What makes a news story different from a brand idea and how do you earn attention from journalists?

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We get it. Budgets aren’t getting bigger. Every agency needs to reach more people with less media budget. On top of that, leadership keeps talking about wanting to “impact culture.” No wonder every team in the cross-agency working group is working up earned ideas for the back of the deck.

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This ‘how to’ will dig into what makes a news story different from a brand idea, and how you can actually earn branded attention from journalists.

This is a post Tom Roach wrote after our final judging for the 2023 APG Creative Strategy Awards. It's fascinating to see the diversity of the papers that were shortlisted.

The APG Arrive and Thrive is about bringing people together and helping them navigate a mysterious and sometimes alien world.

At a live event in London last week, we asked 5 very senior strategists, who have important roles in the industry, what advice they would give young people trying to find a way in.

As the Chair of Judges for the APG Creative Strategy Awards 2025, I am thrilled to announce that this year we want to welcome entries from as far and wide as possible - to broaden out the awards so they truly represent and celebrate every flavour of strategy.

From utopian to dystopian scenarios, the APG is working with planners, internationally, to game out what the possibilities might be and how we can get there.

‘Fame’ is one of the most talked about and most referenced communications ideas in our industry. It makes daily appearances on briefs, full of passionate ambition but often with little guidance about how you achieve fame at all.

At Noisy Thinking, we aim to give knotty subjects like fame a good airing by inviting speakers who can give us a new perspective, as well as experts from our world who have advice and frameworks for understanding it better.

This is a brand new APG course for Strategy Directors. You may have been promoted relatively recently or you’re about to take the step up. Either way you’re a highly capable strategist with plenty of experience but you now need to embrace a different mindset and start leading the business and the team.

There are 151 entries to the APG Creative Strategy Awards 2025. 

The biggest number ever submitted to our awards.

And it’s more than just a big number.

It’s a giant stamp of approval for creative strategy as a discipline:

By the authors who toiled so hard to write and refine their papers.

By the agencies who support the awards because they are proud of their strategic thinking and want to showcase how it’s done.

And by their excellent clients who (sometimes reluctantly) are up for sharing their success stories. We are very grateful.  

So what happens next?

The APG Creative Strategy Awards has always celebrated strategic brilliance. For 2025, we're amplifying that mission by opening our doors wider than ever before. As Chair of The Shortlist Jury, I'm thrilled to announce not only an extraordinary panel of judges drawn from across the strategic spectrum, but also a series of exciting changes to the awards themselves - all designed to discover and celebrate strategic excellence wherever it exists.