APG 'How To' Events

Speakers: Craig+Bridget​

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When you work in an agency, it’s tempting to see all your strategy work through the lens of what creative teams want. We’re all prone to assuming that strategy is only good if it stimulates great creative work. But you can provide more value for your clients if you think a little more broadly, to produce strategy that stimulates a whole range of different activities (including great creative work).

Speaker: Martin Beverley​

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Martin covered when and how to make a move in your career, how to burnish your CV, how to approach interviews and how to create your own strategy story. He also gave advice on how to manage upwards at work and how to forge a career that’s rewarding and stimulating.

Speakers: Richard Huntington and Mark Hadfield

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A practical masterclass from Mark Hadfield and Richard Huntington on how to bind ethnography into the way you work based on the successful ‘What the Fuck is going on?’ programme from Saatchi & Saatchi.​

Speaker: Martin Beverley

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Martin covered principles for writing the best and most effective briefs and creating the most inspirational briefings.

Speaker: Oli Feldwick

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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.

Speaker: Will Richardson

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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.

Speaker: Sam Fowler

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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.

Speaker: Matt Holt

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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.

Speaker: Martin Beverley

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Martin covered a series of principles for writing the best and most effective briefs and creating the most inspirational briefings. 

Speaker: Michael Hines​

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Michael Hines shared hard, practical, useful advice on how to handle new product launches, using launches for Ford, McDonald's, Samsung, Nike, Old Spice and Clash of Clans to highlight what works and 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.

Speaker: Simon Gregory

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The infamous Bill Bernbach once mused that "Advertising is fundamentally persuasion". So how can you get better at persuading people? In this session, Simon Gregory (CSO at BBH, VCCP) explains the foundations of building a convincing argument and walks through some key tips from acting like a hostage negotiator to weaponizing positivity..

Speaker: Sam Fowler

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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.

Speaker: Michael Lee

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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?

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And how on earth do you know whether you've written a great proposition?

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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.

Speaker: Will Richardson

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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.

Speakers: Alaina Crystal and Toby Allen

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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.

Speaker: Martin Beverley

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Martin covered principles for writing the best and most effective briefs and creating the most inspirational briefings.

Speaker: Michael Lee - APG Chair

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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.

Speakers: Alaina Crystal and Toby Allen

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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.

Speaker: Matthew Straker-Taylor ​

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Matthew talked about how to get attention in a world saturated with comms, content and content creators where simply buying attention is no longer enough. This session unpacked how to harness the power of culture to unlock relevance and earn your place in the conversation, and the minds of consumers.

Speaker: Matt Holt

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In this session, Matt Holt, CSO at Digitas UK, explained what critical thinking is, why it’s so vital in the age of AI and fake news, why human beings aren’t natural critical thinkers and what you can do about it. The aim of the session being 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 a master at critical thinking.

Speaker: Michael Hines

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Michael shared some tips on how to handle new product launches, took us through a series of cases highlighting what works well and what doesn’t and showed us how working on product launches can really bring out your imaginative thinking.

Speaker: Will Humphrey

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Will Humphrey was a strategist in agencies for 15 years, working in different manifestations of the planning discipline and in a variety of excellent agencies. He left his most recent role at Wunderman Thompson two years ago and jumped ship to McKinsey. He shared some fascinating insights into the difference between life in agencies and the ‘The Firm’ and how he has been shaped by the experience to date.

Speaker: Matt Holt

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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.

Speaker: Matt Holt

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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.

Speakers: Craig Mawdsley and Bridget Angear

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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.

Speaker: Sam Fowler

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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.