Reputation, Innovation and Pro Wrestling

This week friends, I gots quotes.

"It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently." - Warren Buffett

Now, Warren, I understand the sentiment, and I appreciate it. However, this mindset might make us all fearful, risk-averse, and resistant to change, especially considering your substantial wealth and success.

Keeping that in mind, let's shift gears and talk about professional wrestling.

Stick with me; it'll all come together in the end.

The only intellectual (besides myself at the moment) known for reflecting on professional wrestling is Roland Barthes. So, let me introduce a new perspective.

Imagine if you had no reputation to uphold—would you still be risk-averse? What if you firmly believed that storytelling reigns supreme, and you could seamlessly transition between the roles of hero and villain whenever inspiration strikes? Consider a world where reputation is fluid, constantly evolving—a living, breathing entity always open to interpretation. You possess the power to shape the story according to your vision, with outcomes within your grasp, if not predetermined.

What about a profound understanding that time is fleeting, memories fade, and opinions shift. Why then fear failure or resist experimentation in plain sight? In a digital age, where information may be archived indefinitely but rarely seen, being prolific beats perfection every time. Why not just do the thing and deal with the consequences that may never come? That must have been the first pass at Nike before they tightened it up.

As a young person, I can't quite pinpoint how professional wrestling first entered my life. Perhaps it was through home videos—borrowed, bought, or maybe even pilfered. However, I have a vivid memory of watching WrestleMania VI and being captivated by the storytelling, the theatrics, and the colorful characters like Hulk Hogan, The Ultimate Warrior, and The Million Dollar Man. 80s children breathe in the nostalgia of chunky VHS double boxes and fast forward and rewind.

I've always had a passion for sports (though some might debate whether wrestling fits that category) and storytelling. The drama that unfolds in real life as top-class athletes achieve incredible feats, as underdogs triumph—this has always intrigued me. American sports, in particular, are adept at engineering their rulebooks to create memorable moments, like the thrilling comeback victories with just seconds remaining on the clock. Wrestling fulfills these needs for us. As Barthes aptly puts it:

"In wrestling, nothing exists unless it exists totally, there is no symbol, no allusion, everything is given exhaustively; leaving nothing in shadow, the gesture severs every parasitical meaning and ceremonially presents the public with a pure and full signification, three dimensional, like Nature.

Such emphasis is nothing but the popular and ancestral image of the perfect intelligibility of reality. What is enacted by wrestling, then, is an ideal intelligence of things, a euphoria of humanity, raised for a while out of the constitutive ambiguity of everyday situations and installed in a panoramic vision of a univocal Nature, in which signs finally correspond to causes without obstacle, without evasion, and without contradiction." - Roland Barthes, Mythologies

What he means is wrestling presents things in a very straightforward and clear way. In wrestling, everything is shown completely and directly without any hidden meanings or symbols. Wrestling creates a perfect understanding of reality for the audience. It simplifies things and makes them easy to understand, giving people a sense of euphoria or happiness. It takes away the confusion of everyday life and replaces it with a clear view where everything makes sense and matches up perfectly.

It epitomizes effective communication.

However, what professional wrestling has truly achieved is consistently staying ahead of the curve, enjoying unparalleled success—perhaps because its participants are essentially a group of carnival entertainers with no need to safeguard their reputations. Ah, now you see where I’m going.

Wrestling constantly, truly, reinvents itself, a notion that's quite astounding. It demonstrates a readiness to innovate, take calculated risks, and remain relevant before neccessary. It's as if each day is approached as the first day on the job, with everything open to reimagination.

There's much to be gleaned from this mindset, in my view.

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." - George Bernard Shaw

Wrestling has undergone a remarkable evolution, transitioning from primarily a live experience to cable TV, then to pay-per-view (PPV). Despite the success of this model, they took a bold step by launching their own network and going directly to consumers, recognizing the shifting landscape ahead of others and taking decisive action. Now, with a groundbreaking Netflix deal in the works, one of the longest-running TV shows will soon be available on a streaming service, marking a significant shift after over 30 years and 1600 episodes on traditional television.

Wrestling became one of the first co-ed "sports" to feature women prominently, topping the bill over the men at its biggest shows. When the COVID-19 pandemic brought the world to a standstill, wrestling responded innovatively by creating the Thunderdome studio, where nearly 1,000 fans could participate virtually through LED boards. Launched in August 2020, the Thunderdome provided a way to attend events virtually, utilizing a videoconferencing crowd system. Attendees signed up in advance, logged in at their allocated time, and appeared on screens at the event in real time.

While there's no need to list every innovation, it's clear that wrestling consistently pushes boundaries and embraces change, showcasing the power of daring and unconventional thinking.

Here's the rallying cry: Creative agencies, stop pretending you're different from each other. Each morning, as you start your day, ask yourself, "Is what we're doing suitable for the current climate and the world today?" If not, then change it.

When COVID struck, it disrupted corporate video production, but simultaneously injected life into our process. We were compelled to confront challenges far beyond our usual scope, shifting our focus from simply imagining the final product to questioning if we could even make it.

Reimagining what corporate video is, innovating in this space, is less about replicating accepted styles that have come before and more about catching up with technological advancement and applying it. Take a cue from a business now considered sports technology and innovate as soon as something feels stale. For all of you reading, take note: we’re here. AI is the catalyst, buckle up.

Perhaps Warren Buffett isn't as outdated in his thinking as I led you to believe. It takes years to build a reputation, but mere moments to lose it - if you fail to adapt.

"I'm not interested in stories about the past or any nonsense of that sort because the woods are burning, you understand? There's a massive blaze raging all around." - Arthur Miller

As you were,

MrMcK