I’m sitting on a plane heading to the UK with Brendan my son for a huge Liverpool FC match versus Borussia Dortmund. How he managed to get tickets for such a match I have no idea but then again he has always managed to do things like this with his interesting network of friends and connections.
He is absolutely buzzing as he has just won another role directing a major advert for a huge international brand. After the Budweiser, Conor McGregor “Dream Big” advert this kind of work was going to come.
His enthusiasm is infectious and I listen to his plans, how he wants to shoot the advert, who he wants to cast in it and I watch him as he quickly and seamlessly sketches out the storyboard for the advert on his notebook.
He was chatting to me about the costume girl for the advert and he has opted for Sarah who was the costume girl in one of his fantastic music videos. The problem with Sarah is that she hasn’t done commercial work before but the great thing about Sarah is that she is raw, beautiful, authentic, pure and a gorgeous fresh face that Brendan knows will deliver something very special.
Adverts are big business and the process is expensive so you need people who know what they are doing so using an unknown, unproven person is a risk so the safe thing to do is to hire someone who has done it before.
He has told me she is already proving to be a star as she has gone away and researched the role so she can immerse herself in it and she has even unearthed material that will help the overall project.
Sometimes being safe is risky and if you want something special, something that will make a real difference then take a leap of faith and go with that unproven star who could just bring you some magic.
Part one – written on a flight from Cork to Liverpool, 14th April.
It was April 1996 and I was sitting in my office in Guinness in Dublin flicking through the newspaper.
In the classifieds I noticed a ticket and travel package for an evening midweek league match at Anfield, Liverpool versus Newcastle.
I am a die-hard Liverpool FC fan but I had never been to a game at Anfield. Liverpool were playing exciting football that year, in contention for the title but Newcastle were the really exciting team of the season that had taken the league by storm.
I thought long and hard about going but managed to find some reason not to and I ended up watching on TV what people still describe as the best match ever in the Premiership as Liverpool scored a last minute winner to win 4-3 in an incredible match that had everything.
I could have been there…
When Brendan, my son called me 20 years later to say he could get tickets for Liverpool versus Borussia Dortmund, the quarter final second leg UEFA Europa Cup match at Anfield I didn’t think too long and hard about it.
Of course I had things in my diary, of course I could think of 100 reasons why I couldn’t go but as Ferris Bueller famously said “Life moves pretty fast, if you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it”
I embraced this spirit and here I am sitting on a flight to Liverpool with Brendan. Hopefully the match this evening will be great, poised delicately after the away tie finished 1-1 against a really superb Borussia side.
Bring it on..
Part two – written in the Holiday Inn Express, in Liverpool while Mr Canty junior is working on his next TV commercial (he always gives out to me for working too hard!)
At 2-nil down at half time against a fantastic team “we” would have to score three without reply to win the match … This was a monumental task of Istanbul proportions and probably not possible.
It didn’t stop “us” fans (yep, we were in the middle of it, strangely sitting next to a few Borussia fans that had all the officials upset) belting out “You’ll Never Walk Alone” as the teams emerged for the second half.
The young and powerful Origi scores for us after 3 minutes and the place went berserk …maybe it was possible?
Liverpool piled on the pressure, the fans were urging them on with a wall of noise and then the sucker punch. Borussia score again – this team are just too good for us and the balloon of hope was burst.
The fans recovered and started singing again and my mind drifted back to that famous 4-3 match that I stupidly missed.
Never.. ?
Coutinho scores, 3-2 … The place erupts and now I am witnessing that special Anfield Magic. It’s the team and the fans together in a frenzy, the noise is crazy and there is belief everywhere.
Sahko scores, 3-3 … The place just goes ballistic and the frenzy has been whipped into the stratosphere and there is a tangible electricity flowing from the team to the crowd, from the crowd to the team, a powerful invisible nut tangible force.
Dortmund manage to contain this pressure and the game gets a little stop start as the clock nudges painfully to 90 minutes…4 minutes of extra time.
A strange thing happens..the crowd start to belt out “You’ll Never Walk Alone” again… everyone joins in. This is really odd as the Liverpool faithful only really sing this at the end of a match when they know the game has been won.
Free kick, Milner to Sturridge, Milner keeps running into the box and takes a return ball from Sturridge. We all gave out about Milner’s corners during the game but this time he delivers a perfect cross into the box for Dejan Lovren (who had an awful start to his LFC career the previous year) who rises above everyone and powers a header into the net.
