Articles

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 24, 2019
8 min

APG Noisy Thinking | How do you plan?

We thought it would be bracing to start the new year with a fresh look at the basics so we began by asking 3 planners who’ve been doing it for a while, with quite a lot of success, how they approach the job. They have vast amounts of experience at different agencies, working on a multitude of diverse clients and applying contrasting academic and strategic approaches to their work. They are also generalists in the best sense of the word. They are able to apply their skills, ex

What the Ad World Can Learn from Politics?

APG

Jun 21, 2018
2 min

What the Ad World Can Learn from Politics?

Tuesday night the APG hosted Alastair Campbell. He did some Brexit bashing, he despaired over Trump, he confirmed our belief that we’re all f***ed. And us planners? we all nodded in perfect synchrony over our Brew Dogs and salami sticks (great addition to snack repertoire, APG). One thing he said still rings in my ears today. An observation about the way in which our political communications landscape has been fundamentally high-jacked, re-formulated and robbed of its honour.

APG

Jun 19, 2018
2 min

Meditations on Alastair Campbell

APG Noisy Thinking: Strategies for Political Party Brands Remember the famous Blue Peter clip? The one with the elephant? It’s walking around the studio s***ting all over the place. You see, the elephant is Brexit. John Noakes is Jeremy Corbyn and he’s trying to pretend that the elephant isn’t s***ting on the floor, in fact he’s not talking about the elephant at all. F***ing politics is f***ed. We’re in a f***ing mess. Nobody has a f***ing clue what to do. This and more we le

APG Noisy Thinking | The Art of Persuasion – how do you get your idea over the line?

APG

Feb 20, 2018
8 min

APG Noisy Thinking | The Art of Persuasion – how do you get your idea over the line?

This question certainly seemed to touch a nerve as over 200 planners and strategists showed up to listen, and the red wine ran out within 15 minutes. It was one of themes that I lifted directly from the feedback you kindly give after these events so it’s good to know that the feedback loop is working as intended. We chose our speakers carefully to represent different potential approaches to the question and it was interesting that although they all had different points of vie

APG

Dec 8, 2017
6 min

APG Noisy Thinking | What inspires you?

Inspiration was the theme of the final Noisy of 2017. I set an open brief just to see what would come back; safe in the knowledge that our 6 speakers would come up with a sparkling diversity of opinion and ideas. They didn’t disappoint. It was genuinely uplifting to hear such an outpouring of interesting stuff; so heartfelt, so individual and surprising. Once again we saw a live demo of the fact that there are no right answers in this game. It’s all about being true to your b

APG Noisy Thinking | Which bits of your job are going to be taken over by robots, and what are you g

APG

Nov 7, 2017
12 min

APG Noisy Thinking | Which bits of your job are going to be taken over by robots, and what are you g

You can’t cast your eye over an on-line industry rag, or new thinking from economists and pundits, without hearing sweeping statements about the implications of AI for our industry and the future of the world. There’s rather less detail on what the march of the robots - if there is such a thing - means for our actual jobs; the things we do day-to-day. So we asked some strategists what they thought and what, if anything, they plan to do. The evening was fascinating for the v

APG Noisy Thinking | Do we need target audiences any more?

APG

Apr 27, 2017
5 min

APG Noisy Thinking | Do we need target audiences any more?

In a bold and, as it turned out, rather Marmite experiment, we held the first Noisy in which the speakers spoke and the audience spoke back. We were responding to previous feedback asking for more interaction. We also wanted to to encourage people to think about the practical application of what they were hearing. Some of you loved it. Some really, really didn’t. And someone brilliantly evoked the spasm of horror at the very idea of interaction. The workshop element was fabul

APG Noisy Thinking | Think Big and get in bed with your client. Oh, and friction is good

APG

Mar 9, 2017
10 min

APG Noisy Thinking | Think Big and get in bed with your client. Oh, and friction is good

Whether strategists are impacting clients’ bottom line clearly hit a nerve and our speakers skewered it. We’re working as strategists at a time when we have exponentially more data available at every phase of the planning cycle and more information in real time about every aspect of the marketing mix so it should make highly effective, business building communication a piece of cake. But it hasn’t really turned out like that so we asked three excellent people to give us their

APG

Nov 30, 2016
5 min

What transformed your thinking in 2016?

