Reeves.
And here’s the clever bit: he has a bronze mallard duck at his feet.
An inspired idea.
A duck that will make people stop and take notice.
A duck that will help spark interest in the story of how the Mallard broke the world steam record.
A duck that will mark out this statue from the plethora of other statues celebrating the great and the good around London, and make people remember it.
Without the duck, it’s just another statue of a kindly old gentleman.
But it appears that’s exactly what a minority of trust committee members would prefer: to remove the duck, because it may invite ridicule and detract from the dignity of the statue.
So after widespread consultation with their president, vice presidents, members and Sir Nigel’s family, the duck is no more.
That’s the danger of design by committee: you’re rarely going to please everyone.
Compromise can lead to watered-down designs or strategy that everyone likes (or can live with), but that no one really loves.
Which will be picked up by your audience.
Your audience aren’t always as interested as you think they are.
You need to make them sit up and take notice.
It takes daring to be different.
Different doesn’t need to be wacky.
It should be salient and meaningful.
It should stick something in people’s memory banks.
Relevant difference is a calculated risk.
But far too often people fear too much what will happen if the risk is taken.
But the question should be: what are we risking if we don’t take it?
Because if your brand doesn’t provoke a reaction then it’s the equivalent of a kindly old gentleman.
Hold your breath and give your brand a head of steam.
And don’t let your best ideas be out for a duck.
– DB
Seven feet tall
Seven feet tall
When Bill Shankly took over as manager of Liverpool Football Club they were a second-rate side, languishing in the old Second Division.
By the time he had left in 1974, they’d won three First Division titles, one Second Division title, two FA Cups and one UEFA Cup.
Unrecognisable from the deadbeat side he’d taken charge of in December 1959 – even down to their kit.
Because when Bill Shankly took over as manager of Liverpool they didn’t play in their iconic all-red strip.
They played in white shorts and white socks, with white piping on their red jerseys.
But Bill had an idea.
Impressed by Real Madrid’s all-white kit and with a gut instinct for colour psychology, he made a switch so powerful it’s hard to believe it hasn’t always been that way.
One day after training, Bill bounded into the players’ dressing room.
He threw a pair of vivid red shorts to one of his players.
“Get into those shorts and let’s see how you look,” announced Bill.
Because he had a theory: red is for danger; red is for power.
And he didn’t just choose any player to model this new kit: he chose his captain, Ron Yeats.
The six feet two inches fellow Scot he’d signed from Dundee United: a part-time slaughter man who was strong as an ox, and twice as wide.
The bemused centre-half duly obliged and donned the red shorts, with the addition of red socks.
As he walked down the steps towards the players’ tunnel he could see his manager, and assistant Bob Paisley, in the middle of the pitch.
And as Yeats approached them, all in red, Bill exclaimed: “Christ, Ronnie, you look awesome, terrifying, you look seven feet tall!”
His stocky presence was made all the more imposing by the all-red uniform.
A move intended to strike fear and intimidation into the hearts of opponents.
Bill was happy.
And on 25 November 1964, the man-mountain from ‘The Granite City’ of Aberdeen, led out his teammates against Anderlecht in the first round of the European Cup.
All in red for the first time.
The art of theatre was not lost on Bill, he instructed Yeats to stand in the centre circle of the Anfield pitch.
“Walk around him,” Bill proclaimed, as he invited a group of journalists to behold his rough-hewn granite obelisk.
Splendorous in scarlet.
The match was played at a cracking tempo.
Yeats the rock: a huge, defiant red-jasper sentinel in the middle of the defence.
Hunt, St John and Yeats on the score sheet: the captain’s forceful header – his first at Anfield.
They shattered the pride of Belgium: 3-0.
And Bill knew that a red glow had been ignited at Anfield that night: one that burned fiercely for more than 20 years.
He knew the importance of getting people to sit up and take notice.
His symbolic move captured their supporters’ imagination and that of the onlooking press too.
Projecting a very clear sense of who or what you are, and why you’re doing it, is critical to success.
Connecting as much, if not more, on an emotional level than a rational one.
Through the re-evaluative symbol of a red kit, Bill projected a powerful identity, not just a superficial image.
A far cry from Cardiff City’s move from a blue shirt to a red one in order to appeal to an international audience.
Bill’s change was nothing to do with marketing trickery and everything to do with what was happening on the pitch.
But its marketing power is recognised and felt globally.
And Bill knew the real secret of his kit change wasn’t just the effect it would have on the opposition and the supporters.