(Admission – At the time I had no idea who scored it happened so quickly!)
Oh my god…. I have never witnessed anything like it. I was hugging Brendan, the guy next to me, the people in front of me. Everyone played this match together, singing, urging, believing… When the players lost hope we were there, when we lost hope, they were there.
Now we were there together – Jurgen Klopp walked past us, saluting the crowd and punching his chest, his heart. We got it.
If you haven’t seen it yet you just have to click here to see the incredible celebrations at the end of the match and click here for some crazy fan celebrations!
4-3 ….best night ever?
Ferris was right, we need to grab those opportunities when they come along
Our state broadcaster, RTE has just banned the Budweiser commercial featuring UFC fighter and Irish hero Conor McGregor.
The banning has already led to newspaper articles, much discussion and a huge curiosity and will inevitably have everyone googling just to see what this “offensive” advert was all about. I suspect they will be left scratching their heads wondering what the fuss was all about.
In many ways this could be deemed as a huge success for the brand because it will now achieve a level of visibility and notoriety that it previously didn’t have, without having to pay the advertising costs.
While it sends out a big message from RTE you would like to think that this is a good, sensible one because we do want there to be watchdogs to protect us from danger. It is important that ‘banning’ makes sense, that it is rational and that it is fair.
The advertising guidelines around alcohol are very strict in Ireland and all of these were followed carefully.
In the advert there isn’t a picture of a bottle of beer, there isn’t a pub in sight. There is just Conor tastefully captured in a scene walking around his home town, Crumlin in Dublin, which then transforms into a street in LA.
This 27 year old apprentice plumber has achieved huge success by dedication to his sport and the advert demonstrates this with the help of these scenes and the voice over by Conor:
Never give up on your dream
Be your own inspiration, a beacon of self belief
Keep proving others wrong
If your dream doesn’t scare you, then its not big enough
So dream, as big as you dare
Only at the very end of the advert do we see the Budweiser logo and the usual drink responsibly message at the bottom of the screen.
For me the message from the advert is a very inspirational one, delivering a powerful positive message. Yes, it does come from a beer brand, which I think is more than ok. It shows you how the guidelines are keeping alcohol brands in a very responsible place and forcing a communication about positive values.
The message coming from RTE in banning this advert?
According to the newspapers they issued a statement to the Sunday Business Post that the advert breached advertising guidelines because Conor McGregor is considered a “hero to the young“, which will in turn encourage them to drink alcohol.
I don’t get it..
In my view banning the advert will achieve the wrong thing (besides totally confusing an industry that is trying to be very responsible) – viewers will definitely seek out the inspirational advert and could instead conclude that we are living in a censorship state that in some way has an issue with people from working class backgrounds having and achieving their dreams.
Banning the advert is also bad for the RTE brand as in my view it shows them as being ultra conservative and this is not good when they are up against such stiff competition. Leaving the censorship to the advertising authorities might be a much better policy.
It’s a great thing that we are seeing extra vigilance about alcohol advertising but we need to make sure that the brands that are working really hard to get it right aren’t punished.
“If your dream doesn’t scare you then it isn’t big enough. Dream as big as you dare”
These are the words that were challenging me and the strange thing is that I heard them uttered by Conor McGregor in an advert that my son, Brendan Canty directed for Budweiser.
I then hear both Conor (the apprentice plumber from Crumlin) and Brendan (the boy from Ballincollig!), two 27 year old’s from different parts of our fine country and from different backgrounds talking about “following your dream” in a behind the scenes video about the advert.
Brendan talks about throwing everything at your dream and Conor talks about following your passion.
From the outside it probably looks easy and then I think about Malcolm Gladwell and his theory about 10,000 hours in his book Outliers and I think about what I know about these two young men.
Brendan didn’t get the grade he hoped for in CIT because his lecturer had some issue with his short film “The Kid“. Take one look at thetrailer or even the full feature and make up your own mind (Brendan will kill me for drawing attention to this – this work by a student is incredible!).
He regularly pitches for videos and adverts that he doesn’t win – some of these treatments have some of his best work in them but they will never grace our screens.
He takes the kicks in the backside and drives on. Following your dream means driving on even when things happen that might leave you feeling on the floor.
