so I want to talk about the power of
negativity now that might not seem
obvious given how much has been written
and recorded about the power of
positivity if you take a stroll through
any bookshop particularly the self-help
section you’ll see that positivity can
help you achieve anything
get rich influence people even find
happiness and the power of negativity
might seem even more counterintuitive
given that I’m from the world of
advertising which is a world of happy
couple’s spotless kitchens and smiling
dogs sometimes all in one ad but the
problem is that we’ve oversaturated
advertising with positivity and it’s not
working anymore
more than half of all Australians can’t
remember a single ad they liked or even
when they don’t like and we’ve made a
massive logical error it’s as if we’ve
tried to make advertising more likeable
by cutting off all the edges but
ultimately we’ve made it at best
harmless but probably useless which is a
giant waste of creativity and a giant
waste of money and it’s best creativity
isn’t supposed to just entertain and
tell nice stories it’s supposed to make
an impact at my agency we say that we
want to make things that change things
but to do that we have to harness the
power of negativity and it’s true for
advertising but it’s also true in any
kind of relationship and even in
innovation some of the most
revolutionary innovations start with
something very negative for example
these pens so these pens are I’d say a
revolutionary idea in the world of
stationery they contain ink that’s made
from pollution
now that ink is called ARINC and it’s a
project that we worked on with our
clients Tiger Beer and the inventors of
the technology behind ARINC gravity labs
now originally we were just looking for
a way to celebrate creative
from the streets and we decided that
instead of making an ad about it we
should make something useful at all for
creativity
and we came across graffiti so ink from
pollution it’s made by fitting carbon
harvesting devices to chimneys and
exhaust pipes the carbons captured
before it enters the atmosphere and can
then be transformed and purified to make
safe usable ink we then package that up
and distributed it to street artists and
illustrators all over the world
there are lots of great things about
ARINC for a start it’s not just carbon
neutral it’s actually carbon negative
most traditional inks are made by
burning fossil fuels and this one while
you make it by using fossil fuels that
are being burnt anyway and capturing
those emissions secondly it can give an
otherwise unroadworthy vehicle an extra
lease of life it’s very expensive to
change out an entire fleet of trucks or
lorries if you fit them with carbon
harvesting devices you can significantly
reduce their emissions and thirdly it’s
pretty cost effective ink is one of the
most expensive liquids in the world to
make it’s not quite as expensive as
scorpion venom or LSD but it is more
expensive than human blood but what I
think is most interesting about ARINC is
that it takes something incredibly
negative something that’s stifling our
cities something that’s killing people
and transforms it into something
positive a tool for self-expression and
maybe a weapon for change so that’s what
got me thinking if we can take something
as negative as pollution and transform
it into something positive then maybe we
don’t need to spend quite so much time
hiding from all the negativity around us
and sweeping it under the rug because
ultimately that’s what we do we’ve
created a massive lie negativity isn’t
inherently good or bad it’s just part
and parcel of reality where there’s
light there’s shade but if you look at
the lengths we go to to filter out all
of the negativity it’s pretty impressive
who do you think the biggest
perpetrators of this lie are the world
of advertising maybe partly responsible
but ultimately we all are or certainly
anyone who’s on social media I know that
on social media I would never share a
bad hair day or a really sad desk supper
of chips and gummy bears when I’m stuck
late at the office
I’ll only share things like nicely
plated brunches and sunsets
it might seem innocent but there’s more
and more research coming out that shows
that when we have endlessly positive
feeds of golden moments from our family
and our friends it’s associated with
feelings of low self-worth anxiety and
even depression just a 1% increase in
likes and status updates has been
correlated with a five to eight percent
decrease in mental health and wellness
now that’s a pretty toxic fantasy world
but if we want to break out of it we’re
going to have to find a way of dealing
with the real-world negativity that
we’ve tried so hard to avoid so what can
we do well in maths and in linguistics
they say two negatives make a positive
so how about we fight fire with fire
let’s not just dare to see the
negativity around us for what it is
why don’t we dare to be negative now
being negative maybe comes naturally to
me because I’m half French and anyone
who’s been to France or maybe he’s been
served by a parisian waiter will know
that the French do negativity quite well
and I notice it at home when I speak
French a conversation with my
four-year-old in the morning my goes
something like come on darling it’s time
to put your shoes on and leave a CD
bitch – I’m at naughty norvo – now
you don’t need to speak French to
realize that all of the negativity I
took pains to remove from my English I
just put right back into the French it
just comes out like that and I couldn’t
understand why I do it’s almost like a
