APG Noisy Thinking 2013

Our flagship evening event held 6 times a year in association with Flamingo. Each event addresses a provocative question or current theme focused on Planning & Strategy. These events are supported by Google.

APG Noisy Thinking in association with Flamingo kicks off again for 2013 with two stellar speakers. We're absolutely delighted to announce that Paul Feldwick and Simon Gulliford will be opining with spirit on how much influence Planners really could, or should, have on senior clients and the decisions they make. This question gets to the heart of the Planner's role and both Simon and Paul will have some trenchant things to say based on their extraordinary depth and breadth of experience.

Paul will be known to almost everyone as a towering figure in planning. He ran the hugely successful planning function at BMP and over the years increasingly worked for DDB as a global network, developing a global framework for planning advertising and helping to found DDB University. He has written and lectured extensively on how advertising works. With his vast experience in helping to create some of the most famous FMCG brands we know and love today, it is an honour to have him come and talk on the subject of planners in the boardroom, having been one for so many years.

Simon is one of the most accomplished and successful figures working in Marketing today. After some years in academia as Head of the Marketing Faculty, he held a host of senior marketing roles from which he transformed brands and businesses for the better. As Marketing Director of Sears, he relaunched Selfridges, at EMAP he launched and developed FHM, and Heat magazine, and as Group Marketing Director of Barclays plc, he built up a world class marketing organisation. He has carried out numerous major pieces of strategy work for the likes of easyJet, BAA and Cannes Lions, and he will bring a precious client-side perspective of the boardroom and no doubt great advice and great anecdotes in equal measure.

When it comes to advertising and communication agencies there are few concepts as seductive and slippery as the 'the idea'.  Who owns it?  How do you define it? Who is responsible for it? Where does it come from?  Is it a Big Idea or 'That's not an idea!’

We've invited 3 of the biggest and most experienced figures in the planning community to give their views on ideas, and whether they can be isolated effectively. 

Tracey Follows, of JWT, Jim Carroll, Chairman of BBH, and Richard Storey, Global CSO at M&C Saatchi and APG Grand Prix winner, will pitch their thoughts about ideas on April 24th. 

They’re going to talk about the differences between the 'idea' and strategy; the 'idea' and the execution, celebrating their favourite ideas and maybe even owning up to times when there wasn't much of an idea. And what that meant, or didn't...

Controversy, provocation and new thinking from Wendy Gordon, John Griffiths and Kirsty Fuller who will be reflecting, at volume, on whether 'Planners get the research they deserve'.

Where does advertising end and content begin? The APG Strategy awards short list is evidence of Planners enthusiastically getting to grips with inplementing ideas in new channels, including a successful TV series. But do brands have the appetite and skills to over commit to the audience and produce something genuienly entertaining?  Do agencies have a proper content mentality - are they actually equipped to plan and execute content that people want to engage with?  Google might argue that that the debate is specious.  There's content that people want to consume and content people simply don't want to watch.  Everything else is sophistry.

What do you think? Can you see a clear boundary? Are you struggling with the demands of clients to create 'content' wthout sufficient business rationale, let alone budgeting and planning? Or is the planning and creation of 'content' simply all of our future?

We've lined up three perfect speakers to air the issues in our usual provocative manner.  You'll hear:

Kirsty Saddler | Head of Strategy at BBH

Nathan Guerra | Creative Industry Head at Google

Nick Price | Head of Content at AMV BBDO

As Planners become more and more numerous, and wield more influence in an ever wider variety of businesses, are we allowing our impact to be diluted by being obsessed with the micro picture? 

Whilst the profusion of consumer touch-points allows us to do more and more different things, perhaps the need for them all to tell a coherent story is greater than ever. The on-going success of Dove proves the point, but the Dove story is now approaching its tenth anniversary. How many other big planning stories have had this much effect, and for so long?

All of which makes the role for planning more important than ever - that of crafting bigger and better brand narratives or "storyscapes", against which we can produce our best work. In some ways the bigger the story, the more granular the ideas can be.

It might be thirty years old, but Jeremy Bullmore's birds nest analogy is probably more valid than ever. We've more sticks and twigs than ever to play with, but without a good plan, they don't always build a better house.

Do you agree? It’s a hot topic and we have the top Planners lined up to debate it:

Guy Murphy | Worldwide Planning Director of JWT

Dom Boyd | Head of Strategy and Planning at Adam and Eve DDB

Fern Miller | Chief Strategy and Insight Officer at Digitas LBi

For our Final Noisy Thinking evening of the year we're asking the brightest young strategic minds to have their say for a change.  Call it bottom-up learning.  We've asked CSOs across town to nominate their sparkiest 20 something to wear the CSO hat and tell us what they would do if they were in charge.  It's an open brief.  Each of the the 8 speakers in the line-up will have 5 minutes to outline their ideas.  It'll be fast and furious, and give us all something to think about  - not least, those currently in charge.