Podcasts by Sweathead, A Strategy Podcast

Getting Strategy Jobs At Netflix, CashApp, Nike, Apple And More - Grace Gordon, CashApp from 2023-12-07T19:33:26

Grace Gordon is an Australian who's worked with a list of companies many strategists would dream of working with: Netflix, CashApp, Nike, Apple, The Fader, Refinery29, as well as various age...

Setting Your Next Marketing Budget - This Time With Evidence - Marc Binkley, Fractional CMO from 2023-12-04T14:27:47

Marc is a fractional CMO based in Calgary, Canada. He recently published a deck to help marketers work out how to set their budgets based on evidence.

You can find the deck h...

Shocking Truths About Insights In Advertising (I'm joking - but, yeah, "insights") from 2023-11-10T17:14:46

You can download a free 45-page ebook on insights, including a chapter from my book "Strategy Is Your Words" here:

http...

The Marketing Sciences Suggest: Make Your Brand Think And Act Broad - Julien Normand, Publicis from 2023-11-06T00:08:07

Julien Normand is Global Strategy Lead for Publicis LEON @ Publicis Media in Singapore. Recently, he wrote a piece called "The Silent Ascent Of Super Light Buyers," in which he shares research that...

I Got A Hair Transplant In Turkey - Istanbul, Walk and Talk from 2023-09-29T09:01:25

I was going to keep it private but people started to find out. I got a hair transplant. And I had a second operation to get a lipoma removed. At the end of this episode I talk a little about functi...

A 1AM Interview With The Team That Got Women’s Names Onto Street Signs In Tbilisi - Ad Black Sea from 2023-09-18T05:47:35

Watergunz won two golds at the recent Ad Black Sea festival for a campaign called “Women Who Don’t Exist”. They won in the Impact category for Creative Strategy and Sustainable Development Goals. T...

So This Head Of Strategy Just Quit His Job At JWT On Stage - Ad Black Sea, Batumi, Georgia from 2023-09-16T18:49

It’s the final day of the Georgian advertising festival Ad Black Sea. The campaign winners will be announced soon. In this episode, I talk with fellow speaker Marie Reig Florensa, Ad Black Sea and ...

4 Students Share Their Work And Experience From The Sweathead Strategy Accelerator - Dulce Vazquez, Rodolfo Andres Estrada, Sarah Mahoney, Victoria Gates-Fleming from 2023-09-09T14:40:18

The next Sweathead Strategy Accelerator happens in October, 2023. It's a 4-week program that will teach you about The Four Points framework, linear and lateral thinking, the importance of pr...

How To Fix Your Presentations - Sit And Talk, Hell's Kitchen, NYC from 2023-09-04T15:28:20

In this episode, I share some of the student work from the Sweathead Strategy Accelerator as well as dive into some tips on how to improve your presentations. You can download 70+ pages of stude...

When To Quit Your Strategy Career - São Paulo, Sit And Talk from 2023-08-24T15:41:51

In this episode, I discuss a couple of recent essays—when it’s time to quit and how to help a strategy team that’s swirling all over the place. If you enjoy it, share it. And come say hi on Instagr...

Hard Truths About Strategy Careers - Hacktown, Brazil from 2023-08-19T15:13:45

In this episode, I share my experience at Hacktown as well as some uncomfortable truths about strategy careers. I’m doing a masterclass in São Paulo on Wednesday, August 23. DM me on Instagram for ...

Check Your Next Creative Brief For These Things - Monologue, Hell's Kitchen from 2023-08-14T12:38:43

I'm going to do a few solo episodes over the coming weeks. This episode's topic I've touched on a lot and I've even read out some of these words before. But I thought I'd sta...

What I Wish I Knew Before Becoming A Strategist - Midtown, NYC from 2023-08-09T13:43:31

Lots of updates and a list of things I wish I knew before becoming a strategist. My book “Strategy Is Your Words” is available this week on Amazon Kindle in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. I hope...

The Agency Dominating Costa Rica And Then Some...Interaction - Erick Apuy and Monica Gonzales (Effie Index Series) from 2023-06-29T08:57:37

Erick Apuy is building an empire from his home base in San Jose, Costa Rica. His agency, Interaction, is one of the most awarded in the region. Their love of problems and context help them help ...

What's At The Heart Of One Of Australia's Most Prolific Advertising Agencies The Monkeys - Dave Collins, Strategy Director (Effie Index Series) from 2023-06-26T09:48:29

Dave Collins is Strategy Director at The Monkeys in Melbourne, Australia. The Monkeys have been a prolific creative agency ever since they launched and they were listed in the Effie Index in 202...

The Self-Improving Agency - Raluca Kovacs, CSO, Publicis Romania (Effie Index Series) from 2023-06-22T08:58:31

Raluca Kovacs is Chief Strategy Officer of Publicis Worldwide in Romania. Romania is a competitive advertising country. It seems like one of those hotbeds that not enough of us know about. It...

Strategy Gold In The Desert - CSO Mario Morby Reveals The Secrets Of FP7McCann, UAE (Effie Index Series) from 2023-06-19T15:52:39

Mario Morby is Regional Head of Strategy at FP7McCann. He's based in Dubai. In case you didn't know, Dubai is very different from Birmingham in the UK, where Mario was working before joi...

How High Expectations And Pressure Lead To World-Beating Advertising - Javier Quintero, GUT (Effie Index Series) from 2023-06-15T09:33:27

Javier Quintero is Chief Strategy Officer of GUT in Buenos Aires. Every decade a handful of agencies appear and then tear up the industry as we know it and GUT is currently doing this.

I...

Ogilvy Pakistan's Director Of Strategy Zahra Ali Explains What Makes The Agency So Effective (Effie Index Series) from 2023-06-12T09:28:13

Zahra Ali runs strategy at Ogilvy in Karachi. She's helped the agency win so many awards that the agency is listed in the Effie Index.

In this episode, Zahra explains the culture of ...

How Strategists Work In One Of The World's Most Effective Advertising Agencies - Victor Stroe, Leo Burnett (Effie Index Series) from 2023-06-08T09:25:50

Victor Stroe is Associate Director and Head of Strategy at Leo Burnett in Bucharest, Romania. His office was ranked the eleventh most effective in the world according to the 2022 Effie Index). R...

Interesting And Useful Is The Way To CSO Ryan O’Connell’s Heart - Ogvily (Effie Index Series) from 2023-06-05T09:47:01

Ryan O'Connell is Chief Strategy Officer of Ogilvy in Sydney, Australia. His office ranked in the Effie Index and we wanted to find out why. In this episode, Ryan talks about the need to be interes...

Is Niche Marketing Making It Harder To Reach People? - Amber Chenevert, PhD, VMLY&R from 2023-06-01T10:25:32

Amber Chenevert is Managing Director, Strategy & Insights as well as Global Culture Studio Lead at VMLY&R. She's a PhD and has taught advertising.

In this episode we discuss a...

A Gentle Comparison Of Strategy At BBDO And VMLY&R - David Moreno, BBDO (Effie Index Series) from 2023-05-29T09:30:21

David Moreno recently moved to BBDO, Atlanta, where he's EVP, Strategy Lead. Prior to this, David was Managing Director, Strategy and Insights at VMLY&R. Big titles in big agencies doing...

The First Decade+ Of A Career (And Putting Yourself Online) - Aisha Hakim, ACD, 72andSunny from 2023-05-08T09:21:56

Aisha Hakim is an associate creative director at 72andSunny. She's also prolific online. Aisha will be hosting a masterclass called "The Art Of Deck-Making" for us on May 17. Aisha...

What Strategists Want From Work, Best Places For Strategists To Work, And Getting Old In Advertising - Monologue, Hell's Kitchen, NYC from 2023-05-04T16:44:18

It's May 4. Today marks three years since Sweathead launch its first online class. And, to celebrate, we've published a new report "What Strategists Want From Work".

Listen

Unleash Your Weird Self - The Secret To Better Strategy - Bonnie Wan, AdAge 2022 CSO Of The Year from 2023-05-01T09:45:09

Bonnie Wan is Head of Strategy at Goodby Silverstein & Partners, an agency she's worked at for thirteen years. In 2022, she won a big award: AdAge's CSO of the year. And she's ab...

The Visibility Mindset (Get Yourself Seen) - Bernice Chao, Asians In Advertising from 2023-04-27T09:41

Bernice Chao is author of "The Visibility Mindset". Her agency experience includes R/GA, Zambezi, TBWA, and David&Goliath.

While navigating her career in the creative depa...

A New Brand Strategy For Sofia, Bulgaria - Live Workshop With Adriyana Mihaylova from 2023-04-24T09:07

Sofia, Bulgaria. It’s the capital of one of Europe’s poorest countries, a country that spent decades behind the iron curtain, a country after which the Bulgarian Split Squat is named, and a coun...

A Strategy For Sriracha, Get/To/By, Tensions Facing Strategists And Advertising News - Hell's Kitchen, NYC from 2023-04-18T17:05:52

Yikes. I think I squeezed four episodes into one here. We discuss:

1. Advertising industry news and breaking campaigns from Dodge, Icelandair, KFC, and Lawn Doctor

2. Natalie Brink...

An Anonymous Interview With The Instagram Account @Agencyprobs from 2023-04-13T12:18:50

@Agencyprobs is crushing it on Instagram. With over 110,000 followers, the meme account helps everyone in advertising laugh and cry a little at the career that's chosen them. In this anonymous and ...

Digital Trends But Useful - Simon Kemp, Kepios from 2023-04-10T10:07:31

Simon Kemp is founder of Kepios, a business consulting firm that helps organizations worldwide make sense of people's digital behaviors.

He's been investigating digital trends fo...

Empathy In Strategy - Elisabeth Bromberg, Mildred Mae from 2023-04-03T10:00:23

Elisabeth Bromberg recently set up a consultancy. It's called Mildred Mae. Her focus is on empathy.

In this episode, we discuss the three kinds of empathy as well as what it's li...

When Work Doesn't Want You To Work - Monologue, Queens, NYC from 2023-03-30T00:19:54

I wrote a thing today. It features Musashi, a sick samurai. He was probably sick in all the ways by today's terms but I try to connect what you're going through to what he once went thro...

What's Gen Z Up To These Days? Gen Z Research with Gen Z Researcher Andrew Roth from dcdx from 2023-03-23T10:00

Andrew Roth runs dcdx, a research firm that focuses on Gen Z. In this episode, we discuss whether the term is even useful as well as some of dcdx's recent research reports into how Gen Z spend t...

Last Week My Bank Client SVB Collapsed – Jason Harris, CEO Mekanism, Discusses Dealing With Tough Times As An Agency Owner from 2023-03-23T09:59:06

Picture this: you're on a plane. An airplane. You land in Austin, Texas, for SXSW. And as you get off the plane you realize you've just lost your client Silicon Valley Bank and a chunk of your savi...

How To Fast-Track Your Strategy Career - Christine Villanueva, CSO from 2023-03-20T09:00

Christine Villanueva has had massive strategy jobs at UM, McCann, Ogilvy, and Walton Isaacson. She's had jobs you might have your eyes on. But, as a seasoned strategist, Christine knows you can'...

What Ten Rounds Of Revisions And "Love The Strategy But Not The Creative" Mean - Monologue, Hell's Kitchen, NYC from 2023-03-16T23:51:51

In this episode, we discuss two sets of agency-client dysfunctions and ways to deal with them–too many revisions and your strategy getting props but not your creative.

Download our new ca...

How To Pitch With Joy (Plus Advice For Young Lions) - Nish Shah, Lifelong Strategist from 2023-03-13T09:09:31

Nish Shah has just set up a company focused on helping companies to pitch. It's called Pitch Factory. Like Hit Factory. You know, that studio where hundreds of pop music hits were once made.

Growing The Next Generation Of Strategists - Rodrigo Maroni, CSO WundermanThompson from 2023-03-06T10:43

Rodrigo Maroni is CSO of WundermanThompson in New York. He's managed strategy teams at Weiden+Kennedy and Crispin Porter & Bogusky too. And back in Brazil, Rodrigo led Brazil's Account Planning Gro...