Conor with all of his talent and brashness has followed his dream. I haven’t followed his story well enough to talk about his knocks but I am sure there have been many and I have no doubt that 10,000 hours of sweat, toil and disappointments are all in his ‘experience bank‘ that has him where he is today.
Okay, he took a kick in the backside in his last fight against Nate Diaz but he spoke about “celebrating defeat” ..we have to if we want to succeed!
With all this talk of dreaming I was inclined to look at my own life and what I was doing at 27 years of age and what I have done since.
The dream of a thirteen year old was to work in the music business. I flirted with managing bands for about two years, which was fun for a while and then the bands I was working with broke up!
I always wanted to start my own business and I got that chance when I started a fast food restaurant with another guy. It wasn’t my industry of choice but this ‘golden opportunity‘ to start something and make some money seemed like a good idea.
It wasn’t my dream so I talked him into opening music stores. We didn’t know the first thing about this industry but it didn’t stop us opening one in Cork, one in Limerick and one in Galway in the space of 12 months. During that time we also opened a second fast food restaurant in Cork.
We were business trailblazers but we were crazy – this rate of growth was reckless and if anything went wrong we were in huge financial trouble. Some of these ventures worked out and some of them were miserable failures.
All of this was when I was incredibly still holding down a full time job – I was working around clocks that I didn’t even have!
I was then asked if I would become the General Manager of Deasy’s, the Guinness owned subsidiary that I was the Financial Controller of. I was staggered to be asked to take on such a role and this was another dream fulfilled! After doing this for two years I was asked to join Guinness in Dublin ..wow..working in a relatively senior role for a huge international company – another dream. I was 29!
I took a job as General Manager of a subsidiary of Heineken a few years later – I quickly realised that repeating myself wasn’t part of the dream and I needed to change.
In 2001 I had a dream about creating a high end fashion and beauty event and taking it on tour around Ireland with the top Irish models. Myself and Dee created ‘Catwalks’ which was the talk of the female luxury sector in Ireland for a number of years.
Dee emigrated from Kerry to Cork and we opened a Fuzion office on the South Mall in Cork (before thatwe worked from home for a few years – thank you to Alison, Doreen and Barry who were happy to have enough faith in us to do that).
Soon after that we became the only agency in Ireland to have an office in both Cork and Dublin as we opened one in our capital city.
This year I was elected to the Dublin Chamber of Commerce council by the members – this sounds like a very trivial thing but it is a big deal as members from smaller firms find it impossible to get elected. This makes me very proud as it is a small tangible sign that we are succeeding in Dublin and achieving some recognition for the work we are doing there.
When I heard the words “If your dream doesn’t scare you then it’s not big enough” I had to admit to myself that I feared I had stopped dreaming big and maybe that I had stopped dreaming at all. After writing this piece I know this isn’t quite true.
This 51 year old hasn’t stopped dreaming but yes …I admit, my dreams don’t scare me.
Maybe it’s time to be scared again and not leave that to the 27 year olds!
I was chatting to one of my kids buddies who was running their own business for the first time and they asked me a very genuine question.
“With all that I have learnt along the way, what advice could I give them?”
This was a really good question to ask because just like any other ‘older‘ (a very loose definition!) person I have accumulated a collection of valuable life experiences and learnings from my many different situations, which you would hope could benefit someone younger and with less experience.
I heard a series of interviews on the radio over the past few days with a similar theme: “What advice would you give your younger self?”
This is a clever thing to ask because it is all about passing on wisdom that has been learnt along the way and trying to crystallise this into solid pieces of advice.
The only problem with all of this is that it is a little bit too retrospective and doesn’t do a whole pile for us!
Ok, we did learn things that might help those with less experience and we can give theoretical advice to our younger selves. Brilliant!
Instead how about asking that younger person with all of their freshness, different perspective, raw energy and enthusiasm to give us valuable advice about our lives and then apply our accumulated wisdom and knowledge and then do a totally different exercise…
Answer this question:
What advice would you give your older self?
Write down the answers and start following that advice straight away …what are you waiting for?!!
I’m writing this a little bit depressed after a very disappointing defeat away to struggling Newcastle but in general we have seen a transformation of Liverpool FC in the last two months since Jurgen Klopp, the manager has arrived.
The players have been transformed, the same squad that we thought were lousy purchases are now looking like great players and we have had a few very impressive results of late (except for Newcastle!) and it does seem to be wholly down to the charismatic manager (the self declared Normal One) who has previously enjoyed huge success in Germany with Borussia Dortmund.
