Wonderfuel Issue Number 23 – The joy of making happy money
I’ve been thinking about Happy Money.
Not money that makes you happy.
Money made by happy people doing happy things.
Because I’m starting to think there’s a difference between making good money and making money that feels good.
You can build a successful business and be bloody miserable doing it. You can hit the targets, grow the numbers, win the work and still quietly wonder why none of it feels quite as good as you thought it would.
That’s not Happy Money.
Happy Money is earned doing work you enjoy, with people you like, for people you actually want to help. It’s money that hasn’t cost you more than it’s worth. Your energy. Your relationships. Your weekends. Your joy.
Of course businesses need to make money. I’m not suggesting we start accepting payment in hugs and good vibes. But perhaps profit shouldn’t only be measured by how much we make.
Perhaps it should also be measured by how we felt making it.Because the richest business isn’t necessarily the one making the most money.
It might just be the one making the most Happy Money.
// Quote of the fortnight //
// The founder diary //
Picture the scene.
I’m sitting in a presentation and the client has just said:
“That is one of the worst things I have ever seen.”
And they were talking about the work we had just presented. For obvious reasons, the client and the agency shall remain anonymous. I wanted the ground to swallow me up. Or somehow to be magically teleported out of that room.
We scraped up what was left of our pride and dignity and headed home. The car ride back to London from Cambridge was silent. Then I was on my own for the Tube ride across London and the train back to Surrey, which gave me plenty of time to reflect on what had just happened.
We’d taken our eye off what was actually needed and chased something our egos craved: visionary creative at a time when it was totally inappropriate.
We presented three concepts. But there was no this is what they’re expecting concept, this pushes things a bit further concept and then let’s do something radical concept.
They were all radical as hell.
And none of them showed the product the brand was actually all about.
The work was miles off. Deep down, I knew it before we presented it, but I’d allowed myself to be press-ganged into presenting something radical. I’d aired my worries early on, but as lead creative the buck stopped with me. I could have put a stop to it.
As creatives, I think we’re all guilty sometimes of chasing stardom. That one piece of work that will put the agency on the map.
But maybe that was exactly the problem.
We were too busy trying to put ourselves on the map instead of putting the client on it.
// The joyful brand – Graza //
Graza didn’t reinvent olive oil.
They reinvented using it.
For years, olive oil had a certain look. Dark glass bottles. Gold foil. Italian heritage. Rustic labels. Lots of serious language about provenance, pressing and peppery finishes.
Then Graza came along and put it in a squeezy bottle. A small change. But a joyful one.
Because suddenly using olive oil became easier, more playful and more expressive. You could drizzle it. Zig-zag it. Chuck it over a pizza. Draw a smiley face with it if the mood took you.
And then there are the illustrations. Bold, colourful, slightly bonkers characters and drawings appear across the packaging, website and brand world, giving Graza a personality that feels more like your funny foodie friend than a traditional olive oil company.
They didn’t just redesign the packaging. They redesigned the behaviour. And that’s what I love about Graza. They found an ordinary little moment we’d all stopped noticing and asked a much more interesting question:
How could this feel better?
That’s where some of the best brand ideas live. Not necessarily in reinventing what you sell, but in reimagining how people experience it.
Because joy doesn’t always come from adding something.
Sometimes it comes from removing the boring bit.
That’s the joy of Graza.
// From the archives – Podogo //
Podiatry made joyful.
A little one from the Atticus Creative archive, 2017.
Podogo was a podiatry brand built around a simple thought: people don’t really want to have to bother with podiatry. They want to get on with their lives and go, go, go.
To walk. Run. Move. Travel. Play. Live their life without thinking about their feet.
So rather than filling the identity with the usual clinical clichés, I found the idea in the thing podiatrists understand better than anyone: foot pressure.
The playful letterforms were created from the shapes found in pressure maps of footprints, giving us a visual language that could flex, flow and move across the brand.
Even the name had movement baked into it.
Pod. O. Go.
Because ultimately, this wasn’t a brand about feet.
It was about the freedom to get on with your life.
Proof that even podiatry can have a little spring in its step.
// Word of the fortnight – Methodolojoy™ //
Joy is too valuable to leave to chance.
So Methodolojoy™ is my approach to intentionally building more of it into a business: into the brand, the customer experience, the culture and all those little moments in between.
It’s about looking at what people experience and asking a deceptively simple question: How could this feel better?
Because when joy becomes part of the method, it stops being a happy accident and starts becoming a competitive advantage.
Joy, done on purpose.
// What happens when a bank chooses joy? //
Watch Nationwide's latest advert and you'll think it's about a £100 bonus. It isn't. It's about something bigger. It's about the future of business shifting right under our noses.
// Wonderfuel or wonderfool //
Wonderfuel is only as good as it’s readers and followers. So as the first anniversary of Wonderfuel fast approaches, I thought it only right to ask all you wonderfuelers out there for some honest feedback.
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