On Being On The Spectrum - Archana Iyer, Group Strategy Director from 2023-03-02T10:00

Archana Iyer is a culture junkie, trend spotter, and strategic storyteller. But she recently learned that she's also on the autism spectrum. 

In this episode, we discuss how Archana ...

The State Of Effectiveness - David Tiltman, WARC from 2023-02-27T10:05

David Tiltman likes to get around effectiveness. You could say he's really into effectiveness stuff. Like, it's his thing. And it better be because David oversees all of the ideas and words at WARC...

"The Illusion of Choice: 16 ½ psychological biases that influence what we buy" - Richard Shotton from 2023-02-22T16:25:28

Five years ago this week (February 25, 2018-2023), I published the first episode of Sweathead. Richard Shotton was my first interview. So I've called him back for two episodes this week.  In this e...

"The Choice Factory" Author Richard Shotton Compares Notes About Going Out On His Own On Our Fifth Anniversary from 2023-02-20T10:00

Five years ago this week (February 25, 2018-2023), I published the first episode of Sweathead. 

I was doing talks up the West Coast of the USA and I was trying to work out what to do...

CMO Secrets from Uncensored CMO's Jon Evans from 2023-02-13T11:14:35

Jon Evans is a CMO at System1 in the UK. But he also runs a podcast called Uncensored CMO in which he discusses the trials and tribulations of being a CMO in public.

In this episode of Sw...

What Are Your Planning Superpowers? with Lucky Generals's Co-Founder Andy Nairn (Also Our Next Masterclass Teacher) from 2023-02-06T16:30:12

Andy Nairn is running our first masterclass of the year.  On February 23, he'll spend 3 hours helping play with your planning superpowers. And Andy should know. He's been the UK's Planner o...

Real Talk For Australian Planners Thinking About Their Strategy Careers - Mark interviewed by Siona Singletary, R/GA from 2023-01-30T21:13:14

In this episode, R/GA's Siona Singletary interviews me, Mark, deploying questions that strategists in Sydney most want answers to. We recorded an event in December in Sydney but the audio didn't...

5 Trends for 2023 In 25 Minutes with Rob Engelsman, Quick Study - The Sweathead Trend Bender Series from 2023-01-26T11:00

To start 2023, we're running a fast series on trends worth paying attention to in The Sweathead Trend Bender Series. Over five episodes this week, you'll get to hear 25 trends that people who ge...

5 Trends for 2023 In 25 Minutes with Chike Ume, EssenceMediaCom - The Sweathead Trend Bender Series from 2023-01-25T11:00

To start 2023, we're running a fast series on trends worth paying attention to in The Sweathead Trend Bender Series. Over five episodes this week, you'll get to hear 25 trends that people who ge...

5 Trends for 2023 In 25 Minutes with Vayner - The Sweathead Trend Bender Series (Olayinka Ajibola & Hayley Grant, Vayner) from 2023-01-24T11:00:34

To start 2023, we're running a fast series on trends worth paying attention to in The Sweathead Trend Bender Series. Over five episodes this week, you'll get to hear 25 trends that people who ge...

5 Trends For 2023 In 25 Minutes with Will Poskett, Defiant - The Sweathead Trend Bender Series from 2023-01-23T11:06:57

To start 2023, we're running a fast series on trends worth paying attention to in The Sweathead Trend Bender Series. Over five episodes this week, you'll get to hear 25 trends that people who ge...

7 Career Planning Exercises For 2023 and Happy Anniversary To Sweathead from 2023-01-21T17:33:01

A big thank you to the Sweathead team and all the speakers for making The Sweathead Get-Ahead happen on January 20, our five-year anniversary. 

We have so much planned for 2023, incl...

A Day In The Life Of A CSO Who Became A CEO - Justin Graham, CEO M&C Saatchi Group from 2023-01-16T10:07:03

Justin Graham runs M&C Saatchi Group in Australasia. He started in management consulting then moved to Leo Burnett Sydney as an account planner. I sat next to him there, or at least in arms' reach....

Wieden+Kennedy and Leo Burnett Strategy Leaders Compare Their Gold IPA Effectiveness Papers For McDonald's from 2023-01-09T11:00

It's not every day you get to hear two strategy leaders compare and contrast their agency's Gold IPA Effectiveness Papers. But Senior Planner at Brave Michael Kates suggested it on Twitter and Leo ...

7 Strategist Affirmations And A Heads-Up About What Sweathead Is Up To This Year from 2023-01-07T20:26:29

Friends, Sweathead celebrates its fifth anniversary on January 20, 2023, with a live event called "The Sweathead Get-Ahead".

RSVP at http://www.sweathead.com.

It's free and open to...

When A Head Of Strategy Heads To Hospital Because Of What's Happening In His Head - Thom James, One Green Bean from 2022-12-12T10:11:56

Thom James is Head of Strategy at One Green Bean, part of the Havas network, in the UK.

Recently, he was hospitalized due to deteriorating mental health. He Tweeted about his experience i...

How To Bring Out The Worst Ideas To Get To The Best Ideas - Santi Pochat, LinkedIn from 2022-12-08T11:47:11

Santi Pochat is Vice President of Marketing at LinkedIn and he believes that beautiful ideas can come from the worst ideas. And this is what we discuss in this episode.

Santi has spent ov...

Publishing Your Way Through A Job Redundancy (Plus A Side-Serving Of Marketing Numbers Talk) - James Hankins, Marketer from 2022-12-05T11:47:18

In this episode of Sweathead, James Hankins discusses two big topics: marketing concepts he's infatuated with and how he published his way through–then out of–a redundancy. 

We discu...

The Mainstreaming Of Cross-Culture Kids - Sean Choi, Strategist from 2022-12-01T11:26:52

In this episode of Sweathead, I discuss cross-culture kids with Sean Choi.

Cross-culture kids are people who grow up between two or more cultures. These "kids" are fast becoming a large p...

750 Awards Later…Chief Strategy Officer Shares The Ingredients - Tahaab Rais, CSO MENAT at Publicis Groupe from 2022-11-28T11:24:49

Tahaab Rais has won over 750 top-tier regional and global awards across Cannes, Effies, One Show, D&AD, Jay Chiats, Andy's, Clios, LIA, New York Festivals, WARC, Loeries, Dubai Lynx, among others, ...

5 Insights About Insight Hunters, According To You (Plus A Free Deck) from 2022-11-21T11:27:24

In this episode, we look at five insights about insight hunters as suggested by strategists.

You can find the deck here: Listen

Before You Share Your Next Creative Brief, Check For These Four Things - Live From Hell's Kitchen, NYC from 2022-11-17T20:36:50

You can find this episodes on Instagram @markpollard.

You can the coupon code HOLIDAY22 on the Sweathead website to get 20% off plus free shipping of 2 or more copies of my book "Strategy...

Gold Effie Case Study: Pagoda's "Put the Egg Rolls in!" - Eden Swanson, Carmichael Lynch for Schwan's Consumer Brands from 2022-11-09T15:12:54

Eden Swanson is Group Planning Director at Carmichael Lynch in Minneapolis. Her team picked up a Gold Effie in 2021 as well as a bronze in the Connection Strategy category of the 2022 Jay Chiat ...

Case Study: Raising Awareness Of The Mental Health Challenges Facing Black American Students - Edelman's Amina Colter Jones, Dinah Douglas, and Laura Goldsmith from 2022-11-03T10:20:57

Edelman's Amina Colter Jones (SVP, Health), Dinah Douglas (Senior Strategist), and Laura Goldsmith (Head of Strategy, LA) were part of a team that helped The Boris Lawrence Henson Foundation lau...

The New British Airways Campaign "Every Reason You Fly" Discussed By A Seasoned Travel Marketer And An Executive Creative Director - Colin Lewis, John Long from 2022-10-31T10:06:06

British Airways has just launched a new positioning "A British Original" and a new campaign "Every Reason You Fly". The campaign breaks conventions by focusing on small moments that happen becau...

When Every Single Day Hurts - John Lyons, Senior Marketer from 2022-10-27T18:29:13

In this episode, I speak with John Lyons, a senior marketer who was recently at the LEGO Group. 

John has been weathering a difficult few years. He's shared his challenges on Twitter...

Tourism Australia CMO Susan Coghill Discusses Australia’s New $125M Campaign “Come and Say G’Day” from 2022-10-23T20:08

Susan Coghill is the Chief Marketing Officer of Tourism Australia. Susan and her team have just launched a new campaign with their agencies M&C Saatchi, UM, Digitas and many more. They are spending...

Case Study: Repositioning A Hotel-Booking App From "Rooms" To "Spaces" - Mayur Hola, Global Head of Brand at OYO from 2022-10-17T10:34:08

Mayur Hola is a former creative director who now runs India's OYO brand. OYO helps small- and medium-sized hotels sell their rooms. They've been winning a ton of awards for a campaign they made ...

Case Study: Increasing Vaccinations In North Texas For Dallas Regional Chamber - Tim Gingrich, SVP, Strategy from 2022-10-10T13:00:20

Tim Gingrich, along with his team at Edelman and his clients at Dallas Regional Chamber, recently picked up a couple of trophies at the 4A's Jay Chiat Awards. Silver in the Healthcare category, ...

Playing Games With Brands (And How To Help Them Find Their Place In Gaming) - James Whatley, CSO from 2022-10-03T12:57:08

James Whatley is Chief Strategy Officer at UK agency Diva. Diva works with gaming brands but they also help non-gaming brands get into gaming.

James is speaking at our upcoming conference...

Live Strategy Workshop With TEACH - Recruit More STEM Teachers Right Now, Please from 2022-09-20T12:16:13

This Sweathead episode is a live workshop in front of a virtual audience of about 60 people. Working with the team at TEACH, we try to crack a strategy to get more people with bachelor's degrees to...

“I’m creative but am I strategic, too?” - Share This With Your Creative Teams from 2022-09-12T13:01:52

Ever felt creative but uncertain about how strategic you were? What about the other way around? In this episode, we get into both of these situations. We'll discuss small shifts creative minds c...

Sharing Creative Briefs With Creative Teams - Sit And Talk, Chelsea NYC from 2022-08-31T14:51:08

Sharing creative briefs with creative teams is intimidating when you're starting out. In this episode, I share some history, including "I didn't write my first creative brief until I was about 2...

The Advertising Industry Is Working Scared And This Isn’t A Winning Strategy - Derek Walker, CEO brown & browner from 2022-08-24T12:59:04

In 2021, Derek Walker lit up our first ever strategy conference The Sweathead Do-Together.  His talk about fear in advertising sent chills through over one hundred souls.  We've heard that some peo...

Why Some People Pursue Mediocrity plus Strategist Support (9 Listener Questions Answered) from 2022-08-16T19:43:11

In this episode, we discuss mediocrity and why some people need it plus I answer nine questions while walking through New York City. The questions include: 1. What can I do when I feel a lack of in...

Freelancing Without Fear - Lydia Taylor, Sophie Cross, and Howie Chan from 2022-08-08T10:27:07

Freelancing can smell like freedom but it can also reek of fear.
“I can’t wait to be my own boss…but what if I can’t manage myself?”
“I’m so excited about finding my own clients…but what...

Invisible Genius – Four Black Strategists Discuss Life In Advertising from 2022-08-01T10:02:26

For this episode of Sweathead, VMLY&R's Kevin Brockenbrough collects a few of his favorite minds to share their experiences as black strategists working in advertising in the USA: Simone Pratt (Ogi...

Creative Bosses Give 4 Strategists Feedback Live and In The Face - Jill Applebaum, Kieran Ots from 2022-07-25T10:54:35

Sharing a creative brief with creative teams can be scary, right? Well, how about presenting strategy to a Chief Creative Officer and an Executive Creative Director?

Four Sweathead studen...