Pretty much every Liverpool fan believes that success is around the next corner, which was certainly not the case before he joined the club.
How can a manager make such a difference and can the lessons we learn from him be applied to our own businesses?
What does Jurgen do that is so special?
1.”Belief”
The first thing he did when he joined the club was he made a declaration to the fans “We need to change from doubters to believers”
He gave every fan and player something to think about – we must believe if we want to achieve, which is a simple and yet powerful statement.
He went on to say that he believed in the team at the club, which was why he joined in the first place – if you were a player listening to these words you would feel good about yourself.
Do you believe in your team?
2.Honesty, openness and no jargon
When he is asked a question by the media he gives a straight, honest and open answer. He talks in a simple way that we all understand and can relate to.
He tells us that football is a simple game ..he is right!
Can you be open and honest with your team?
3.Don’t be afraid to hug!
We watch him going onto the pitch after the matches and playfully hugging the players. This seems to be a lot more than professionals doing their jobs!
Are people happier when they are treated like this?
4.Have fun
Jurgen loves to laugh, he has a huge smile and he seems to do it all of the time and it is infectious. At the press conferences the media laugh with him.
He tells the players to enjoy themselves on the pitch.
Can work be fun?
5.Don’t take it too seriously
Unlike Bill Shankly the legendary Liverpool manager who said football was “more important than life or death” Jurgen says it is just a game and that it should be enjoyed and not taken too seriously – you can see he lives this.
Are your team so stressed that they can’t function properly?
6.Work Hard
This is a key success factor with him. All of his teams are known for their ferocious work ethic – without hard work you won’t win.
This is totally non-negotiable with him.
Are your team prepared and motivated enough to give you 110%?
7.Have a plan
Already he has managed a few historic victories against some of the big teams and he puts this down to hard work combined with good planning. In one of these matches he fielded a surprising team who played exceptionally and won – he explained after that he had time to plan and prepare with this group of players so there was no point using some of the bigger stars.
Are you planning carefully?
8,Things go wrong – that’s football!
He commented that with the Liverpool team he noticed that they would implode if they conceded in a match and as a result could not recover from this situation.
He has taught the team to accept that things will go wrong and that this is part and parcel of competing – just learn not to give up when it happens!
Do your team have resolve?
9.Mr Motivator
He does seem to have the gift of bringing the best out of each and every single player. He seems to know when a hug works, when a few positive mentions in press conferences will work and when helpful advice from the sideline works (he does scream and roar during the matches).
We clearly don’t see everything that goes on but the players have gone on record as to the huge difference he has made to them.
Do you feel motivating your team is important?
10.Passion
Take just one look at him when he celebrates a goal or even when he lives every kick and moment of the matches…he is incredibly passionate!
If you aren’t passionate can you expect your team to be?
I was sitting on a plane coming back from London on the late flight and I noticed someone a few seats ahead of me on the opposite side flicking through the newspaper. I hadn’t tuned into the news that day so I was trying to soak up the headlines as best I could to get some hint as to what was going on.
Headlines are quite dangerous because often they are designed to catch your attention and the actual content may not fully reflect the ‘story’ that is portrayed. You only discover this when you actually read the article but often we never get that opportunity as when we are busy we flick the pages of the newspaper and very quickly we start to consume the ‘headlines‘ as the actual stories.
This headline had the words ‘Housing Crisis‘ in it and as it would imply there must be a housing crisis. I have read these words in so much coverage lately that it would be correct in assuming that we have a big ‘housing crisis‘ on our hands.
If you Google the words ‘housing crisis‘ you will get a mountain of listings with many published in the last few days.
When we read the articles you will hear about the lack of supply, small numbers of houses being built, negative equity, repossessions, rising rents, tighter controls over bank lending, NAMA and developers sitting on land banks and a looming homelessness crisis.
For the most part it is all negative rhetoric and that word ‘crisis’ is bring used over and over, so much so that we should all get depressed.
In any other industry if you were to describe this exact set of circumstances we would be using the words ‘opportunity‘ instead:
There is high demand for the products and lack of supply
The demographics indicate that this demand will sustain itself into the future
Prices are rising due to demand but there are also low interest rates and an improving economy
Employment levels and income are rising
Fulfilling this demand (10,000 units per annum extra) will create 25,000 extra jobs
More jobs means more ability to pay, creating even more demand
Demand will generate income for the government
Demand will stimulate growth in supporting industries
Why aren’t we using the word opportunity and looking at the upside and the huge positives?
