Friday, January 3, 2014

Mayor Bloomberg and advertising.

New York inaugurated a new mayor on Wednesday, its first new mayor in a dozen years.

The out-going mayor was the bland, technocratic billionaire, Michael Bloomberg. After 12 years a lot of people turned on Bloomberg and were happy to see him go. But personally, and this is no slight to the new mayor, Bill Di Blasio, I think we're going to miss him.

What Bloomberg did well is the kind of thing we ignore in agencies today. He got the little things done.

Crime dropped precipitously.

Streets were cleaner.

Trains ran more often and they, too, were cleaner.

Trees were planted, bike lanes built, and some new parks opened.

None of these things were bold innovations. None of these things were giant headlines. But over his three terms, things were steady.

I think people got bored with Bloomberg's steadiness.

They forget that the opposite of steadiness is often lurching unpredictability.

I think most brands and most cities would be best served  by Bloomberg's style. Day in and day out you know what they're about.

Rather than being something new every couple of weeks.

I'm not advocating boredom, not for a second.

But getting the basics done, doing things right and predictably makes sense to me.

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