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APG Transformational Strategy Team Awards 2017
In association with Kantar Millward Brown
For the APG 2017 Awards, we introduced a new, additional award for the Transformational Strategy Team. We asked for written submissions of up to 1500 words that answered the question:
How do people best work together to get things done and facilitate a transformative effect?
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We recognise that in times of super-charged change, agencies and businesses are experimenting with new ways of working to get results because many of the old practices don’t really work any more.
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What we are interested in is understanding what these new ways of working are, how people go about making them happen, and how they took a team to a new or better place – and helped to facilitate a transformative effect.
The Winners
Transformational Strategy Team Chair of Judges
Amelia Wood, Kate Waters and thier extended team from Now London
Amelia Wood, Kate Waters and thier extended team from Now London
Jenny Barthe and Rebecca Morgan from MullenLowe London
Russell Davies from BETC London
Keane Angle from 360i London
We’re delighted to announce the Winners for the inaugural Transformational Strategy Team Awards.
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GOLD
How to Create a Transformational Product | Explorify
Authors: Amelia Wood, Kate Waters (with special thanks to the extended team: Dan Metcalfe, Liz Watts, Katie Creighton and Laura Chamberlain and their invaluable input)
Agency: Now
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SILVER
Behind the Scenes - Love at First Taste | Knorr
Authors: Jenny Barthe and Rebecca Morgan
Agency: MullenLowe London
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Blogging and Stickers: Transformation Minus The Heroics
Author: Russell Davies
Agency: BETC
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BRONZE
Faster, cheaper, and more progressive work with the Tomoni method
Authors: Keane Angle
Agency: 360i
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We Are Not Strategists. We Are Not Creatives. (We Are Both And Neither). | Renault
Authors: Noa Dekel and Bela Ziemann
Agency: Publicis Italy
Special Commendations
In a break with tradition we are also giving a Special Commendation to 4 other cases. This is because we think they offer really valuable learning to the community.
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The future of the industry is in the hands of entrepreneurs
Authors: Ruth Chadwick and Lilian Sor
Agency: Grey London
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Edelman London Technology Practice | Planning to make a Diamond
Authors: Drew Field, Prashant Yadave, Justin Westcott and Jay Gallagher
Agency: Edelman
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Do you feel safe at work?
Authors: Anna Bulman, Lachlan Williams, Amy Materka and Daniel Lee
Agency: RG/A
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Making the Wonderful Everyday
Authors: Kieran Bradshaw, Katie Mackay, Charlie Ebdy (Vizeum) and Kemi Anthony (IKEA)
Agency: Mother London
A Word from the Chair of Judges, Paul Feldwick
'There was plenty of variety in the papers we read, but we also noticed some common themes running through many of them: ideas about more fluid, collaborative ways of working, which often involve abandoning traditional titles, siloes, and procedures. We suspect that every case submitted potentially had an interesting story to tell. But, as one entrant observed, doing justice to the ‘complexity and mess’ of transformation in a short span of 1500 words is a hard challenge.
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So in choosing which papers to reward most highly, we were looking for three things. First, a clear and well-told exposition of what happened. Second, we wanted the story to be made real and compelling for us, rather than just relying on abstract ideas. And third, we looked for insights and learning that others could do something with. With these criteria, we were able to agree on five papers to include in the shortlist, while acknowledging that all the papers entered contained something of value.
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We’ve been excited and stimulated by reading all these cases, and are grateful to all those who dared enter a new and untried kind of award! We hope that more will learn from and be encouraged by this pioneering examples when we repeat this award next year’ .
Formalities
This new award, separate from the APG Strategy Awards, is essentially about ways of working to solve a problem and deliver a transformational strategy. Entries should describe the starting point, the issue, the decisions that were made and the effect that these had.
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Cases may focus more on relationships, or more on process and structure (formal or informal). They can come from within one agency or they can be submitted by multi agency teams or pairs of agency. They can also be submitted by clients and client companies. Basically any combination of people working together is permissible.
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We aim to present a Gold, Sliver and Bronze trophies to deserving cases. The awards will be presented at the APG Awards Dinner on 12th October 2017.
How to Win
Here are a couple of examples of the kinds of cases that we think meet the criteria for this award
Transformational Team Thinking
by: Lisa Bowcott
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As transformation stories go, I think this is a great one because it is a story about how a process and the culture of collaboration that it created, gave birth to an entire agency and produced some great creative work to boot.
It woz the team wot recruited more teachers
by: Dom Boyd
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For a few years I was lucky enough to lead strategy for what was once called the COI. The task was deceptively simple – recruit more teachers, with a focus on hard-to-fill subjects such as chemistry and maths.
How do things get done?
by: Paul Feldwick
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The real world inevitably involves some thinking ahead as well as some adaptation en route...
Few, if any strategies are purely deliberate, just as few are purely emergent. One means no learning, the other means no control.
Judges
Chair of Judges
APG Chair Group Head of Strategy at adam&eveDDB
European Marketing Director at Trainline
Director of Strategy at SapientRazorfish
APG Director
Detailed Rules
World copyright of each entry will pass to the APG and all papers entered into the competition may be published on-line by the APG or by WARC at the discretion of the APG.