The Home for Planners & Strategists
APG 'How To' Events
APG ‘How To’ events are short sessions delivered by experts, designed to cover off some of the topics you ask us to feature in our programme. They are concise, compelling and you should come away informed and confident to have a go, whether it be writing better propositions, selling your strategy or grasping the practice of media planning. We designed them with younger strategists in mind but in truth they are suitable and interesting for anyone doing planning and strategy as it’s always good to do a bit of revision or hear a new perspective.
'How To' do a New Product Launch
14th October | 5pm-6pm BST | Online
Speaker: Michael Hines
How Not to be Afraid of Numbers
4th November | 5pm-6pm GMT | Online
Speaker: Sam Fowler
'How To' do a New Product Launch with Michael Hines
14th October | 5pm-6pm BST | Online
Being the planner on a new product launch is one of the most exciting and stressful aspects of the job. But there is very little guidance about how to do it well, in different circumstances and with different kinds of brand and category. And there’s almost nothing in terms of hard, practical, useful advice. Enter Michael Hines who is a Group Strategy Director at Wieden + Kennedy London, and has led strategy for global new product launches from Apple and Ford.
In this session he'll share some practical principles about how to handle new product launches, distilled from his own experience and from other strategists who have launched things for Ford, McDonald's, Samsung, Nike, Old Spice and Clash of Clans. He’ll take us through a series of cases highlighting what works well and what doesn’t, how launches can be a path to the upper echelons of client organisations, and how working on launches can bring in truly imaginative thinking and ground-breaking marketing practice..
Event Details:
Date: Monday 14th October
Time: 5pm-6pm BST
Platform: Zoom
Tickets*:
APG Members = £7.50+vat
Non Members = £40+vat
*tickets are non-refundable
Tickets:
'How Not to be Afraid of Numbers' with Sam Fowler
4th November | 5pm-6pm GMT | Online
Sam Fowler, Chief Strategy Officer at Craft Media London is running our next ‘How To’ event on 'How not to be afraid of numbers'.
Whether presented as targets, KPI's or just raw data, numbers are a fundamental and ever present constant in advertising now.
They hold the key for agencies and clients alike to uncover insight, inform decisions and prove outcomes, however with such an abundance of numerical sources, jargon and different levels of competency it can be easy to be daunted.
This session will focus on equipping delegates with a toolbox of tips and tricks Sam has picked up during his time in the industry, so they can quickly focus on what matters, feel confident in handling data and begin a journey to making numbers work for them.
There will be two workshops during the session one of which will require delegates to have access to Microsoft Excel.
Event Details:
Date: Monday 4th November
Time: 5pm-6pm GMT
Platform: Zoom
Tickets*:
APG Members = £7.50+vat
Non Members = £40+vat
*tickets are non-refundable
Tickets:
'How To' Write Brilliant Briefs and Deliver Brilliant Briefings
28th May 2024
Speaker: Martin Beverley
Martin covered principles for writing the best and most effective briefs and creating the most inspirational briefings.
'How To' Use GenAI and ChatGPT
15th May 2023
Speaker: Oli Feldwick
Oli Feldwick, Head of Innovation at The&Partnership and seer to the strategy community unpacked how to think about AI, strategy and creativity.
His talk included models for thinking about it, how to integrate into your practice, practical guides to prompting and some inspiration on the potential for working with AI in the future.
'How To' Make Sense of Media Planning: The Mechanics
7th March 2023
Speaker: Will Richardson
We covered the nature of the business you are working on and how that drives the big strategic objective. What metrics are important to help achieve your objective? For example, do you need reach or response? Then we covered how a media planning audience is created: what does a media planner need to know about their audience, and where do they find this information? Then we looked at choosing the right channel mix for your objectives and audience. We used real life examples to demonstrate how useful tools like Media Mix Navigator can be.