One Mother Of A Comms Planner - Maria Van Buskirk, Media by Mother from 2022-07-18T10:59:18

Maria Van Buskirk is Head of Strategy at Media by Mother. Mother is notorious for its creativity. So you'd expect Media by Mother to be notorious for its creativity in media. 

But ho...

A Cluster Of Moods plus Strategist Support (8 Listener Questions Answered) from 2022-07-05T22:28:06

For details about the Sweathead Strategy Summer Camp, go to: http://www.Sweathead.com

Can Marketing Save The World? - Anthea Foyer, Julie Ng, Radovan Andrej Grezo from 2022-06-30T14:56

We all want to feel good about our work but does some of the marketing industry take itself too seriously? In our personal pursuit for meaningful work and a sense of nobility, can we completely ...

When Efficiency Isn’t Enough In The High-Stakes Game Of Media Planning In New York - Nathan Brown, CSO from 2022-06-27T10:25:59

Nathan Brown is Global Chief Strategy Officer for UM in New York. We worked in the same building on William St in Sydney about 15 years ago.

Nathan was a breath of fresh air. He built tea...

A Snack Futurist Shares Her Insight Into Foresight - Jo Lepore from 2022-06-23T10:29:23

Jo Lepore is Global Foresight Leader at Mars Wrigley. She moved to the USA about a year ago and works out of Hoboken, New Jersey.

In this episode of Sweathead, Jo takes us through how she...

The Immigrant Experience Of The Advertising Industry in USA – Archana Mahadevan, VP, Strategy Director, DDB from 2022-06-20T13:03:06

Archana Mahadevan is VP, Director of Strategy at DDB Chicago.

Archana was born in India and came to the United States to attend college. She has been here ever since.

While in Indi...

Born To Do Strategy, Forced To Do Account Management - Kimberley Upton, Chirag Khushalani, Alana Dwyer from 2022-06-16T10:05:05

Picture this: you have a yearning to do strategy but you’re in an account management role. Maybe a job switch has been promised. Maybe you're simply doing multiple roles. Either way, on your min...

Managing A Strategy Team When Your Team Has More Career Options Than Ever - Nikita Walia, Lee Maicon, Seth Gaffney from 2022-06-13T10:34:58

Within a matter of minutes, the pandemic went from freaking out everybody about keeping their jobs to unfurling a ton of new opportunities.

Agencies and brands alike turned to strategists...

A Strategy For Binge-Drinkers - Rodolfo Estrada, BBDO from 2022-06-09T10:26:33

Rodolfo Estrada is a fresh new planner at BBDO in Guatemala. He recently took The Sweathead Strategy Accelerator, our 6-week strategy course. And I thought his work was worth sharing.

In ...

Web3 For Cynical Strategists with Accenture Song's Mara Rigney from 2022-06-06T10:11:18

After stints at Leo Burnett and Droga5, Mara Rigney now helps brands work out what to do with Web3 at Accenture Song.

"With Web3" is such a...non-specific thing. And, for those of us who'...

An Exit Strategy For Burnout - Austin Powers from 2022-06-02T10:39:48

Austin Powers is currently in Phuket, Thailand. He recently burned out. In Phuket, he hopes to rekindle himself.

Austin had been working in Taiwan as a Global Marketing Strategy Director....

Rebuilding An Advertising Agency After A Public Crisis - The Richards Group from 2022-05-30T10:47:37

David Snell and Christopher Owens have worked at The Richards Group in Dallas for fifty years. Combined. That's a long, long time. 

David is TRG's Head of Brand Strategy while Christ...

If Hiring Strategists Were Easy, Anybody Could Do It - Brinn Phillips, Dino Demopoulous from 2022-05-26T10:30:03

Strategy bosses say it’s hard to find good talent right now. 

Recent pressure on margins and growth has meant that many strategy bosses are torn between their roles in the management...

Was The Trip To The Super Bowl Worth It? Expedia & Vrbo Marketers Weigh In. - Chandreyi Davis and Melissa Peace from 2022-05-23T10:42

It's not every day you get to launch a campaign at the Super Bowl. And it's not every day you get to speak to the people who did it.  This episode of Sweathead is an edited recording of a live pane...

The Twisted Reality of Strategy Bosses - Monologue from 2022-05-19T21:10:02

Strategy bosses are humans, too. It's true. 

In this episode, we run through ten tensions that follow around most strategy bosses from an analysis of over 60 responses to a LinkedIn ...

Strategy Practice with Karan Taneja and Syed Shozab Abbas - Five Attempts At The Four Points from 2022-05-16T13:35:48

Strategists Karan Taneja and Syed Shozab Abbas recently shared a bunch of practice strategies online. In this episode, we look at five of them:

1. Selling Playstation 5 to 45+ dads in...
   Listen

Are You Trying To Sound Like A Strategist Or Are You Trying To Sound Clear? - Bedside Monologue from 2022-05-12T21:31:35

If you'd like to read this episode, go to this link: https://www.instagram.com/p/CdbxeOTpGg0/

My first in-person masterclass will happen in NYC on Thursday June 16. DM me for details or g...

The New Era of Multicultural Strategy - Sahar Mehdi and Kate Endeley from 2022-05-09T10:41:03

In this week's episode of Sweathead, we speak with Sahar Mehdi (Digital Strategist, WE Codeword) and Kate Endeley (VP, Multicultural Strategy Director, Edelman). We continue a conversation we st...

Building An Agency As Your Country Glitches - Kavinda Welagedara, CSO from 2022-05-02T12:57:33

Kavinda Welagedara is Chief Strategy Officer at Fudge, an eight-person agency born during the pandemic. He's based in Colombo, Sri Lanka, a city and a country in the grips of social unrest due t...

Crossing Borders - Applying For Overseas Advertising Jobs from 2022-04-25T09:53

Over 100 people joined us for this panel about getting jobs overseas. It features: - Payal Pereira who recently got her first job in New York at Sylvain,  - Rodrigo Maroni, CSO of Wunderman Thomp...

When Are We Done? A Note About Strategic Rigor And Job Titles - Walk And Talk, Dallas (fixed it!) from 2022-04-16T00:54:58

Shoutouts to all the Dallas strategists who came down to Happiest Hour last night. It was great to be among people for many reasons including how the pandemic made that impossible for a long long t...

Put Some Art Into Your Strategy - Harriet Kindleysides, Senior Strategist from 2022-04-11T10:11

Harriet Kindleysides is Senior Strategist at Nice and Serious in the UK. She also writes a newsletter called 'A Strategist’s Guide to Art' in which she connects her love for fine art to her strateg...

Handling Major Strategy Career Shifts - Ben Culpin, Managing Partner from 2022-04-04T09:00

Ben Culpin is a managing partner at Amsterdam agency Lifely. He turned in a 5-year freelance strategy career to join a company he knew well - as a freelancer and also as friends. Prior to this, ...

What I Wish I Knew About Brand Strategy Ten Years Ago - Marcelo Ferrarini, The Lego Group from 2022-03-28T11:00

Marcelo Ferrarini is a Brazilian in London working for The Lego Group as Senior Manager, Global Insights. 

Recently, he published an article on LinkedIn that later made its way to WA...

Selling Party Goods During Lockdown - Sweathead Accelerator Work With Senior Strategist Taylor Marks from 2022-03-21T13:36:18

Taylor Marks is a senior strategist at SixSpeed in Minneapolis. Taylor completed the very first public Sweathead Strategy Accelerator in 2021. I liked her work and wanted to share it with you. (...

Staying Strong For Ukraine - Nata Zaharova, Valeria Tymotievych, Andriy Nimkovych from 2022-03-16T15:59:49

Immediately after speaking with Philipp Paster on Friday, March 11, 2022 (the episode before this one), I spoke with three more Ukrainians about their experience of the war they're living throug...

Life Two Weeks Into War In Kyiv, Ukraine - Philipp Paster, former brand strategist at TBWA Ukraine from 2022-03-14T05:00

Sweathead Facebook group member Philipp Paster lives in Kyiv, Ukraine. Much of his family is there, too. But everyone lives in different apartments. 

On Friday, March 11, Philipp (fo...

Life Two Weeks Into War In Kyiv, Ukraine - Philipp Paster from 2022-03-14T05:00

Sweathead Facebook group member Philipp Paster lives in Kyiv, Ukraine. Much of his family is there, too. But everyone lives in different apartments. On Friday, March 11, Philipp spoke with me about...

Lessons From The First Eight Months Of A Strategy Job - Günel Sadigova, Strategist from 2022-03-07T12:00

Günel Sadigova is eight months into her first strategy role. A pandemic strategy baby (if that's a thing), Günel was once a professional pianist. She then moved into marketing and, now, into a j...

Advice For Your First Strategy Job - Plus 8 Strategy Career Questions Answered from 2022-02-28T16:15:53

"Any advice for my first strategy job?" is a big question. In this episode, I try to answer it along with eight other questions, including:

- Can you get promoted too soon?

- How d...

What People Don’t Understand About Strategists - Pilar McQuirter, Cultural Strategy Director from 2022-02-21T11:00

Strategy is an odd job. It’s doused in ambiguity and riddled with confusion while sounding important at all times.

This is why we brought in Pilar McQuirter. Pilar is a Cultural Strategy ...

Trends Worth Your Attention In 2022 - Chike Ume, Hayley Grant, and Matt Klein from 2022-02-14T11:00

So. Many. Trends. But what's really worth our attention? 

In this episode of Sweathead, Chike Ume (Essence, Seattle), Hayley Grant (VaynerMedia, New York), and Matt Klein (Reddit, Ne...

Eight Things New Strategists Will Know Once They’re Old Strategists from 2022-02-10T16:38:30

The strategy career has been kind to me. Frustrating but kind. And I hope it’s kind to you.

I often get this question, “Any advice for someone new to strategy?” It’s a grabby question. ...

The Linearity Lie - Why Planning Is A Necessarily Messy Process - Nick Hirst, adam&eveDDB from 2022-02-07T11:00

Nick Hirst is Executive Strategy Director at adam&eveDDB in London. He's twenty years into his planning career. He's been at adam&eveDDB for eight years and spent some of them as Head of...

From Burnout To Making Decisions About Where And How To Live - Pooja Munshi, UN Environment Programme from 2022-01-31T12:00

Pooja Munshi is Head of Web, Data Analysis, and Digital Transformation at the UN Environment Programme. She's based in Nairobi, Kenya, but she's lived and/or worked in Paris, Berlin, London, Del...

Strategy While Exhausted - Solo Chat from 2022-01-24T16:58:06

In this episode I run you through some recent student work from the Sweathead Strategy Accelerator (thanks to Colin Craig from Moon Rabbit) as well as ten tips about doing strategy while exhaust...

From Full-Time Rapper to Full-Time Strategist - Rakaa Taylor, Dilated Peoples from 2022-01-17T12:00

In today's Sweathead episode, Rakaa Taylor shares with us how he made the leap from being a rapper, musician, and artist to being a full-time strategist. He draws parallels between songwriting a...

Leading with Instinct - Ambika Pai, Chief Strategy Officer from 2022-01-10T12:00

In today's Sweathead episode, Ambika Pai teaches us what Instinctual Leadership is and why it is important for leaders and managers to learn how to lead with instinct. She also discusses the typ...

15 Strategy Questions Answered - Walk and Talk, Central Park (bye bye 2021) from 2021-12-31T17:47:19

Last episode of 2021! We discuss why creatives might dislike a strategist, what to do as the only creative strategist in a team, why “right” doesn’t matter, and how to turn despair into creativity....

Strategy In A Culturally Fluent Way - Dr Anastasia Karklina Gabriel, Brand Consultant from 2021-12-20T17:34:10

In today's Sweathead episode, Anastasia Karklina Gabriel talks about cultural intelligence and how it can affect brand strategy. She discusses how difficult it is to grapple with diversity, incl...

20 Creative Brief Writing Tips - Will Humphrey, Strategy Director from 2021-12-14T15:20:17

"Thou shalt not cut and paste the client brief."
"No brief is an island."
"Show the tension in the strategy."
"Share it with the creatives."

