Articles

We’re thrilled to announce a new strategy entity at the heart of the APG. MPG is for media planners and strategists who are looking for the same quality of training, events and initiatives that the APG provides for planners and strategists. As of April 2026, it is a core part of the APG and is open for people to join as members, just like the APG. 

This is an account of the main findings of a study in which expert ethnographer Mark Hadfield collaborated with the APG by interviewing some of the winners from the 2025 APG Creative Strategy Awards about the ingredients of their success; specifically, how bringing in real observation and the feelings and attitudes of real people lit the spark that made their thinking truly stand out.

I was mildly concerned that a title like that for an evening of talks right at the start of the rainiest January/February on record was asking for trouble. The weather may just be a good metaphor for the British mood but there’s been a whole other THING going on in the world and finding reasons to be cheerful could come across as glib.

When we announced the first Noisy Thinking of the year, complete with the effervescently positive title: ‘Reasons to be Cheerful’, I feared a backlash. I thought, despite the stellar speaker bench of Jo Arden, Martin Beverley, Lilli English, Pete Buckley and Sammy King, that people might sign up in dribs and drabs. Then we’d be wandering round the reception at VML half an hour before, bribing unsuspecting junior account men with copies of How Not To Plan to come in and fill t

Every two years the leadership of the APG is enhanced with a new Chair. At the end of 2025 we said farewell to Emily Harlock and Martin Beverley, the first co-Chairs of the APG who for the last two years have been both inspiring and brilliant to work with.

‘’I know” said Tom. Let’s call it ‘every flavour of strategy’. It was the end of a long session in which Tom Roach (Chair of Judges) and I were mulling over how to position the APG Creative Strategy Awards. 

I hesitate to begin this write-up with a negative, but I think I could make a reasonable bet that most planners and strategists would not put measurement and effectiveness at the top of their favourite ‘Planning Things To Do’ list.

This week I went to Channel 4’s Mirror on the Industry event. There were some really good speakers and a helpful update on consumer responses to efforts to make UK advertising more inclusive...

The APG Creative Strategy Awards 2025 winners are announced and this year, the judges took a bold and brilliant decision. 

This is the essay question I set the Noisy Thinkers. I was intrigued to find out what they thought, as it’s essentially a start-again question and they had licence to do that by abolishing the way we work and rewriting the Planning handbook. 

We are delighted to announce the shortlist for the 2025 APG Creative Strategy Awards in partnership with Channel 4.

‘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.

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.

There are 151 entries to the APG Creative Strategy Awards 2025. The biggest number ever submitted to our awards.