How Not to be Afraid of Numbers
9th November 2022
Speaker: Sam Fowler
This session focused on equipping you with a toolbox of tips and tricks Sam has picked up during his time in the industry, so you can quickly focus on what matters, feel confident in handling data and begin a journey to making numbers work for you.
'How To' Be a Better Problem Solver
29th June 2022
Speaker: Matt Holt
The session focused on equipping you with a range of pragmatic tools and principles that Matt has picked up over the years so you can become better at diagnosing problems and master the art and science of problem-solving.
'How To' Give a Great Briefing
30th March 2022
Speaker: Martin Beverley
Martin covered a series of principles for writing the best and most effective briefs and creating the most inspirational briefings.
'How To' Get the Proposition Right
15th May 2024
.png)
Speaker: Michael Lee
The crafting of the proposition has a mythical status in awards papers narratives. But is it justified or overhyped?
Has the shift towards experience rather than just message-based advertising reduced its importance?
And how on earth do you know whether you've written a great proposition?
Michael Lee, former APG Chair and Chief Strategy Officer at VCCP London, will cover off a number of well-known case studies and provide some practical advice on how to craft your proposition to increase the chances of stimulating a creative leap of genius.
'How To' Make Sense of Media Planning: The Magic
28th March 2023
Speaker: Will Richardson
Having established your foundations, how do you craft your approach to get the most out of your media? It’s about making your assets work hard, even on a small budget; shaping your campaign to maximise impact; putting yourself in your audience's shoes and adding colour to quantitative data. This is where different parts of the multi-agency team can work together, and you can bring some magic to the party as a non-media planner charged with the creative strategy.
'How To' Work Constructively with Creatives
29th November 2022
Speakers: Alaina Crystal and Toby Allen
In this session, we covered how planners can best work with creatives, that age-old partnership that can lead to some of the biggest bust-ups and the biggest breakthroughs.
'How To' Write Brilliant Briefs and Deliver Brilliant Briefings
4th October 2022
Speaker: Martin Beverley
Martin covered principles for writing the best and most effective briefs and creating the most inspirational briefings.
'How To' Get the Proposition Right
25th May 2022
Speaker: Michael Lee - APG Chair
Michael covered off a number of well-known case studies and provided some practical advice on how to craft your proposition to increase the chances of stimulating a creative leap of genius.
'How To' Work Constructively with Creatives
16th March 2022
Speakers: Alaina Crystal and Toby Allen
In this session, we covered how planners can best work with creatives, that age-old partnership that can lead to some of the biggest bust-ups and the biggest breakthroughs.
The session was led by Alaina Crystal, Global Head of Strategy at Purpose and Toby Allen, Executive Creative Director at The&Partnership, who collaborated closely in their time at AMV BBDO on campaigns for Bodyform, Snickers and Plan International UK.
'How To' get the most out of your strategy skills
13th May 2024
'How To' Become a Better Critical Thinker
16th March 2023
Speaker: Matt Holt
In this session Matt Holt, CSO at Digitas UK, explained what critical thinking is, why it’s important, and why human beings aren’t natural critical thinkers. The aim of the session was to equip you with a range of pragmatic tips, tools and techniques that Matt has picked up over the years so that you can become better at critical thinking.
'How To' Be a Better Problem Solver
22nd November 2022
Speaker: Matt Holt
The session focused on equipping you with a range of pragmatic tools and principles that Matt has picked up over the years so you can become better at diagnosing problems and master the art and science of problem-solving.
'How To' do Strategy on the Outside
6th September 2022
Speakers: Craig Mawdsley and Bridget Angear
Craig and Bridget gave a clear and insightful view on how to set up and run your own creative strategy business. They demystified the process of setting up and prospering outside the conventional paths.
How Not to be Afraid of Numbers
4th May 2022
Speaker: Sam Fowler
This session focused on equipping you with a toolbox of tips and tricks Sam has picked up during his time in the industry, so you can quickly focus on what matters, feel confident in handling data and begin a journey to making numbers work for you.