In today's Sweathead episode, Will...

Beating Isolation through ISOLATED Talks - Giles Edwards, Creative Director from 2021-12-09T08:00

In today's Sweathead episode, Giles Edwards shares with us how ISOLATED Talks was born during the early days of the pandemic to help people, both in and out of the strategy world, cope with cris...

Leading Strategy In A Social Media Agency - Rob Engelsman, Head of Strategy & Relevance from 2021-12-06T19:58:24

What is it like to lead the strategy team in a social media agency right now? How can brands capitalize on social media platforms without just spraying content everywhere and praying for it to w...

The Psychology of Zine-Makers - Clint Johns, Cognitive Psychologist from 2021-12-02T11:00

In today's Sweathead episode, Dr. Clint Johns takes us on a nostalgic trip back to the heyday of magazines, particularly at Tower Records. Clint shares his experiences working at the forefront o...

The Mission To Become A Full-Time Strategist - Itumeleng Ndaba, Art Director from 2021-11-25T11:00

In today's Sweathead episode, Itumeleng Ndaba tells us how she got inspired to take up a career in advertising as an art director. She also discusses her five-year plan to become a full-time strate...

Doing Strategy For Good...Social Good - Penny Norman, Senior Strategist from 2021-11-23T21:15:23

In this episode of Sweathead, Penny Norman talks about her journey from working in account planning and startup strategy to focusing her strategy work in the niche of social good. She discusses ...

Newish To Creative Briefs? Welcome To The Mess...Uhh, Fun - Esther Wang, Strategist from 2021-11-18T13:42:57

Esther Wang is two years into her strategy career. We recently spoke in a Sweathead Happy Hour (online) about creative briefs–How do you make them good? How do make them better? How do make them...

Creativity in Marketing - Karl Isaac, Fractional Chief Brand and Marketing Officer from 2021-11-15T12:00

Are marketers allergic to creativity? How do bold ideas thrive in huge international companies? How can creatives work within a systematic, data-driven company or agency? All these questions and...

Resilience - Walk And Talk, Central Park from 2021-11-12T16:08:57

A brief word about resilience while walking Central Park. Plus a bunch of questions from Instagram answered: What's a creative strategist? What skills will a strategist need in the future? What ...

How The Creative Brief Writer Matures - Solo Chat from 2021-11-03T15:41:37

A quick episode about how strategists mature. But also a brief chat about sleep and exhaustion.

**

Find us at http://www.sweathead.com

@sweathead: http://www.instagram.com/s...

How One CEO Has Led Their Agencies Through A Global Pandemic - Heeru Dingra, CEO, Isobar Group India from 2021-10-28T15:12:39

In this Sweathead episode, Heeru Dingra talks about the challenges she has faced as a CEO managing three agencies in the midst of a global pandemic. She also discusses her experiences of being a wo...

CEO 101: Getting Inside the Head of a CEO - Sara Tate, former CEO of TBWA\London from 2021-10-25T13:50:01

In this Sweathead episode, Sara Tate talks about her experience as the CEO of TBWA\London and the valuable lessons that she learned from being the head of one of the top 10 marketing and communi...

Strategy is Everywhere, But Where Do I Go To Do It? - Lydia Taylor, Freelance Strategy Lead from 2021-10-21T21:33:57

In this Sweathead episode, Lydia Taylor talks about the many places where strategy lives -- may it be in agencies, within startups, on the client side, or at a social media platforms, to name a ...

How Running a Small Business Helps in Account Planning - Ben Kuria Mburu, Strategy Director from 2021-10-19T13:05:44

In this Sweathead episode, Ben Mburu takes us behind the scenes of several of his small businesses in Kenya. An account planner by profession, Ben believes that owning a small business helps him...

Strategy Questions You Have In Your Mind Lead To Answers From My Mouth - Over 10 Of Your Questions Answered from 2021-10-16T11:00

How do you start a new job without showing your impostor syndrome?

How can you grow into a strategy director at an agency?

How can you work in another country without having to sta...

Brandsplaining–Why Most Marketing to Women Doesn't Understand Women - Jane Cunningham and Philippa Roberts, PLH Research from 2021-10-14T16:16:56

In this episode, Jane Cunningham and Philippa Roberts talk about marketing to women–how it's historically been and how it's been changing. We discuss sexism in marketing, corporate feminism, fem...

The Life-Affirming Nature Of Strategy Work - Direct From A WeWork Phone Booth On W25th St from 2021-10-13T16:07:42

A brief and gentle episode about the privileges of a strategy career. 

If you'd like this episode as an Instagram post, it's here: https://www.instagram.com/p/CU58pAbgQ-b/

***...

Bullying in Agencies - Colleen Merwick, Strategy Director from 2021-10-11T13:03:14

In this episode of Sweathead, Colleen Merwick talks about her experiences as the target of workplace bullying. She takes us through three experiences in three different companies and explains how s...

How Would You Sell IKEA To Architects? - Live Strategy with Ana Škorić from 2021-10-09T15:30:44

Over on Instagram, we often do strategy together. I'll ask for suggestions of brands and audiences. Then we'll run through some simple exercises to arrive at a Four Points. 

It's pla...

The Shift From Agency To Tech Platform - Tatiana Peck, Facebook Creative Shop from 2021-10-05T14:27:31

In this Sweathead episode, Tatiana Peck voices what many of us have been experiencing in this pandemic—burnout, mourning the loss of self and identity, and being plunged into totally different r...

The 4Cs, Get/To/By, And The Four Points (Plus 1 Million Listens!) from 2021-10-01T16:51:17

Massive thanks for helping us reach one-million listens. Yes, it's just a number but it sounds good and you can say "one million" like the bad guy in Austin Powers. Thank you to everyone who's l...

The Proust Questionnaire But For Brands - Parker Mason, Strategy Consultant from 2021-09-23T23:48:16

What is your greatest fear? What is your most marked characteristic? Who are your heroes in real life? In this Sweathead episode with Parker Mason, we discuss the Proust Questionnaire and how Pa...

Sexual Harassment In Advertising - Amanda Rue from 2021-09-20T04:32:54

Amanda Rue is a business consultant, facilitator, and the founder of The Shift Work Shop, a human resource consultancy offering consent-forward sexual harassment prevention and training. With over ...

Without A Problem, You Don’t Have A Strategy - Rodrigo Maroni, Crispin Porter + Bogusky Brazil from 2021-09-16T23:48:46

What role does linguistics play in strategy work and in everyday life? What exactly is a problem? Is there really a right or a wrong way to deal with a problem? We are discussing all these and more...

Fast Wit: How Stand-up Comedy and Rap Can Help a Strategy Career - Asha Davis, Strategist from 2021-09-07T13:13:52

Inspirations on strategy can come from surprising places. In Asha's case, it's stand-up comedy and rap. She takes us through the power of words and fast wit, and how her experiences as a comedia...

Fast Wit: How Stand-up Comedy and Rap Can Help a Strategy Career from 2021-09-07T13:13:52

Inspirations on strategy can come from surprising places. In Asha's case, it's stand-up comedy and rap. She takes us through the power of words and fast wit, and how her experiences as a comedia...

Dear Strategy Bosses, Here Are Seven Things Your Strategists Want Right Now from 2021-09-02T22:06:50

We are about to reboot. New interviews are coming. Sweathead is now on Instagram here: http://www.instagram.com/sweathead And if you’d like to find out more about our first strategy conference The ...

How To Use Principles, First Principles, And Problems To Have Ideas - Walk And Talk, Central Park from 2021-07-14T12:40:34

Also I answer 15 questions from Instagram stories (@markpollard), tell you about The Sweathead Do-Together and give you four book recommendations. I hope you’re doing okay out there. Find us at htt...

10 Lessons From Some Of The World's Most Effective Advertising Strategists - Fergus O'Carroll, On Strategy Showcase Host from 2021-05-31T19:18:41

What do you learn from interviewing some of the world's best advertising strategists and account planners about their agency's best work?

Fergus O'Carroll hosts the On Strategy Showcase p...

How 550 Strategists Are Feeling Right Now - Part 1 (Plus The Sweathead Do-Together Speakers) from 2021-05-25T21:53:07

In this episode, I download you about the first three findings from the recent Sweathead Feelings Check-In Survey. These are:

1. They appreciate the job and the money but they have questi...

How To Get The Advertising Industry To Understand You - Fabiola Nguembu, Account Planner from 2021-05-04T17:41:26

How do you get the advertising industry and your clients to understand what you bring to the table? 

Fabiola Nguembu is an account planner and researcher in Dakar, Senegal. She is on...

Screenplay Techniques For Your Next Presentation - Victor Pineiro, CD & Author from 2021-04-27T21:39:22

What if your next presentation wasn't fifty slides of numbers followed by fifty slides of tactics? What if you could present your thinking within a story structure? Victor Pineiro knows stories. He...

How Insights From Outsiders Are Useful - Erika Brenner, The Outsights from 2021-04-23T12:45:09

How are the insights of outsiders useful and how can outsiders find anything more than a stereotype?

Erika Brenner has worked as a planner and insights manager, and now works in marketing...

If Your Research Is Boring How Can Anybody Use It? - Gunny Scarfo, Ben Zeidler, Nonfiction from 2021-04-20T13:00:33

How much of the research that brands commission ever gets used? And isn't that the point?

Gunny Scarfo and Ben Zeidler set up Nonfiction Research in 2018 to do research in an unafraid way...

Not Starting From Scratch When You Respond to 1000s Of Marketing Briefs Per Year - Nick Susi, Complex from 2021-04-13T13:32:57

When you respond to thousands of briefs in a year, how do you not start from scratch every day?

Nick Susi is Head of Strategy at Complex Collective, a group that sits in the Complex media...

How Side Projects Help You (Especially When Snoop Dogg Is Your First Customer) - Jesse Nicely, Strategist and Entrepreneur from 2021-04-08T13:15:24

Side projects don't have to be side hustles - but what's the point of them? Jesse Nicely is a Group Strategy Director at Cashmere in Los Angeles.  After studying psychology and journalism at NYU an...

The Story That Wasn't Told - Why The Dark Places Are So Ripe For Research And Strategy - Lindsey Wehking, Investigative Strategist from 2021-04-06T13:58:11

Why is it so uncomfortable for marketers and agencies to delve into dark emotions?

Lindsey Wehking is an Associate Director of Strategy at Nonfiction Research. She recently led research i...

Missing People – Advertising Isn’t Working If The People Making It Don’t Reflect Reality, Gavin Barrett, Derek Walker from 2021-03-30T16:30:09

Black, indigenous, and racialized minorities are barely visible in the advertising industries in North America, which is where we are going to situate this conversation. We’ll situate it here becau...

Strategists, Can You Bake In Your Value Or Do You Constantly Have To Prove It? - Ilana Bryant, The American from 2021-03-24T12:59:59

Ever been hired to a strategy or account planning job only to arrive in the company and they don't know what it is, they aren't sure they want it, and they make you justify your existence every ...

Mental Wellness Is Not An Initiative That Excuses Poor Advertising Agency Work Practices from 2021-03-22T17:31:31

Dear advertising agencies, mental wellness is not an initiative you can use to wish away cultures and processes that are not mentally healthy. What makes an agency culture mentally healthy? 1. A s...

Do Management Consultancies Solve The Chunkiest Problems? - Michaeljon (MJ) Alexander-Scott, Fjord from 2021-03-18T13:34:07

If you hunger to solve toothy problems, where can you even do that work right now?

Many agencies talk a good game when it comes to solving problems only to put the brains fiending to do s...

When Opportunity Knocks After You Flare Out Of An Agency - Brinn Phillips, Strategist from 2021-03-15T15:19:10

How does it feel to leave a 5-year-career but then to flare out of the new agency that you join in a matter of months? And what if the flaring out really helps you work out what you want in life...

Newish To Hiring? Here's How It Feels And How To Approach It - Nicole Rajesky, Senior Strategist from 2021-03-11T13:30:54

You're about to interview your first potential hire, how on earth do you feel right now?

