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Leadership 101
Napoleon, the source of the first leadership lesson. Image courtesy of Boston Public Library. I was recently asked to talk about leadership. Now, those that know me might think this is a faintly...
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Welcome to the age of micro-planning
Downstream – where planning is heading. Image courtesy of SunnyUK I had the absolute privilege of judging the Account Planning Group Creative Strategy awards recently. I love the APG Awards, they...
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How to run an agency
Tango, undoubtedly Jon Leach’s most famous planning hit, or was that the 4th Emergency service? I don’t often get to APG talks, to my eternal shame. However, yesterday I made a point of trucking up to...
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Trends are trendy, insights get shit done
My new rubber stamp. If there is enough interest I might get some more made. I gave a talk at Haymarket’s Trends Plus conference this week. I’m sure it was a wonderful shindig – the speakers I saw...
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‘Tis the season to obsess about trends.
Image courtesy of SonOfJordan. For those of you frustrated by the lack of sense my trends presentation makes when you only have the charts, here is the story. I wrote it as a column for Brand...
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What’s your problem?
All great marketing solutions start with a well and accurately defined problem and a correct diagnosis of the course of action that needs to be followed. So I thought I’d talk a little about this to...
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The future of planning
A short while ago I figured out how to record the voice over to Slideshare presentations. This a good thing as my slides never make the slightest bit of sense without the narrative that goes with...
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What planners need
Image courtesy of Identity in Newcastle. We have finished the Summer Scholarship for 2012 at Saatchi & Saatchi. It’s a programme where we take ten or so young people into the agency for the summer...
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No more heroes any more
The original Forward thinking motherfucker. I gave a little talk at an APG (Account Planning Group) event recently. It’s a regular series of talks called Noisy Thinking and I shared the bill with...
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A decade of Moleskines
The passage in Songlines in which Bruce Chatwin names the Moleskine. Image courtesy of Songlines. The biggest cliché in advertising is not lunching at the Ivy, drinking chilled rose on the Carlton...
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A ready reckoner for good planners
When people ask me what I am looking for in a planner the list of important attributes has traditionally been exhaustive. So in an attempt to simplify things and shorten interviews I have recently...
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You had to be there
My style of presentation is rather frustrating. Not only is there a lot of dancing around, swearing and nonsense at the time. But the slides never make any sense – they are designed for talking to not...
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Give brands what they deserve not what they want
In 1964 the new headquarters of the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) opened its doors, the fifth building the venerable organisation had inhabited since its foundation in 1518. Not only was the...
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In defence of war
The first recorded use of the acronym OMG doesn’t appear in a text from an over enthusiastic adolescent but in a letter from a crusty old sea lord to a future Prime Minister. In 1917 Winston...
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Should CSOs become CEOs?
In the 1990s Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse performed an appallingly misogynist sketch series called ‘women know your limits’ in which mock mid-century public information films advised women not to...
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Maths and magic – the secret of Bletchley
Colossus was the World’s first electronic digital computer. Built from Post Office spare parts, it was operational from February 1944 at Bletchley Park, the British Government’s code breaking...
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How we slowed down the connection between consumers and creatives
Nothing, I repeat nothing connects a planner and therefore an agency to the people that its is trying to understand better than qualitative research. Instinct is always a great starting point and data...
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Interesting versus right – revisited
If there is one defining philosophy of my approach to planning and strategic development it is the mantra that it is vital to be interesting but merely important to be right. This is based on the...
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A new picture of affluence
The well off and wealthy may not take up much bandwidth as you dash out another digital banner on two-for-one sun cream but the plain fact is that they are a critical audience for brands looking to...
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Positioning is over rated
“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel” Maya Angelou In many ways the primary role of the planner is to create...
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