Saturday mornings have long started with Terry O’Reillys “Under the Influence” program, usually streamed on WBEZ and often during a dog walk or bike ride.
This Saturday was no different and I enjoyed the episode “The Allure of the Bad-Ass: Advertising Anti-Heroes” while stretching my and the dog’s legs through the neighborhood.
The episode shared how some brands go the unconventional route much like the anti-hero and challenge the norms in advertising. Tony Soprano, Walter White, Nurse Jackie — “they do things we are afraid to do and do it unapologetically” — reflected in the Hans Brinker Hotel, Paddy Power, and Liquid Death brand ads.
While listening, I recalled other anti-heroes from shows I enjoyed and Tommy Shelby was certainly someone who did things unapologetically.
After the episode, I switched over to the BBC Sounds app to check what was streaming on Radio 4 Extra and joined “Churchill’s Passions” essay where Andrew Roberts was reading a list of members of one of Churchill’s clubs. The list included the name Oswald Mosely, which rang familiar but how I knew I could not place immediately. A quick search and — Ah! — he was not a fictional Pinky Blinders’ character but an actual disgraced British politician!
I had thought the Mosely character was created to move a plot line that picked up not only on the historical era of the show but current rumblings as well.
Being short on British history, it took a connection between two radio programs to create a pleasant “aha!” moment and enlighten me about some interesting history and that sometimes history provides the best characters to fill fictional stories.
And, sometimes, embracing a brand’s reality is better than crafting a fiction around what it isn’t rather than unapologetically accepting what it is.