In this chat with Nicole Rajesky, we discuss the journey from not hiring to hiring.

Nicole ...

Advertising Freelancers, If You're Trying To Build Your Own Business, Listen To This - Brandon Williams, Strategist from 2021-03-08T16:51:10

If you're a freelancer exchanging time for money, and chasing invoices while trying to explain to people what value you can really bring, how could setting up a company help you? Brandon Williams r...

When The Idea Counts The Most, Process Might Just Count The Least - Genevieve Grandsen, Selma Ahmed, Will Grundy from adam&eveDDB from 2021-03-03T06:00

Ever worked in a company that fusses with process and organizational charts but never makes good work? Yeah. The question houses the truth, doesn't it?

Genevieve Grandsen, Selma Ahmed, an...

How Advertising Happens At One Of The World's Best Agencies - Richard Brim (CCO), Martin Beverley (CSO) from 2021-03-01T06:00

How does one of the world's best agencies–adam&eveDDB-work? The teams of Chief Creative Officer Rick Brim and Chief Strategy Officer Martin Beverley are responsible for some of the UK's most famous...

Calling B.S. On Your Own Strategy Work - Rachel Bateast, Strategy VP from 2021-02-26T17:09:34

Why are you so caught up in being accurate instead of compelling? And that 100-slide deck–can anybody even use it?

Rachel Bateast is VP, Strategic Planning, at The Mars Agency in Detroit,...

15 Things That Need Saying After Interviewing 300 Strategists–Sweathead Third Anniversary Special from 2021-02-25T20:10:29

So, you've interviewed over 300 strategists from around the world and spoken with thousands more... what aren't we talking about enough?

In this episode published on the third anniversary...

How Feedback And Reviews Can Help Big Teams Do Even Better Work - Aly Baer, John Lee @ Twitter Next from 2021-02-22T06:00

Let's say you have one hundred team members spread across the world. They work on thousands of briefs for massive brands every year. Often, they have to reach great ideas within a matter of days...

Turn That Observation Into An Insight–7 Ways To Stumble Your Way There from 2021-02-17T20:04:22

You have reams of research in your head but you need to whittle everything in your head into an insight fast–what do you do?

In this episode of Sweathead, I share a few steps I like to us...

How The M&C Saatchi Group's Employee-Led Diversity And Inclusion Network Works - Tanya Brown, Simi Nijher from 2021-02-15T12:46:53

Advertising agencies have responded to pleas to open their doors to people from different backgrounds in different ways. Some have resisted the pleas, some have faltered in public, and others ha...

19 Trends In 19 Minutes Plus An Attempt To Make Takeshi's Castle A New Trend - Matt Klein, Director Of Strategy from 2021-02-11T06:30

What's the point of all the trend reports? What's the point of trends? And how do you use trends anyway? Matt Klein is Director of Strategy at sparks & honey but he's also into cultural theory and ...

What People Who Watch The Super Bowl For The Ads Thought About Super Bowl 2021's Ads #PlannerBowl from 2021-02-09T00:21:33

So, what did account planners make of this year's Super Bowl ads?

#PlannerBowl is a hashtag that account planners and strategists use to talk to each other about Super Bowl ads as they wa...

With Your Next Creative Brief, Linger On The Problem. Then Use It. from 2021-02-03T16:31:15

Problems can fix creative briefs. But how can something broken make something else work?   In this mini lesson, I define the word "problem" as I use it in advertising strategy (or account planning)...

30 Minutes To A Greyhound-Adoption Campaign Strategy - Cait Dorombozo, Graphic Designer from 2021-01-29T03:25:50

How would you get people to adopt a greyhound? Cait Dorombozo is a graphic designer in Brisbane, Australia. She keeps house with two greyhounds and is trying to come up with ways to get more people...

The Power Of Provocative Thinking - Hugh Munro, Head of Planning from 2021-01-26T16:09:10

What does it mean to do provocative thinking and why is it easier to do it for brands than for ourselves? Hugh Munro is Head of Planning at one of Australia's most prolific agencies The Monkeys, an...

Research - But Not As You Know It - Ashley Lapin, Kaitlin Moon from 2021-01-19T16:32:06

How do you conduct useful research? Simple question, right? At Current Forward, a research and brand strategy consultancy in Austin, Texas, Ashley Lapin and Kaitlin Moon spend their working lives t...

Is It Me Or Is This Company Toxic? - Emma Siu, Thiago Bersou from 2021-01-15T18:02:23

What do you do when where you work is hurting you? This episode was a livestream within the Sweathead Facebook group.  We discuss working at toxic companies. - Is it you? - Is it the company? - Wh...

Playing Your Strategy Cards Right - Jye Smith, Strategy Card Maker from 2021-01-12T14:07:08

What happens when you draw a card from a strategy card deck and apply it to your life? Jye Smith runs Double Star in Sydney. He recently made a deck of strategy cards called "Strategy Action Deck: ...

The Different Shapes Of Strategy Careers - Serena Berra, Monica Duran, Matilde Ricon Peres from 2020-12-28T16:51:47

What shapes can a strategy career take? This episode was a livestream from the Sweathead Facebook group. In it, we discuss what shapes strategy careers can take.  Our guests: 1. Serena Berra is a ...

A Strategist Who Writes Or A Writer Who Does Strategy? - Claire Strickett, Strategist and Author from 2020-12-22T00:46:53

What if you think you're a strategist who happens to write but you're really a writer who happens to do strategy? Claire Strickett is a senior planner at one of the world's best agencies adam&eveDD...

What Do You Want? - Libby Swan, Anjali Ramachandran, Grace Steite from 2020-12-17T14:44:37

What are your desires, goals, and cravings? In this episode, Libby Swan takes over as host and brings four of us together to discuss our desires. Grace Steite is Head of Program Management at Squar...

A Debrief About The Sweathead Facebook Group - Stephen Yap, CEO, Jam!Research from 2020-12-15T14:08:58

What do the 15,000 people in the Sweathead Facebook Group think about working in advertising and dealing with each other online? 2020 managed to infect the community with rage and frustration so, a...

Sonic Branding - Strategy For Your Ears - Steve Keller, Pandora from 2020-12-10T15:07:37

How do you help a brand stay in someone's mind by going through their ears? Steve Keller is Sonic Strategy Director at Pandora. Pandora has over 60 million active users per month and is worth a few...

Ladies Who Strategize - Anita Schillhorn van Veen, Director of Strategy from 2020-12-07T15:09:31

Why are networks for women in advertising needed and how do they work? Anita Schillhorn van Veen is Director of Strategy at McKinney LA. Anita is also on the leadership team of Ladies Who Strategiz...

How Company Culture Makes Strategy Work - Or Not - Hilton Barbour, VP Marketing from 2020-12-02T14:27:11

Can companies change? If so, how? Hilton is VP of Marketing at Cognitive. He was born in Zimbabwe but he's worked in the UK, the USA, and Canada. And he was a founding member of the Account Planni...

Shifting Between Advertising And Marketing - Dmitry Grobov, Kalyan Ram from 2020-11-24T16:18:46

"Should I work in advertising or marketing or something else?" In this episode, we discuss what it's like to shift from advertising to marketing - and back. Challapalli Kalyan Ram is based in Mumba...

Shaking Shit Up - How Order And Chaos Can Work Together - Chuck Welch, CSO from 2020-11-19T15:32:03

How do you get clients to shake shit up when the world already seems shook up enough? Chuck Welch is CSO of Rupture Studio, a company he runs with his MBA-awarded wife Nandi. It's a mom-and-pop bus...

When The Strategist Decides To Make A Product - George Crichlow, Product Maker from 2020-11-13T15:42:02

What does the journey from doing strategy for other people's brands to making your own product look like? Brooklyn's George Crichlow made $250,000 selling bamboo hats in high school. This bought hi...

The Paths Taken By Beautiful Thinkers - Carolyn Hadlock, ECD from 2020-11-10T19:03:33

Do creative lives happen in straight lines? Carolyn Hadlock is Executive Creative Director at Indianapolis's Young & Laramore. She does creative work but, as part of doing that creative work, Caro...

Strategy In A Large Digital Agency - Grant Owens, Strategy Boss from 2020-11-02T14:55:58

What do strategists do and where do they fit in a large digital agency? Based in New York, Grant Owens is Global Chief Strategy Officer of Critical Mass. He's had the role for over five years and ...

Moving Around The Agency World - Jess Mireau, Strategy Leader from 2020-10-29T08:20:29

What do different roles such as user experience designer, strategist, and managing director have in common - and what's the real work involved with doing these roles well? Jess Mireau is a strateg...

Talking To People In Power - Vince Usher, Max Learmont from 2020-10-27T16:45:17

How do you get people with power to talk? Vince and Max host the podcast Son Of A Pitch from Sydney, Australia. Vince works as a strategist in advertising; Max used to. They've interviewed many age...

Why The Advertising Industry Needs You - Vanessa Toro, Group Strategy Director from 2020-10-22T13:05:38

If you wanted to tell the truth to a group of students eyeing advertising careers, what would you tell them? Vanessa Toro is Group Strategy Director at Digitas North America. She's based in Atlanta...

Life After A Strategy Career - Part 1 - Ian Crocombe, Jackie Crynes, Carlos Hermida from 2020-10-20T13:54:40

Strategists can take many shapes but what do those shapes look like outside of a full-time agency? This episode is from a livestream in the Sweathead Facebook group. It features Ian Crocombe, Jacki...

"I Don't Know Who I Am" - When An Advertising Career Loses Itself - Philip Slade from 2020-10-15T13:21:09

What happens when a creative career leads to a self-destructive life? Philip Slade went from Mac Operator at famed music magazine Smash Hits to art director at Saatchi & Saatchi then to creative di...

Going Freelance - Where Is That Exactly? Part 2 - Tasha Prados, Lexie Perez, Greg Donnelly from 2020-10-13T15:21:22

What's it like to freelance? This episode is from a livestream in the Sweathead Facebook group. It features Tasha Prados, Lexie Perez, and Greg Donnelly. We discuss: - The mindset shift from being ...

From Social Strategy To "Strategy" Strategy - Blake Desormeaux, Strategist from 2020-10-08T23:04:53

How do you graduate from "doing social" to doing strategy? Blake is a digital strategist from New York who entered advertising after a brief flirtation with neuroscience.   In this episode, we disc...

Planner Of The Year - Andy Nairn, CSO from 2020-10-06T13:55:28

How does the Strategic Planner of the Year think? Andy Nairn co-founded Lucky Generals in London seven years ago. The agency has grown to ninety people in London and now has twenty people in New Yo...

Taking Stances - Jenny Chang, Strategist from 2020-10-02T13:06:18

What does it feel like to take a stance about a difficult topic and to let it rip in public? Jenny Chang is a comet roaring through space–a comet that likes the wind in its face. That's how her pro...

Am I Making Sense Yet? - Richard Huntington, Chairman and CSO from 2020-09-29T17:53:39

What if account planners get paid for their confusion and clarity is fleeting but just a bonus?   Richard Huntington is Chief Strategy Officer and Chairman of Saatchi & Saatchi London. He's also a ...

Going Freelance - Where Is That Exactly? Part 1 - Colleen Berg, Lani Dourado, Willem van der Horst from 2020-09-26T13:31:44

How do you know you're ready to freelance and how do you make it work?  In this episode, we speak with Colleen Berg, Lani Dourado, and Willem van der Horst about what it means to freelance, the ups...

Discovering Yourself - If A Self Is A Thing from 2020-09-24T17:08:21

It’s been a minute but here’s a ramble from an Upper West Side bedroom about discovering yourself. PS My book just came out - http://www.sweathead.com

Opting Out To Opt Back In - Jennifer Ekeleme, Strategist from 2020-09-23T13:11:12

What if you know you have something to offer to the advertising industry but the advertising industry isn't set up for you?  Jennifer Ekeleme runs JennZen Co-Creation Studio. She is a brand and cre...

