The brilliant series Breaking Bad hinged on a mid-life career pivot that engaged, horrified and entertained us. Well thought out, excellently written, supremely executed and phenomenally acted, the show asked us to suspend disbelief and entertain the idea that someone could radically transform themselves over the course of a few desperate decisions.
It happens in real life and in history, too! Wartime and catastrophe have put school teachers, postal clerks and fruit farmers at the head of movements and they became leaders and icons we study and revere.
Today, we’re asked to transform ourselves and transform our businesses not once a lifetime but once every few years. Technology is forcing all of us, at all levels of experience and expertise to examine what we’re doing, where we’re going and whether the current course is right for us, our families, our businesses. Hopefully, this does not occur under desperate circumstances.
Transformation is especially critical in the advertising domain where creativity and strategy require aptitude, intelligence, expertise and experience but also reinvention — and the confidence and muscle memory that comes with having reinvented oneself.
Tired taglines, re-versioned ideas, click fraud, fake news are all symptoms of a media and marketing industry caught in a cycle of sameness but with the ambition and potential to do amazing, original things.
Breaking Ad is the first step to fixing it!