He knew that great football sides – like great companies or brands – are built from the inside out.
Bill Shankly, the revolutionary leader who rallied a red uprising, knew only too well, that his players wouldn’t only look seven feet tall.
They’d feel it as well.
– DB
Create, make, sell. Sing.
Create, make, sell. Sing.
Berry Gordy Jr had been a professional boxer, US soldier and an unsuccessful record-shop owner.
But he found himself working in a Detroit car plant.
A monotonous job: not at all where the ambitious fledgling songwriter had pictured himself.
And during those tedious days in the Lincoln-Mercury plant, Gordy would watch the bare metal frames rolling down the line.
One after another, day after day.
As he worked, he wrote songs in his head.
A few of which he sold to Decca records.
Then he realised that the real money was in doing it for himself.
On 12 January 1959, fuelled by the encouragement of a young poet 10 years his junior one Smokey Robinson and an $800 loan from his family, Gordy set out on his own.
Turning the garage of his home on 2648 West Grand Boulevard into a recording studio.
The audacious 29-year-old affixed a sign proudly to the front of his house
'Hitsville USA'.
Launching a brand of music that combined the visceral roots of gospel and blues with pop sensibilities.
One that would appeal to mainstream pop lovers and discerning black-music lovers alike.
Arriving at the height of the civil rights movement in the early sixties, his African American-owned model of black capitalism, dropped black music into the heart of popular white culture.
Becoming an agent of social and cultural change.
Doing the same thing as Martin Luther King was doing on foot.
They knew they weren't just making music: they were making history.
Breaking down racial divides, uniting blacks and whites on previously divided dance floors.
Not just The Sound of Young America - the words proudly stamped on their record sleeves - but a worldwide phenomenon.
And they were prolific.
A 24-hour hit-making hothouse.
The songwriters would write: Smokey Robinson and the writing trio of HollandDozierHolland.
The talent would perform: Marvin Gaye, The Miracles, Martha and The Vandellas, Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, Diana Ross and The Supremes.
The in-house band would play usually the Funk Brothers, encouraged to lay down as many songs as possible in a session, because they were paid by the day.
All under one roof.
You'd turn up.
You'd do your stuff.
The songwriters would pick someone to sing their song: it might even be the person working behind the desk or a player from another band.
Just the right voice for just the right track.
Each track carefully considered prior to release, in 9am Quality Control meetings.
Songwriters and producers sometimes one and the same would pitch songs and cast votes.
If you were one minute late you wouldn't get in.
The competition was fierce, but so was the love.
Free from fear of repercussions.
Free to express themselves because of the atmosphere of safety in ideas.
The best songs won.
And were evaluated.
Chief engineer, Mike McClain, built a diminutive approximation of a tinny car radio.
Because as the people of this car manufacturing town knew only too well car after car rolled off the production line, each with a tinny-sounding radio.
And that it was on these radios that people would be listening to their music.
So they optimised their sound to suit.
Talent was managed and artists developed; trained to perform in only two places: Buckingham Palace and the White House.
Because if they could perform there, they could perform anywhere.
Records were pressed, sleeves designed, artwork printed and distribution managed.
All by the company.
Gordy, the inspirational leader, entrepreneur and talent developer, created a record label thats influenced everyone from The Beatles to hip-hop.
But his brilliance lay in where he got the inspiration for this hit-making hothouse.
He knew that looking beyond the familiar is often where innovation lies: taking an idea from one place and using it in another.
During those tedious days in the Lincoln-Mercury plant, Gordy would watch the bare metal frames rolling down the line.
One after another, day after day.
Coming off the end as brand spanking new cars.
So it struck him.
Why not an assembly line for music?
A place like a factory.
A place where a kid could walk in off the street unknown, and out the other door a star.
A place where talent would be honed and polished to the extent that theyd even be taught how to stand and sit.
A place like a factory, but more collaborative.
Avoiding the pitfalls of uniform consistency, but with the momentum of unrivalled continuity.
Taking an unrelenting manufacturing process, known as Fordism by many, but fusing it with genuine creativity and expression.
Producing songwriters as distinctive as the artists they produced.
Nurturing not just the creative talent, but engineers and corporate executives too.
Adept in the art of making things happen.
Putting the motor town of Detroit on the musical map for all time.
Motown: a portmanteau of motor and town.
And Berry Gordys philosophy
Make a good product, then make something similar and make it quick.
Sounds like its straight out of Silicon Valley.
As fresh today as it was more than fifty years ago.
Just like the music.
– DB