How Advertising Bro Culture Hurts Non-Bros - Megan Averell, Boss (Republish) from 2020-08-21T16:23:05

Megan and I had this chat in the middle of 2019. I'm republishing it along with other episodes that tackle difficult topics because 2020 seems to have woken up a lot of us. But there's still work t...

Getting Interviewed When You’re A Background Player - Zac Martin, Strategist from 2020-08-20T14:42:38

Zac Martin is a senior planner at Ogilvy in Melbourne. We discuss getting. interviewed and being in the spotlight when you’re not used to it and how Australian culture is suspicious of it.  You can...

Get In Where You Fit In (Or Make A Thing To Fit You) - Zoe Scaman, Strategist (Republished) from 2020-08-06T22:07:18

Over the summer, I'm going to republish a few episodes from over a year ago. This one features Zoe Scaman. It's direct, honest, and vulnerable, and delves into the challenges many creative minds fa...

The Soft Skills Of Brand Strategy - Stef Hamerlinck from 2020-07-27T23:15:32

Stef Hamerlinck runs the podcast Let's Talk Branding in which Stef publicly documents his own journey to learning about brand strategy in a deeper way while coming from a design background. In this...

What's Happening To My Career? - Colin Lewis, CMO from 2020-07-22T14:56:26

Recently in Marketing Week, Colin Lewis wrote, "Careers won’t pick up where they left off." Colin believes the recruitment process is broken, age discrimination will continue to rise, employers tal...

Strategizing While Black - Melle Hock, Strategy Boss (Republished) from 2020-07-02T14:11:58

Melle and I recorded this interview almost a year ago to the day. Having briefly worked with Melle, I can say that she is a powerful force, deeply compassionate, and excellent at what she does.  We...

How Do You Do Good Creative Work In America? - Jon Haber, Co-founder from 2020-06-30T20:55:15

Jon Haber is Co-founder of Giant Spoon, a well respected, fully integrated agency based in Los Angeles. We discuss how Giant Spoon goes about its award-winning work and how to stay active during qu...

Find Your Place In Advertising - Lizi Hamer, Creative Leader from 2020-06-26T14:37:26

Lizi Hamer is Regional Creative Director at Octagon in Singapore, where she also runs SheSays. She's appeared on the television show Gruen Transfer, she's been listed in the Top 20 Women in Asia to...

How Strategists’ Attitudes Mature Over Time - Will Humphrey, Strategy Director from 2020-06-23T18:31:28

Will Humphrey is Strategy Director at Wunderman Thompson in London. He grew up in an advertising family and he’s worked in a variety of agencies with various focuses - from advertising to PR. In th...

Helping Clients Through Crisis - Rachel Mercer, Strategy Head from 2020-06-19T14:21:25

Rachel Mercer is Head of Strategy at R/GA New York. About one month into New York getting closed down (April 2020), we spoke about what it was like to try to help an agency and its clients deal wit...

Moving Into A Strategy Role From Inside An Agency - Sheldon Tarpey, Strategist from 2020-06-17T17:22:44

Sheldon Tarpey is a strategist at McCann in Birmingham in England. In this episode, we discuss how Sheldon made his way into a strategy role from inside McCann. And we discuss the importance of pro...

The Urge To Make - Ani Acopian, Conceptual Artist from 2020-06-15T20:29:38

Ani Acopian makes. She makes ideas that use all their might to capture the attention of the Internet. From Amazon Dating (a website where you can shop for a date), Scrubhub (Pornhub but for cleanin...

What A Really Creative Culture Sounds Like - Ben Liebmann, Noma COO from 2020-06-11T15:37:28

Noma is one of the world's most famous restaurants. Based in Copenhagen and founded by René Redzepi, creativity is at the heart of Noma's ethos - in words and in action.  Ben Liebmann is the Chief ...

Antiracism Is The Start - Walk And Talk, Central Park from 2020-06-09T21:48:29

A brief word about race and the recent energy of the Sweathead Facebook group. Thank you to everyone who’s been teaching the community and me about the history and the present. This week, we’ll lau...

Young, Broke, And Hungry - The Advertising Industry And Its Juniors - Mickey Jones, Copywriter from 2020-05-29T14:17:43

Mickey Jones is a graduate from the University of Lincoln. Like many of her peers, she's trying to get into the advertising industry. In England, this can mean trying to get a job in London. But, b...

Practicing Insights With Movies - Charlie Quirk, Strategist from 2020-05-27T19:30:39

Charlie Quirk is a strategist at Google in San Francisco. Recently, he published a deck that looked at 50 movies as a way to practice insights.  You can find the deck here: http://charlie-quirk.com...

“Right” Isn’t Useful - Walk And Talk, Central Park from 2020-05-25T19:16:48

Summer Camp! http://courses.sweathead.co

Planning In Paris - Sebastien Genty, Strategy Boss from 2020-05-23T14:43:25

Sabastien Genty is Head of Strategic Planning at DDB in Paris. Recently, he cofounded CPS, an organization to support planning and planners (but not just planners) in Paris. In this chat, we discus...

5 Tech Trends That Interest Gracie Page, Emerging Tech Director from 2020-05-20T18:33:40

Gracie Page is Director of Emerging Technology at VMLY&R in London. In this episode, we discuss five technology trends that Gracie is currently studying - augmented reality, just walkout technology...

Employee Engagement And Employer Brand Strategy - Rhiannon Stroud, Strategy Boss from 2020-05-18T13:38:14

Rhiannon Stroud is Head of Strategy at McCann Synergy in Bristol. She works with companies on how they interact with their employees. It's an interesting field to work in, a field we don't hear muc...

All Of Your Experience Is Valuable - Simeon Coker, Creative Consultant from 2020-05-14T12:58:10

Simeon Coker is a Creative Director. He also makes a podcast called Mixed Company. A big part of Simeon's work is helping brands and agencies make creative work that is inclusive and that doesn't o...

A Little Shit On The Internet - @Femalcopywriter from 2020-05-12T22:10:34

@Femalcopywriter is an anonymous Internet presence. It’s funny. The person who writes it is funny. And, in this episode, we talk about what’s funny about advertising. But we also discuss some serio...

Healthcare Planning Through COVID-19 - Eric L Hu, Strategist from 2020-05-11T14:54:58

Eric L Hu is VP Strategy and Customer Experience at H4B Chelsea, a healthcare agency that's part of Havas. In this episode, we discuss what strategy work is in healthcare and what clients are askin...

Applying Football Strategy Concepts To Non-Football Strategy - Alex Stewart, Strategist from 2020-05-08T13:06

Alex Stewart is a Senior Content Strategist at The Athletic, which recently acquired Tifo Football. Tifo Football is a football/soccer channel for nerds. It painstakingly breaks down football tacti...

Real Agency Salaries - Cole Habersham from 2020-05-07T14:28

Cole Habersham is an account manager at Droga5 in New York. In late 2019, he published a spreadsheet asking for people to anonymously share their salaries so that he could help friends work out the...

The Full-time Freelance Creative Life - Rebecca Rowntree, Creative Director from 2020-05-05T17:18:17

Rebecca Rowntree hosts the podcast This Way Up and is a freelance Creative Director. She's judged D&AD and Cannes. She's worked at BBDO, R/GA, and The Elephant Room. And, at the time we spoke back ...

When Creatives And Strategists Can Work Together - Greg Hahn, CCO from 2020-05-01T02:24:15

Greg Hahn is one of the world's most prolific and best known creative leaders. Chances are that if you've lived in America–yet alone worked in the advertising industry here–you've seen his work. Or...

How Much Can You Learn In 100 Days Of Strategy Training? - Strategy Summer Camp Starts May 4 from 2020-04-29T20:29:32

Join hundreds of strategists from around the world as a Founding Member of Sweathead. You'll get access to the Sweathead Strategy Summer Camp. It will be weird.  http://courses.sweathead.co/

How To Help Marketers Battle Fear During COVID-19 - Nathan Young, Strategist from 2020-04-28T18:20:34

Nathan Young is Group Strategy Director at Periscope in Minneapolis. Like the rest of us, he used to make a rap blog and, like the rest of us who've made rap blogs, at some point Nathann realized h...

Collecting The World's COVID-19 Reports In One Place - Ci En Lee, Strategist from 2020-04-25T13:15:48

Ci En Lee is a media strategist at PHD Media in Singapore. With the help of friends, Lee has been gathering reports about COVID-19 and storing them in a Google Drive for others to access. He first ...

Solutions Or Self-Righteousness? - Tom Goodwin, Writer from 2020-04-24T18:10:19

Tom Goodwin is Head of Futures at Publicis. We live-streamed this chat into Sweathead on Facebook on Saturday, 11 April, 2020.  We mostly discuss sharing ideas in public - the privilege that often ...

What If You Could Make An Agency From Scratch? - Lucy Jameson, Uncommon from 2020-04-23T05:00

Lucy Jameson has had massive roles - CEO, CSO, and ESD. And she's had these roles at massive London agencies - Grey and DDB. But, despite these massive roles in these massive places, in 2017 she fo...

You. Are. Allowed. Your. Emotions. from 2020-04-21T20:08:53

In this episode, I run through what strategists are sharing about their lives and emotions in the Sweathead Facebook group.  Sweathead strategy classes are in session: http://courses.sweathead.co

The Bedhead Edition - Quarantine Dreams from 2020-04-17T21:32:03

@ me -> http://www.instagram.com/markpollard Sweathead strategy classes are in session: http://courses.sweathead.co

Marketers Are The Frontline Of Creativity In Business - Josh Dean, CMO from 2020-04-16T15:04:19

This might surprise some of you but there are experienced marketers out there who really love creativity. Josh Dean is one of them.  He's been the CMO at S'well (post-plastic bottles and containers...

Covering Advertising - Tim Burrowes, Media Mogul from 2020-04-15T06:00

Tim Burrowes is an editor, a journalist, and an entrepreneur. Having helped to launch Campaign in the Middle East and edited B&T in Sydney, Tim co-founded Mumbrella in 2008. Chances are that if you...

Tell Me The Truth - Derek Walker, Agency Boss from 2020-04-14T13:22:11

Derek Walker runs Brown & Browner Advertising. He enjoys cooking, writing, and taking public pot-shots at the things in the advertising industry that don't make sense. We've spoken on Sweathead bef...

Winning Too Many Strategy Awards - Christina Aventi, Strategy Boss from 2020-04-11T18:52:29

Christina Aventi is Executive Planning Director at BMF Australia. She's probably won more strategy awards than you've had strategy dreams. We discuss her approach to strategy.  You can find Christi...

Strategists Who Bring Together Strategists (Plus Ideas From A COVID-19 Workshop) - Tina Yip, Darien LaBeach, strtgst from 2020-04-09T14:49:06

Tina Yip and Darien LaBeach (with many friends) run strtgst, a community that brings together strategy folk to learn together. By day, Tina is Director of Marketing & Culture at Berlin Cameron in M...

Minneapolis And Teaching Advertising There - Mark Jenson, Lecturer & Consultant from 2020-04-07T13:35:49

Mark Jenson has worked in advertising for over three decades. Currently, he is a brand consultant and also a lecturer at the University of Minnesota Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communicat...

Industry Secrets - Mara Lecocq, Fishbowl from 2020-04-04T04:10:46

Mara Lecocq is Brand and Community Director at Fishbowl, a semi-anonymous platform for people in industries such as ours to ask each other difficult questions. In this episode, we discuss what peop...

Portfolio Review - Payal Pereira, Strategy Student at VCU from 2020-04-03T12:53:32

Payal Pereira is studying strategy at VCU Brand Center. We met in Bombay, India, last year but I came across her portfolio again in a spreadsheet compiled by Aisha Hakim. In this spreadsheet are ov...

Thinking In Systems - Noah Brier, Founder from 2020-04-02T13:27:54

Noah Brier is Co-Founder of Variance, a relatively new company looking to help people work better together. His last venture was Percolate, a content marketing platform many of you will be familiar...