If this was any other sector, businesses would be seizing the opportunities and they would be supported by the banks. If we could create 25,000 new jobs there would be all sorts of supports and incentives on offer by the government.
And what about all of the ancillary products and services? – the carpets, curtains, tiling, fittings, furniture and electrical sales which would come after all of the professional services. That would be a huge amount of economic activity.
When it comes to property we are suspicious, we are fearful it will ‘overcook‘ the economy once again and we feel that any incentives given to consumers will be abused by the developers. It’s an industry that we distrust and the word ‘greed‘ seems to automatically apply because of the excess of the Celtic Tiger, which is still fresh in all our minds.
Despite this negativity around the industry I am very puzzled that no one is writing about these obvious positives so I have a peep at the Construction Industry Federation website to see what they are saying.
This week it was fantastic to see the doors open of a new fish restaurant, Quinlan’s in Princes Street in Cork – things are definitely improving and people having the confidence to open new places is proof of this.
Something even more fantastic was the little sandwich board that I spotted outside Nash 19, one of Quinlan’s neighbours.
Instead of listing the specials for the day “Welcome to our new neighbours” it read, which was a very generous gesture from another restaurant, who effectively would be a competitor of sorts of the newcomer.
As usual I like to tweet when I see a new business opening and very cleverly Quinlan’s responded to my tweet by inviting me and the Fuzion gang in for our #FuzionFriday lunch, which is our team tradition, one that we have kept going for 15 years.
We duly accepted the invitation and enjoyed a really great ‘fish and chips‘ lunch (and some vino!) at Quinlan’s and when we were there we had a great chat with their owner, Liam Quinlan, a Kerryman from Cahirciveen.
The first thing he mentioned was the fantastic support and welcome he had received from his new neighbours, many of which would be competitors. He spoke about the Nash 19 sandwich board, he mentioned Ernest Cantillon from Electric, Salvatore and his mum from Rossini’s and some of the traders from the English Market who all popped in to wish him the best.
I was absolutely thrilled and proud to hear about the genuine warm Cork welcome that some of the business people in our fantastic city have given to Liam and his team – well done to everyone involved.
We live in a competitive world and one where we have to focus all our energy on our own business. It is too easy to forget about good manners and making a little effort to be nice and offering a genuine welcome to another business person trying to make something positive happen.
The really great thing about giving a warm welcome is that it speaks volumes for those who offer it – being a great neighbour is actually great for business.
These two guys came into us, full of confidence about their new project.
They were introducing a new range of ready made meals to the Irish market, which they reckoned were going to be a huge success.
The market in Ireland was huge and growing and according to them poorly serviced with inferior products. They were going to bring restaurant quality meals with recipes designed by a high profile chef using the best of Irish ingredients.
These meals were going to be well packaged and would be ‘on shelf‘ at competitive products – this was their recipe for success!
By their reckoning they would conservatively capture a share of the market and even with moderate success they would make a fortune, it was guaranteed.
They had the listings with some of the multiples and our job was to launch the new range of products. They also had a good budget for the promotional campaign – success guaranteed?
I had a few nagging doubts ..
These guys had no history in food or experience in the industry. They had no passion for food – I tried and I tried to find it. I couldn’t see a genuine love for Irish ingredients and great food – this was just a way of making money and they reckoned they had all the necessary ingredients for success.
The high profile chef was equally unimpressive – I started to get the feeling that his ‘name was on the box‘ and that was about the extent of his passion for the project.
Of course he did the interviews and said all the right things but I just didn’t feel the passion for the project.
The launch date arrived, there seemed to be trouble with distribution, the products didn’t look well in the packaging and there was nothing special about the taste. It certainly wasn’t the superior restaurant quality ready-made meals that we were promised.
In no time at all the partners were fighting and the chef pulled back from the project. Effectively before the whole project got going they shut it down and many people including ourselves went without payment.
If there was genuine passion you would taste it in the end product, you would work hard to overcome any problems and you would dig deep and do everything to keep your dream alive.
Without passion you just give up ….that’s easier!
Passion is the single must important ingredient in your meal, your restaurant, your products, your service and your organisation.
Greg Canty Fuzion Blog 