Welcome back to the Hugoversity library, where we delve into PR and marketing books to learn the latest lessons, top tips and tricks to share with you, our readers.
This month, Prefect Sophie has been learning about how we can take advantage of fate and fortune in Andy Nairn’s Go Luck Yourself.
What’s it all about?
Ask any business leader about their journey and they’ll tell you it was down to hard work, innovation and drive – and, for the most part, they’re right. But one small (and often very significant) element they choose to omit is a four letter word that’s often seen as taboo when describing how the best became the best – luck.
In the aptly-named Go Luck Yourself, Andy Nairn talks of how we can make our own, and how it’s this luck that may often increase our sales, attract the best talent and, potentially, have our big break.
Lucky charms, lucky eggs and lucky pencils – all of these elements and more are given their own chapters throughout the book as Nairn outlines 40 ways in which we can stack the odds in our brands’ favour. Each one ends with a quickfire segment on what convention would usually dictate, what luck says, and how we should then use it to our advantage.
What did we learn?
That having luck, fate, good fortune, or whatever you’d like to name it on your side certainly isn’t a bad thing in the business world – in fact, it could be what makes or breaks your brand.
One of my favourite examples from the book is in the chapter ‘lucky rabbit’, which tells the story of Walt Disney losing one of his (at the time) best-selling creations, Oswald the Rabbit, while working for Universal Pictures. He could have been despondent, dejected and simply give up on his journey home, but instead, he took that misfortune and dreamed what would later become the most recognisable cartoon in the world, Mickey Mouse.
While losing a great idea can be painful at the time, luck means that we may just come up with an even better one; so, ask yourself what you would do differently if you did have to start all over again.
One thing that’s important to note is that a lot of the elements which are noted as ‘luck’ in this book also require a good dose of the hard work, skill and determination we mentioned earlier.
Take the chapter on ‘lucky legacy’ for example; the lesson to be learned from this section is that while convention might say that we shouldn’t look backwards, luck would argue that “your brand’s history can be a treasure trove of ideas” – a valuable message, and one I certainly agree with, but it’s not to discredit the knowledge of the team that worked on the campaign referenced here.
In short, Nairn and his creative partners looked back through the archives when working on a campaign for Hovis and came up good with a campaign from decades gone that could be rescued, adapted and improved. Luck meant that they were successful when diving into Hovis’ advertising relics – which could have angered the ‘big bosses’ looking over them – but talent and creativity meant they were able to take that lucky find and turn it into an award-winning campaign.
What did we think?
Overall, this is a great read for everyone from aspiring start-up owners to fully established business leaders, and a great reminder that with a little bit of luck on our side, we may be able to take our skills even further.
If you want to find out more about how we can help you build on your own lucky fortunes, or help you identify it, email us on study@hugoversity.com or call 01325 486666.