Philosophy for WTF? - Rob Estreitinho, Salmon Theory from 2020-03-30T18:15:56

Rob Estreitinho is a strategist at VCCP in London and he helps make strategy get-together machine Group Think happen. He also publishes Salmon Theory in which he discusses ways of seeing the world,...

How Money Works In Agencies - Darren Woolley, Trinity P3 from 2020-03-26T19:45:34

Darren Woolley is Co-founder and CEO of Trinity P3. He spent 15 years as a copywriter including working as a Creative Director at JWT. Then he decided to help marketers make smarter decisions with ...

Hey, Advertising Industry, Open Up! - Mary Buzbee, Creative from 2020-03-25T19:12:33

Mary Buzbee is a creative at Lewis Communications in Birmingham, Alabama. Recently, she published an article about classism in advertising and how it prevents people who could work in advertising a...

Understanding the World Around You - Leo Nguyen, Strategist from 2020-03-24T01:03:34

Leo Nguyen is a strategist at Stink Studios in Brooklyn. He grew up in Portland, he graduated from the University of Oregon in 2015, he interned in Singapore, and he's wrestled with what it means t...

Your Work Life, Strategy Exercises, And Questions - Sit And Talk, New York from 2020-03-21T20:43:34

In this episode, I share some thoughts about the past couple of weeks, some real talk from a recent Instagram story about your work life and WHAT ARE YOU DOING, as well as run you through 10 strate...

Trying To Feel Better About Yourself, Your Life, And Your Work - Amy Charlotte Kean, Director of Innovation from 2020-03-18T16:43:22

Amy Charlotte Kean is Director of Innovation at &us in the UK. She's led teams in the UK and throughout Asia. But we don't talk too much about this. Instead, we discuss Amy's book "The Little Girl ...

Insights In Everyday Life - Gregory Duquesne, Strategy Head from 2020-03-18T12:00

Gregory Duquesne leads planning at M&CSAATCHI.GAD in Paris having been Managing Partner of Naked. He published a book called "Oeil Neuf" a few years ago in which he demonstrates how a planner's fre...

Fix Your Script - Finding Your Way Into Advertising Using Your Stories - Jani Westcott, Brand Strategist from 2020-03-16T22:28:08

Jani Westcott is a planner who plans to help more people get into planning by giving them new ways to see themselves and to speak about themselves. Essentially, she plans planners. Truth be told, s...

8 Strategy Minds Discuss COVID-19 - Sweathead Check-In from 2020-03-14T12:00

Natalie Burns - Brighton, UK Annalie Killian - New York, USA Sheldon Lawrence Tarpey - Birmingham, UK Jesse Alleva - Alaska, USA Siddharth Seth - Chicago, USA Alexandra Suarez - Puerto Rico D...

Marketing In Turbulent Times - Bruce Clark, Northeastern University from 2020-03-13T19:20:57

Bruce Clark is Associate Professor of Marketing at Northeastern University in the D'Amore-McKim School of Business. This chat happened today - Friday, March 13 - and is unedited. In it, we discuss ...

Finding Your Strategy People - James Lees, Group Think from 2020-03-12T12:59:40

James Lees is a strategist and a co-founder of Group Think in London. With over 1,000 members, Group Think brings together strategy-inclined folk several times each month to learn and to hang out. ...

Introducing Strategists Into A Growing Company - David Navarro, ECD from 2020-03-10T16:39:03

David Navarro is Executive Creative Director at Ueno in New York. He's spent swathes of his career working websites and digital products, and he's done this in Spain, the Netherlands, and the USA. ...

Becoming Who You Are (Despite And Because Of The Industry) - Genie Gurnani, Creative Head from 2020-03-09T15:04:46

Genie Gurnani is Head of Creative, Asia-Pacific, at Vice Media. Genie grew up near Yosemite National Park, a relatively isolated part of the States before then attending UC Berkeley and VCU Brandce...

That Strategy Career Trajectory - How Did You Do That? - Cristina Pansolini, Strategy Lead from 2020-03-06T21:30:59

In my first summer in New York, Cristina Pansolini interned with me and a small new-age strategy clique at Saatchi & Saatchi. She was astute, competitive, and very capable. These traits have taken ...

Is Creativity In Media Agencies Even A Thing? - Tristan Burrell, CSO from 2020-03-04T15:41:25

Tristan Burrell is Chief Strategy Officer at Vizeum in Sydney, Australia. Whenever I've worked with media agencies, there's an echo of my experience working with Tristan in my desires for each medi...

Developing A Portfolio Career - Marcus Collins, Marketing Lecturer from 2020-03-03T19:55:56

Marcus Collins is a marketing lecturer at the University of Michigan's The Ross School of Business. He used to write love songs for a living. He's worked at Translation and Doner, he's run digital ...

Strategy Fundamentals Plus Biggie Or Tupac? - Walk And Talk, Central Park from 2020-02-29T16:32:05

I took about 20 of your questions for a walk after pilates. Now my mind feels like my body. Thank you. http://www.strategymegaclass.com http://www.instagram.com/markpollard

Strategy At Pace: 10 Ideas To Help You Work Faster - Nick Ellis, Paul Bailey from 2020-02-27T21:00

Nick Ellis is cofounder of Bristol agency Halo. Paul Bailey is Halo's strategy director. In this episode, we discuss what it takes to do strategy at pace because, well, that's how most strategy nee...

Griffin Farley's Beautiful Minds Program At BBH in NYC - Haley Gordon, Strategist from 2020-02-26T22:47:15

Haley Gordon is a strategist at BBH in Los Angeles. Part of her attempts to work her way into a strategy role involved attending the BBH Beautiful Minds program, named in honor of a man a lot of us...

Loud Mind, Quiet Voice - Sai He, Copywriter & Dong Draper from 2020-02-25T21:43:11

Sai He is a copywriter and runs the hilarious social media presence Dong Draper. He thinks he’s one of the most introverted people in the industry. I have a hunch a few listeners might contest this...

Communications Planning Basics - Julian Cole, Strategy Consultant from 2020-02-24T15:53:12

Julian and I have just launched Season 2 of The Strategy Megaclass. It's called F**k Yeah Rainbow Cannons. And it's coming to NYC, Chicago, San Francisco, and Seattle in March and April. It's a ful...

Writing Copy, Writing A Book - Clare Barry, Writer from 2020-02-21T07:00

Clare Barry is a copywriter from Liverpool, England. She struck Internet gold with an article titled "Everyone’s a copywriter. Right?" in which she captured the frustrations of many of her peers. N...

Creating A Thriving Creative Department - Justine Armour, CCO from 2020-02-19T17:16:39

Justine Armour started as the Chief Creative Officer of Grey New York this week. Big job, big city, big ambitions. In this episode, we discuss the journey from doing the work to helping others do t...

Staging A Creative Comeback - Stephanie Matthews, Creative Equals from 2020-02-17T18:08:50

Stephanie Matthews is Partnerships Director at Creative Equals where she is currently launching the next series of their Creative Comeback Returners Programme. The programme is a two-week bootcamp ...

In Love With Independence - Claire Joly, Strategist from 2020-02-15T15:55:54

Claire is a strategist in Paris. We met at an impromptu strategy get-together in Paris a couple of weeks. It was organized by M&C Saatchi Head of Planning Gregory Duquesne. Having been fortunate en...

The Power Of Outsider Thinking - Tamer Kattan, Comedian and Strategist from 2020-02-13T22:15:21

Tamer Kattan is a stand-up comedian who's plied his strategy trade at 72andSunny, TBWA\Chiat\Day, and Deutsch.  He was born in Egypt, moved to the USA when he was 8, and then he had to work out how...

Dear Advertising Student - Heather LeFevre, Global Strategist & Author from 2020-02-06T22:19:44

Heather LeFevre is back. Last time, we discussed applying strategy to life. This time, we discuss 10 things we hope advertising students can contemplate as they embark on their careers.  You can fi...

Two Planners Talking Before They Plan - Julian Cole, Strategy Consultant from 2020-02-05T15:37:42

Julian Cole and I decided to speak in public for an hour before we plan the year. Well, probably, a few years. It's the first time we've sat face-to-face to plan the events we do–specifically, The ...

The Craft Of Planning - Lee Maicon, Strategy Boss from 2020-02-04T12:29:26

Lee Maicon is Chief Strategy Officer of McCann - the North American Chief Strategy Officer. It's a big role but Lee cares about the small things such as the craft that goes into account planning. "...

Translating Your Non-Strategy Skills Into Strategy Skills - Dino Demopoulos, Strategy Head from 2020-01-29T16:52:34

Two things Toronto-based strategy head Dino Demopoulos has spent much of life doing are music and strategy. In this interview, we discuss how promoting events, running record labels, and DJ-ing hav...

Where Are The Mid-Life Women? - Jane Evans, The Uninvisibility Project from 2020-01-27T10:30:18

Jane Evans runs the Uninvisibility Project.  Having been a prolific creative director and having run an agency, she's now on a mission to make women over 50 uninvisible.  You can find Jane here ht...

Practicing Strategy - 10 Examples From Britney Spears To Durians - Marco del Valle, Strategist from 2020-01-23T18:58:27

Marco del Valle is a strategist at Epoch Design in the UK. He recently posted hypothetical strategies every day for a month. How do you sell Britney Spears to CEOs? The durian to westerners? Yoga t...

Trying To Parent In An Industry Allergic To Age - Katrina Grönberg, Strategy Head from 2020-01-20T13:04:38

Katrina Grönberg (née Wong) is a career-long planner. Her first planning role was at Leo Burnett in Sydney then she worked at Droga5 and then she went to BBDO in New York, met a guy, moved to Swede...

Managing Strategists - Brian Wakabayashi, Strategy Head from 2020-01-17T12:00

Brian Wakabayashi leads strategy at 215 McCann in San Francisco. He started as an admin. Well, as an admin to an admin. And, as he grew into bigger roles and roles that weren't only about doing the...

What You Learn When You Collect Ads For Two Decades - Dabs, Adland from 2020-01-16T14:48:57

Dabs runs Adland. It's a website with over twenty years of ads from around the world. Adland went down recently after a copyright dispute. But it's back up. This week. And that's really cool. In th...

A Brief Word About Creative Briefs - Sit And Talk, Brooklyn from 2020-01-11T18:31:45

In which I answer about 10 of your questions, chat creative briefs, and agencies doing a better job taking care of their lone strategists: http://www.instagram.com/markpollard

Introversion And The Erosion Of The Marketing Discipline - Duncan Blair, Director of Marketing at Article from 2020-01-09T14:00

Duncan Blair runs marketing at Article in Vancouver. Article is a furniture powerhouse in the e-commerce world, growing quickly and appearing everywhere. In this interview, we discuss how marketing...

Mentoring Strategists - Nicolas Lévy, CSO from 2020-01-08T17:53:05

Nicolas Lévy is Managing Partner and CSO at Marcel in Paris. Marcel is part of the huge holding group Publicis but it tries to maintain an independent spirit. We discuss how Marcel works, getting s...

Now What? - Walk And Talk, Central Park from 2020-01-04T18:34:57

Welcome back. It’s 2020. What are you going to do about it? Come read 15 Instagram essays here http://www.instagram.com/markpollard and top up your brain with this official Skillshare class http://...

The Life Expectancy Of Brands - Sam Sterling, MD AKQA from 2019-12-19T15:41:07

Sam Sterling is Managing Director of AKQA Greater China and Japan. Mega title, right? She's a doctorate candidate at Fudan and Durham University where she's doing a DBA (Doctorate of Business Admin...

Make What You Mean And Mean What You Make - Kate O'Neill, Author & Speaker from 2019-12-17T15:36:26

Kate O'Neill went from studying linguistics to making websites to Silicon Valley to Netflix to starting an agency to writing books and speaking around the world. Like many of us, she's interested i...

Segue AF - The Rory Sutherland Show from 2019-12-13T17:17:58

Rory Sutherland has a brain the size of a whale in the head of a short, scruffy Englishman who's spent a lifetime trying to work out people while mostly being among them. He’s the Vice Chairman of ...

