Effectiveness Skills for Strategists:

3 Interactive Workshops to Build Your Confidence

With Ollie Gilmore and Hugh de Winton
30th September, 7th & 14th October 2026, ONLINE

What will you learn?

A course to build your confidence in all-things relating to effectiveness. If you're early on in your career - or looking to refresh your skills - this practical, interactive training programme will take you from feeling angst-ridden or mystified to becoming a confident effectiveness practitioner. By the end of the course, you'll be able to lead on related topics with your colleagues and clients, and even within your own agency.

Course Tutors

Hugh de Winton (Head of Planning, Ogilvy) and Ollie Gilmore (Strategy Partner, Ogilvy).

Between them, Hugh and Ollie have won a total of 14 IPA Effectiveness Awards, including the two most recent Grand Prix prizes (McCain 2024, Cadbury 2022) and this year Ollie will be on the judging panel.

They have experience leading on effectiveness for some of the biggest brands in our industry, and now do so at Ogilvy, the APG’s Strategy Agency of the Year.

About the Course

There are three sessions, across three successive weeks.

Each session will include practical, interactive exercises – and some tangible takeaways

for the day job – to make learning feel directly applicable, and build your confidence

as the sessions progress.

Session 1: Make the numbers your friends

A session to demystify the main measures and metrics, so they all feel approachable and usable.

Specifically: explaining the difference between commercial/marketing/comms

measures, hard vs soft metrics, measurement techniques old & new… To help you get to

your key sentence: how is your brand performing, and why?

Session 2: Create and lead effectiveness conversations

A session to build your confidence in key effectiveness moments e.g. annual planning,

campaign objective-setting, results debriefs – as well as giving you the confidence to initiate

related conversations when helpful.

In the process: you'll learn how to build relations with key stakeholders connected to

effectiveness - within your agency, your client team and third parties (e.g. tracking providers)

Session 3: Tell a winning effectiveness story

A session to build your skills in making an effectiveness case – whether it’s a post

campaign presentation to clients, or for an industry effectiveness award.

Specifically: you'll learn how to find the story in the figures, identify comms / brand /

commercial effect, and some tips and tricks for making the most powerful case.

Who is it for?

For those at the start of their careers or anyone who wants to update their understanding and knowledge of effectiveness.

Testimonials

'What I learnt I was able to immediately apply to my day to day, everything felt very relevant, very simple and was delivered in an accessible way that really cut through the intimidating mystery of effectiveness and data in general.'

- Client-side Senior Strategist

'I think it was a great introduction to effectiveness but it was like marketing theory, setting smart objectives, econometrics and effectiveness rolled into one! Hugh and Ollie were also fantastic course leaders! No question felt too silly and they were great at contextualising their lessons for your role and company or client. I really liked how it wasn’t just about numbers but it tied the whole process together and showed how the beginning of a campaign affects the end and how well you can measure it.

I also gained a new-found confidence to ask more questions at work and encourage others to think about effectiveness more (if I may) effectively!'

- Creative Strategist, media company

'Really worthwhile sessions with a great vibe and content - 10/10 would recommend to all strategists'

- Senior Creative Strategist, global experiential and event agency

'Even with prior knowledge on effectiveness, this course was really helpful with clear actionable advice. Also made me feel more hopeful and positive about my role and the advertising.'

- Senior Strategist, creative agency

'Really informative experience, reshaping the way I think about using data & statistics to tell a more compelling narrative.'

- Senior Strategist, creative agency

Course Details

Cost*

APG Members = £550+vat

Non-members = £685+vat

Date and time

Dates: 30th September, 7th & 14th October 2026

9:30am - 11:30am BST

Format:

ONLINE, using Microsoft Teams

Please note, tickets for this workshop and non-refundable. The sessions will not be recorded, and we can’t offer a catch-up session if for any reason you can’t attend. Please let us know if you have any accessibility needs.

Course Enquiries

If you have any questions about this course, please e-mail Alison Trotter at alison@apg.org.uk

APG Training Course Cancellation Policy

Should you cancel your booking for an APG training course, the following cancellation policy will apply: For a cancellation made more than 30 calendar days in advance of the training course, a full rebate will be applied. For a cancellation more than ten calendar days in advance of the training course, a rebate of 50% will be applied. For a cancellation less than ten days in advance of the training course no rebate will be applied.

The training session will not be recorded/filmed and we can’t offer a catch-up session, if for any reason you can’t attend.

On occasion we may need to re-schedule training sessions - we reserve the right to do this at any time although we will aim to give you as much notice as possible.

Attendance on training courses is entirely at the discretion of APG. There is no automatic right to attendance.

APG Training in association with Tracksuit

Tracksuit is the beautiful, affordable and accessible brand tracking tool to measure and communicate the value of brand-building.

Built from best-in-class methodology, Tracksuit is accessible and easy to understand for everyone from CMOs to CFOs, brand marketing specialists and agencies to founders.

Trusted by agencies and over 650 modern consumer brands around the world, Tracksuit surveys thousands of people each week to track consumer awareness, consideration, usage, preference and perceptions of a brand. The data is collected from different markets and demographics, while also being used to benchmark each brand against its competitors.