Cracking Under Pressure

It happens at AcMo a lot more than it should.  I encourage everyone to repeat our mantra:  “Forget, Recover, Resume”, but some choose to ignore that and panic instead.  Whatever works to keep the machine satisfied I suppose.  I tend to keep moving forward without knowing why.  I think it must be the shark DNA.  That doesn’t explain my irrational fear of their sharp angled teeth and cold dead eyes though.  Now I’m starting to make myself nervous thinking about sharks again.  Perhaps it is time to plan another shark hunting expedition.  I hear sharks are easier to snag during winter.

I saw a 30 second commercial for Tag Heuer's "Don't Crack Under Pressure" campaign a couple nights ago on TV.  This was another memo I missed since the full-length spot was posted on YouTube in August and has over 6 million views.  I also later discovered that there was a 17-minute documentary about Jack Heuer’s experiences within his family’s company.  I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet, but it was the butler in the kitchen with the candlestick.  Another memo I didn’t receive evidently covered not cracking under pressure.  No one bothered to explain to me that cracking under pressure is supposed to be the exception.  As a result, it happens to me all of the time.  Humpty Dumpty looks more solid than I do right now.  Maybe I need a TAG Heuer to help me steel my resolve?  Imagine the heights AcMo could achieve if its leader had the power of TAG Heuer behind him.  AcMo would be even more unstoppable than it already is.  I almost went out and made an impulse buy.  That is how ads use subliminal messages to trick you into buying things you don’t need or want.

The worst part about the commercial is that it made me more excited about watches I don’t want than any of the first few of the planned 13 of McLaren’s “Black Swan Moments” has made me for their upcoming Sports Series line of cars.  I just wasted several life hours browsing TAG Heuer’s watch collections.  I should bill them for my time because I didn’t get anything else accomplished after I was sucked into their site.  In what world does it make sense that a watch commercial is more exciting than news regarding an upcoming high performance car?  AcMo’s core focus is automotive based and we are unimpressed by time unless it involves laps on the track.  The worst part about this whole situation in my mind is that McLaren and TAG Heuer are partners and the former owner of TAG Heuer is an owner of McLaren.  He can’t be happy if he’s realized McLaren’s marketing campaigns lack excitement.  McLaren might have to go for a marketing revision if others feel the same as I do.  AcMo isn’t quite yet a market mover, but the last company that didn’t heed AcMo’s warnings disappeared without a trace.  You can’t even remember it.

The truth is that the entire McLaren factory in Woking is filled with legendary vehicles and even just one of the stories behind some of their successes should have been enough to create a great deal of excitement, but for some reason, the Black Swan Moments are falling flat for me.

It was brought to my attention during the pre-revenue phase of AcMo that it is not wise to give away information for free.  I have done my best to follow that mandate, and AcMo’s bottom line has benefited a great deal from it.  I must adhere to that principle now to refrain from giving McLaren the ad campaign they need.

The driver decision drama in the Formula 1 team was more exciting than this current ad campaign.  It was also quite vexing because multiple declared decision deadlines came and went without a decision.  This meant that McLaren had possibly kept a former world driver’s champion in limbo as to the fate of his career for months.  Who knows what was actually happening inside their HQ, but from my vantage point, it looked like chaos.  See, I know chaos real well, and I can always spot it from great distances.  Between chaos and its cousin, the cloud of doom, I’m well covered in adversity.  It makes for a shockingly stout armor that protects against sudden and prolonged downturns.

I am devoting at least six hours of every day to train myself to avoid cracking under pressure, and also to not buy a TAG Heuer watch I don’t need even if it can help me stay frosty when the pressure builds.  In fact, the only pressure I want to be involved with from now on is boost pressure from a pair of twin turbochargers.  That reminds me, we still have a twin turbocharged bird that we’re trying to coax into flying into space.  We should probably figure out if that is going to work.  Fred would make an excellent subject for TAG Heuer’s campaign if he can survive the experience.  That would be the ultimate expression of the theme.  No bird would have experienced more pressure than re-entry from space.  I better call their ad agency…