reflex so I asked around me and some
people said oh that’s just a cultural
thing the French are always unhappy and
miserable it’s the French paradox great
quality of life
unhappiness it may be true but other
people had an interesting explanation
which is that it’s a form of
intellectual snobbery for the French
bleak is chic its unsophisticated to be
overly positive and you will be looked
down on if you’re too cheery I think
that’s probably also true but there’s
something else about why the French love
saying no quite so much and I think it’s
because time and time again in French
history philosophy and politics saying
no has been a way to move things forward
it’s been a road for progress take for
example the iconic French rebel Joan of
Arc so she said no to her father who
wanted an arranged marriage she went on
to say no to army generals who didn’t
want a woman on the battlefield and she
went on to say no to English rule and
ultimately put an end to a hundred years
of war and changed the outcome of France
I wonder if she wasn’t also the first ad
woman because 400 years before an
English playwright ever said the pen is
mightier than the sword she is actually
quoted as saying I trust my banner forty
times better than my sword she knew the
power of words and images and then you
can take someone like the philosopher
Descartes Cartesian philosophy is
perhaps the backbone of the French
education system and guess what his
entire methodology is based on doubt
being critical saying no to things and
it’s true that you can teach someone a
positive skill and that might get them a
job but if you teach them to be critical
then you teach them to think for
themselves and that’s potentially far
more dangerous but far more powerful and
then of course there’s the French
Revolution so while the American
Revolution may have been about saying
yes to freedom to independence the
French Revolution was about saying no to
absolute monarchy and it led to the
downfall of absolute monarchies right
across Europe and not just the spread of
French citizen rights the spread of
universal human rights so time and time
again know has been a really powerful
way to move things forward and a
detonator for change and what about
today things may not be nearly as bad as
they were in for
17th or 18th century France but if we
constantly look on the bright side and
we only want to see the positive side of
things are we settling are we just
assuming that the status quo is okay
aren’t we also making a dangerous
assumption that whatever got us here to
a situation that’s pretty good we’ll
continue to make things better I think
we need to dare to be negative and dare
to say no if we want to make things
better or at least that’s what I tell
myself when I lose my temper in French
but what is true is that all of the
positivity washing is very recent eight
of the Ten Commandments were written as
negative statements and that made for
pretty sticky compelling communication
even in advertising only in the 1950s
the iconic work of Bill burnback used
the power of negativity to great effect
in this ad the car is called the lemon
and it’s all about the power of saying
no saying no to anything less than
perfect
is a testament to Volkswagens commitment
to quality and excellence they say no to
anything less than perfect coming off
the assembly line we pick out the lemons
so you get the plums now that’s work
from the 50s but I haven’t seen any
recent work for cars certainly that is
this brave and it may cut through in the
world of bland positivity but it also
does something far more important it
creates respect because it’s only when
we’ve dare to acknowledge the negativity
and the negative side of things that we
can actually create something honest and
credible even in the way we interact
with each other you can take the example
of job interviews
so the question the cliche that everyone
asks is or what are your imperfections
or sometimes we ask why shouldn’t we
hire you and how many times do you get
the answer I’m a bit of a perfectionist
or I’m overly focused those don’t sound
like real weaknesses again it may not
seem that important but those false
negatives ultimately undermine the
credibility of anything positive that
may have been said
before it’s only when we know how to
really own and acknowledge the true
negativity that we can build credibility
and respect and in life as in
advertising respect comes first
love can follow now it’s all you know
kind of well and good to talk about the
power of negativity and you know I may
be half French but there’s another half
of me that is very British and deeply
uncomfortable with the whole idea it’s
makes me cringe it’s incredibly
awkwardness inducing I mean the British
can’t even take a compliment without
apologizing so imagine what would happen
if you had to do just the opposite
positivity does make for more manageable
pleasant conversations and there are
times when we do need positivity but
Abraham Lincoln said that it was from
the tension and debate with his most
able rivals that came the strongest
resolutions so I was looking for a
French quote to end this and I looked
online there were twice as many about
saying no as there were about saying yes
and the most famous one Edith Piaf’s
Nora Nagato hyung actually manages a
quadruple negative I’m not sure how many
languages can actually do that so I’ll
just to end with this thought if you
want to survive by all means use the
power of positivity but if you want to
change things then we need to dare to
use negativity [Applause]