It’s a good question, and with a year like 2016, rich pickings for the thoughtful strategist. It’s also the reason why we have chosen Transformational Thinking as our theme for the 2017 APG Creative Strategy Awards. So unable to resist a little branded theming we decided to soft launch the awards at the final Noisy Thinking of the year by asking ‘what transformed your thinking?’ of the people who lead the strategy in some of the most interesting agencies. We gave them 6 minut

APG

Sep 20, 2016
5 min

Why did we stop listening? Brand lessons from Brexit

For our first Noisy Thinking of the Autumn we stepped outside the immediate confines of our world for a theme and for our speakers. A little bit of me was concerned that we’d talked ourselves out on this one but we thought it was important to address the implications as a community and think about what part we might play in the post Brexit world – not least in shaping the strategy on our clients’ brands. So we invited speakers from politics and policy, cultural insight and p

APG

Apr 8, 2016
3 min

Retailer Mediation

At the last APG Noisy Thinking on defining the twenty-first century brand, Nick Kendall revisited Stephen King’s 1971 paper ‘What is a Brand?’. Stephen King, JWT, 1971 I think King’s paper is great for several reasons - not least because of the truth in his famous analogy that ‘people choose their brands as they choose their friends’. I think his definition of a brand is particularly strong because it’s firmly rooted in a business context; specifically, in the relationship th

APG

Feb 23, 2016
2 min

Mark Bell on 'What is a Brand Nowadays?'

I’m sorry to open by being boring or indeed obvious, but a brand nowadays is no different from when Bass registered the red triangle 130 years ago as trademark. Ian Edwards mentioned in his well written 2007 piece ‘I believe in the Darwinian Evolution of Brands’ that: "The need to identify with and to know your status within a social group is something that is fundamental to human nature." I believe and I’m sure many scientists will support me, that over the coming centuries

APG

Feb 17, 2016
2 min

Dom Boyd on 'What is a Brand Nowadays?'

"Strategists need to act as brand entrepreneurs that approach their client brands as ‘software’ that is constantly evolving and updating, creating an operating system that’s fast, fluid and informed." The subject of brands has a history of fascinating and confusing people in equal measure. So perhaps it was no surprise that the APG’s Noisy Thinking on the subject was sold out weeks beforehand. With just 10 minutes to present our case, the format certainly lent itself to simpl

I like it when we all watch the same thing

APG

Feb 15, 2016
3 min

I like it when we all watch the same thing

It’s increasingly a “look at that” world and this clearly provides an opportunity for brands to be the “that”. We risk overstating this of course and assuming people are interested in every brand but the rewards of getting it right and providing serendipity for people (I think of serendipity as disruption’s slightly nicer cousin) are very real. I love the concept of Noisy Thinking so I thought I’d take the concept literally by thinking aloud for my 10 minutes. No slides, just

APG

Feb 12, 2016
4 min

The first text in the IPA Diploma is Stephen King's "What is a Brand?"

It offers a salutary warning to anyone trying to think about the question that is the agenda for APG's first Noisy Thinking event of the year - 'What is a Brand nowadays?' "Usually when we discuss such difficult and controversial topics we rush in and start to argue about techniques. So often we try and solve problems without working out the theory of the thing first" Most usefully tonight, written as it was nearly 50 years ago in 1971, Stephen's seminal piece offers a good c

Articles

APG Noisy Thinking | How do you plan?

What the Ad World Can Learn from Politics?

Meditations on Alastair Campbell

APG Noisy Thinking | The Art of Persuasion – how do you get your idea over the line?

APG Noisy Thinking | What inspires you?

APG Noisy Thinking | Which bits of your job are going to be taken over by robots, and what are you g

APG Noisy Thinking | Do we need target audiences any more?

APG Noisy Thinking | Think Big and get in bed with your client. Oh, and friction is good

What transformed your thinking in 2016?

Why did we stop listening? Brand lessons from Brexit

Retailer Mediation

Mark Bell on 'What is a Brand Nowadays?'

Dom Boyd on 'What is a Brand Nowadays?'

I like it when we all watch the same thing

The first text in the IPA Diploma is Stephen King's "What is a Brand?"

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