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This the part of the site where we upload, and encourage you to send and share lots of interesting stuff about planning and strategy.

APG

Jan 4, 2018
5 min

Thinking Around Corners 3

After the sell-out success of our last Thinking Around Corners event over at DigitasLBi, run in partnership with the Firefish, Event 3 got underway. We returned with another packed session on 29th November, kindly hosted over at The Guardian’s HQ in Kings Cross. These one-hour sessions are designed to stimulate unconventional thinking and deliver uncommon sense and this was no exception. In the chair’s seat as always was Firefish’s Group CEO Jem Fawcus, and taking to the floo

APG

Aug 28, 2017
5 min

More “APG Thinking Around Corners”

At the end of July, we returned to DigitasLBi for the second Thinking Around Corners event, run in partnership with Firefish. These one-hour sessions are designed to stimulate unconventional thinking and deliver uncommon sense. In this way, they attempt to answer those complex, strategic questions whose answers evade even the best planners and strategists. The panel for the night was chaired by Firefish’s Group CEO Jem Fawcus, and its members included: Nick Hirst, ‎Head of Pl

APG

Jun 3, 2016
3 min

A Definition of Thinking

Baroness Susan Greenfield is a scientist, author and broadcaster with a special interest in how technology impacts our personalities by affecting our neurochemistry. She delivered an incredibly fascinating and engaging talk that made a brilliant link between her world of neuroscience and our world of brands and communications. She gave us some great insight into the following areas. A definition of thinking. “Thinking is movement confined to the brain” Emotions happen in resp

APG

Oct 2, 2015
2 min

Think like a CSO (with Craig Mawdsley)

Preparing for the APG ‘think like a CSO’ event, hosted and made possible by Mintel, made me think about how I think. Which may be a greater level of introspection than any of us should really be indulging in, but it was a useful exercise nonetheless. I came to a few conclusions. I think a lot about whether I’m doing enough. What can I say? I’m paranoid/diligent, but I realised that I spend an awful lot of time wondering about whether I’m really adding value. It’s probably

The future's bright... (with Hannah Mackenzie)

APG

Apr 14, 2015
4 min

The future's bright... (with Hannah Mackenzie)

So far we’ve heard a lot about what will change in the future, and what needs to change in the future…but I want to talk about something that I’d like to stay the same – amidst all this change! I want to start with a factor that’s internal and intrinsic to our industry and it’s future. That factor is us! Because we are stunningly privileged to work in a sector where the primary capital is human capital – just people, just us lot really. We don’t have factories or a supply cha

The future's bright... (with Enni-Kukka Tuomala)

APG

Apr 14, 2015
2 min

The future's bright... (with Enni-Kukka Tuomala)

A few months ago I managed to meet my hero Lena Dunham, the creator, writer, director and star of HBO’s hit show ‘Girls’ who’s written an autobiography at the age of 27 – that’s how much she’s lived. No matter what your personal opinion of her is, you can’t say that she doesn’t have balls. This is a woman who has a FUCKING BIG IDEA. She got mad at the stories that were told about young women on TV, in film and in books, so she wrote her own. Now she is saying unsayable things

The future's bright... (with Pippa Morris)

APG

Apr 14, 2015
2 min

The future's bright... (with Pippa Morris)

Is the future bright? The question about what the future holds for advertising naturally comes up a lot. Being planners, we like to theorise and analyse things and are constantly looking to forecast the new. Thinking back to the Millennium, the question about what the noughties would look like came up a lot. And it wasn’t necessarily a rosy picture. Concerns about the decline of the print, audience fragmentation, and the watering down of insights as brands look for global ef

The future's bright... (with Melanie Arrow)

APG

Apr 14, 2015
2 min

The future's bright... (with Melanie Arrow)

The future is bright, the future is… The future is so radically indeterminate, so fast changing, so different, so obtuse, so totally beyond our grasp that it can’t be planned for. Today’s under 18s code, they programme, they hardwire and they delete the phone app – because who uses phones as phones anymore anyway? In fact, somewhere between 40% and 65% of jobs that children in primary school will do in the future haven’t been invented yet. Let’s give up now. But then, that’s

APG

Feb 9, 2015
6 min

Planning for the Future of Media

A bit about the author ...Gerard Smith is a former Planning Director at major agencies in the UK and US and is now an associate at a strategy consulting firm that specializes in scenario planning. He says: 'This is a way of dealing with uncertainty by creating a few possible alternative versions of the world in the future (scenarios), drafting strategies in response and then stress testing these strategies in each scenario, to find those that are most robust. The real thing

APG

Jan 30, 2015
4 min

How to be a Chief Strategy Officer

First of all, an apology. There isn’t a simple, ten-point plan you can follow to become a CSO. Or if there is, no one told me! What I can say is that a good planner should have an inherent sense of curiosity; and a relentless desire to learn from the people and environments in which you immerse yourself. For when you strip it back, what else is planning about? So, here are some things I’ve learnt from people over the years. Be lucky Difficult advice to follow, I know. But ev

APG

Jan 9, 2015
6 min

2015 - The Year Ahead in Strategy

It’s time to take a leap of faith 2015 needs to be the year that strategy stops standing on the precipice, wondering whether to change and instead takes a leap of faith to lead a radical new way of working. Most of us are still thinking too conventionally, still taking refuge in TV, still treating digital as though it were a new media, when in fact it’s a new mindset. We need to get agile, or rather get Agile (the proper noun, not the verb). Radical change is coming, and we

APG

Jan 4, 2015
10 min

The Future of Brand Building is Triangular

This essay was submitted to, and shortlisted for, the Admap Prize 2014 and is reproduced with the kind permission of warc. This essay is an argument for a new shape. In order to recognize how to now shape a brand in the post-digital world one needs to acknowledge the shape of events around it. I will argue that everything in the communications world should now take on a triangular shape. Brands are no longer built in a bilateral way by building relationships with consumers al

A Nosey into the Future - Visuals, Brands, and Why We Buy

APG

Oct 22, 2014
2 min

A Nosey into the Future - Visuals, Brands, and Why We Buy

As market researchers, we spend our days delving into the minds of others. So when the APG organised an evening of neuro- multi-sensory -delight, we got involved. Phil Barden set up the evening with some sturdy knowledge introducing cognitive fluency – an extension to Daniel Kahneman’s theory; that isn’t based on a rational or emotional response (at this point I was extremely grateful for the free book!). ‘No brainer’ puzzles followed that demonstrated our system 1 thinking a

APG

Nov 15, 2012
6 min

Planning in Broadcasting – at the BBC

Tuesday night saw the inauguration of a new kind of APG event – the first in a new series of semi-educational evenings that we’ve called ‘Theoretical Futures’. The idea is to show how Planners are finding new uses for their skills and aptitudes and new homes to practise them in. These talks are meant to be enlightening and useful: a way of helping you find out more about what Planners actually DO in different areas of business and how it differs from the traditional skill-set

Articles

Thinking Around Corners 3

More “APG Thinking Around Corners”

A Definition of Thinking

Think like a CSO (with Craig Mawdsley)

The future's bright... (with Hannah Mackenzie)

The future's bright... (with Enni-Kukka Tuomala)

The future's bright... (with Pippa Morris)

The future's bright... (with Melanie Arrow)

Planning for the Future of Media

How to be a Chief Strategy Officer

2015 - The Year Ahead in Strategy

The Future of Brand Building is Triangular

A Nosey into the Future - Visuals, Brands, and Why We Buy

Planning in Broadcasting – at the BBC

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