Marketing, You Need A Shakeup - Helen Edwards, Columnist & Consultant from 2019-12-10T01:23:38

Helen Edwards is a columnist for Marketing Week, a strategy consultant, and a teaching fellow at London Business School. We discuss the tensions between the worlds of the practitioners and the acad...

Living And Teaching A Life Of The Mind - Amber Benson, Strategist Teacher from 2019-12-05T06:00

Amber Benson is a strategy consultant and an executive-in-residence at SMU in Texas. She consults and she teaches. Yes, she does both. And she believes doing both helps you get better at both. We d...

Hot For A Lifetime - The Pursuit Of Culture - Ryan Ford, Chief Creative Officer from 2019-12-03T13:10:52

Ryan Ford is CCO of Cashmere in Los Angeles. Ryan entered the agency world after working as the executive editor of The Source magazine, one of the most powerful hip hop media voices of all time. S...

On Faith, Squirrels, And Not Burning Out - Walk And Talk, Central Park from 2019-11-30T20:35:09

About 15 of your questions answered today. ASMR soon - I promise. Tickets to Strategy Upon A Strategist are $40 and on Eventbrite it you can get a ticket plus book for more here: http://www.strateg...

What's Happening In That Ad? - Vikki Ross, Copywriter from 2019-11-27T17:55:30

Vikki Ross is a copywriter in London. She does a lot for the copywriting community - she organizes events and drinks, and she is a powerful and independent voice fighting to improve the respect the...

Delusions Of Brandeur - Ryan Wallman, Creative Director & Dr Draper from 2019-11-25T13:47:54

Ryan Wallman is back to talk about his first book Delusions of Brandeur. He's compiling his most powerful pieces of the Internet to put into a compendium dedicated to puncturing the pretensions of ...

Working Out What’s Next In Your Strategy Career - Walk And Talk, Orangeburg from 2019-11-23T15:34:26

An episode for all my people thinking about their next jobs when, maybe, a brief pause to think about their next lives is due. Plus some of your questions answered. http://www.strategyisyourwords.com

What Thousands Of Strategists Are Saying - Natalie Kim, We Are Next from 2019-11-22T08:58

Natalie Kim runs We Are Next. She is urgently trying to get diverse advertising voices into public while also helping people start their advertising careers well. We hear from hundreds of people ev...

Making Companies More Creative - Barry Mowszowski, Consultant from 2019-11-20T13:02:18

Barry Mowszowski has worked at Droga5 in New York as well as Contagious and, after a good stint in the agency world, he decided to go to the Berlin School of Creative Leadership. We discuss getting...

Strategy Products - What's All That About? - Kaitlin Maud, Strategy Boss from 2019-11-18T22:21:23

Kaitlin Maud is back. As co-founder of Austin's Current Forward, Kaitlin has spent time thinking about and developing products from strategy services. It's one of those ideas that sounds cool and s...

What Happened To The Fundamentals? - Jason Fox, Lee Clow's Beard from 2019-11-15T06:00

Jason Fox is a copywriter who also writes the social media presence known as Lee Clow's Beard. We discuss how Jason came to create Lee Clow's Beard, melancholy, writing, and the fundamentals our in...

Building Give Into An Agency - Simon McEvoy, Strategy Boss from 2019-11-13T06:00

Simon McEvoy runs strategy at Omobono in the UK. He's working with his agency on decentralizing how they operate, as well as on building give into the company and into the culture. "Give" - as in e...

Strategists And Designers Working Together - Jessie White, ECD from 2019-11-11T06:00

Jessie White is Executive Creative Director at Instrument in Portland. We discuss two main topics: the graduation from designer to leader and how designers and strategists can work better together....

Do I Have A Strategy Yet? (P.S. The Kickstarter for Strategy Is Your Words is live) from 2019-11-07T19:11:29

Thoughts from SoHo about knowing when you have an insight or strategy or idea plus THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING MY KICKSTARTER: http://bit.ly/strategykickstarter

Brand Experience And What It Is - Reema Mitra, Brand Boss from 2019-10-30T20:19:50

Reema Mitra is VP of Brand at New York's Today Tix, a ticketing platform that gets you into your favorite shows. In this episode, we discuss how brand and product can work better together, the impo...

Advertising In A Constant State Of Fear - Derek Walker, Agency Owner from 2019-10-28T11:26:44

Derek Walker is a creative director turned agency owner. He writes and reflects extensively about the industry and he believes the advertising industry is operating in the face of constant fear. An...

There’s A Harbor In All Of Us - Walk And Talk, Sydney Opera House from 2019-10-26T10:47:23

1. Empathy 2. What’s the difference between a strategy and a plan? 3. I got the dates wrong - Kickstarter Tuesday Nov 5, NYC event Wed Dec 4 http://www.instagram.com/markpollard

Working Out What’s Next - Eaon Pritchard, Strategy Boss from 2019-10-25T10:16:09

Eaon Pritchard is working on his second book. Sort of. You see, he published his first book in 2018. It was called “Where Did It All Go Wrong?” Then he ran into a career surprise and is now working...

Onboard Your People Properly, Please - Mary Ergul, Strategist from 2019-10-23T11:14:39

Mary Ergul is a strategist who wants to see companies help strategists start new jobs well. So she made a deck called “Sinking Isn’t An Option” (http://bit.ly/strategyonboarding). Grab the deck, fi...

How It Feels To Be A Big-Picture Person - Sarah Watson, Chairman of BBH New York from 2019-10-21T12:00:16

Sarah Watson likes big pictures. First, as an account planner then as a chairman, Sarah has been drawn to the big picture and to grand narratives and to drawing them out of people, companies, and b...

My Head Is In Your Head Is In My Head At All Times - Walk And Talk, Upper West Side from 2019-10-19T13:47:11

Today’s walk - yeah, things I’m learning about through therapy, confidence, a happy life, job interviews, how maternity leave can feel. This weekend, make some art, yo! http://www.instagram.com/mar...

Keep Planning Weird - Jim Carroll, Former BBH Chairman from 2019-10-17T16:13:54

In a happy coincidence, an interview I'd scheduled with Jim Carroll occurred hours before he was due to attend the Account Planning Group's Creative Strategy Awards.  The APG really is the leading ...

Why Marketing Needs Comedy - Justin Lines, Marketer from 2019-10-15T12:03:47

Justin Lines is a marketer who recently completed a year at the University of Edinburgh. He's on a mission to investigate the connection between comedy and marketing. His paper "How do comedians re...

Feelings About Empathy - Excerpt from "Strategy Is Your Words" from 2019-10-13T12:00

It's an outer-body experience to have written a bunch of pages about empathy and feelings and how they can affect a strategist (not all strategists because, let's face it, not everyone has feelings...

Fighting Words - The Introduction To "Strategy Is Your Words" (NOW WITH NEW WORDS) from 2019-10-12T20:52:57

I wanted to re-record the introduction to my book "Strategy Is Your Words" after making a few changes and because the sound wasn't great six months ago. I'm launching the book as a Kickstarter on N...

We're All Mental - World Mental Health Day, 2019 from 2019-10-10T22:06:18

Here are stories about mental health experiences from the Sweathead Facebook community. Ben Breier, Julia Vanderput, Abbey Gaunt, and Mariana Cotlear step up and share their minds with us. A huge t...

Some Form Of Sunshine - Tom Goodwin from 2019-10-10T16:12:01

What's your brain up to? How is technology affecting it? How does dating in New York City affect it? Divorce? Talking on stages? Writing a book? Therapy? Thinking? Tom Goodwin somehow manages to wo...

Truth Is Disobedient - Strategy Is Your Words Book Excerpt from 2019-10-10T12:57:53

It's World Mental Health Day today and I'm going to post multiple episodes. I wanted to start with this excerpt from my book to help people understand that the strategy life is about a search for t...

How Comedy Helps A Strategist - Heleana Blackwell, Planner from 2019-10-08T17:07:30

Heleana Blackwell is a London planner who recently discovered herself doing stand-up comedy. Her brain told her to do it because it would make her better at her job. But Heleana was also looking fo...

Losing Your Job But Not Your Self-Respect - Walk And Talk, Central Park from 2019-10-07T13:50:21

We don’t easily discuss how we feel and what to do when we lose a job. In the Sweathead Facebook group, tens of people answered a question about this last week. We discuss the topic and four people...

Going In-House Or Client-Side And Making It Work - Stan Johnson, Creative Consultant from 2019-10-04T12:45:19

Stan Johnson is a creative director. After years in agencies, he spent half a decade running an in-house team. When he started, he thought people never came back from that kind of move. Yet he made...

The Problems With Pitches - Tim Dunn, Strategy Head from 2019-10-02T16:27:07

There's something pure and powerful about pitches - largely because the thinking rarely reaches the public and the time pressures force fast decisions, but they can be wrought with bad behavior. Ho...

Creativity And Management Consultancies - Jon Wilkins, Creative Chairman from 2019-10-01T15:50:08

Jon Wilkins has big titles. Yes, two of them. After co-founding and running the agency wunderkind Naked, he's moved into the roles of Executive Chairman of Karmarama and MD and Creative Lead at Acc...

Practice Then Publish - Walk And Talk, Central Park from 2019-09-29T21:22:11

In which I read from my book “Strategy Is Your Words” and focus on why I think practicing and publishing are important ideas for strategists. We also talk about which skills are useful for someone ...

Exposing Yourself One Story At A Time - Nayantara Dutta, Strategist from 2019-09-27T02:46:17

How comfortable are you with putting your personal details into the world? Do you think they'll hurt you or help you? Last time Nayantara Dutta appeared on Sweathead, I interviewed her about identi...

The Strategic Independent - Tom Crichtlow, Consultant from 2019-09-25T11:00

Tom Crichtlow is an independent consultant who helps start-ups with digital strategy. Based in Brooklyn, Tom originally moved from London to New York to help establish a US presence for his brother...

Live Action Strategy - The DMV - Julian Cole, Consultant from 2019-09-23T23:57:11

Another episode of Live Action Strategy with Julian Cole. We chat The Strategy Super Sizer Megaclass, the 4 Live Action Strategy decks that are now online (lamps, tacos, vegetarian burgers, and cro...

What’s Your Point? - Walk And Talk, Central Park from 2019-09-21T15:20:45

Today we chat about how to make a point and why so much advertising talk and writing seems to lack one. You can ask questions here: http://www.instagram.com/markpollard

What You Can Learn From 700 Agency Philosophies - Praveen Vaidyanathan, Strategy Director from 2019-09-18T01:40:17

Praveen Vaidyanathan has worked around the world but currently calls Copenhagen home. He's a strategy director at VIRTUE/VICE Nordics, and, as he's traveled around, he's contemplated the agencies i...

There's No Right Path Into Strategy - Vicky Chen, Head of Strategy from 2019-09-16T14:19:36

Vicky Chen is Head of Strategy at VIRTUE Nordic (part of Vice) in Copenhagen. She arrived in strategy via psychology and writing. She's worked in New York, Amsterdam, and San Francisco at agencies ...

Strategy Work Is Creative Work - Ben Shaw, Strategy Head from 2019-09-11T02:07:29

Ben Shaw is Head of Strategy at BBH London. As an eleven-year veteran of one of the world's best agencies and one of the world's favorite homes to agency strategists, Ben believes that strategy is ...

Growing An Agency - Libby Swan, Cofounder from 2019-09-09T20:24:38

Scenario - Eighty people work in your Mumbai headquarters and you have new teams emerging in London and New York. You want to keep improving the quality of your work and you want the business to ke...

5 Lessons From Strategy Podcasts - Nick Williams, Strategist from 2019-09-08T14:14:15

Nick Williams is a strategist in Colorado. He's listened to nearly all the episodes of Sweathead. As a form of study. So I wanted to ask him what he's learned from having hours of strategy folk in ...

Turning Around An Agency - Rob Schwartz, CEO from 2019-09-04T21:43:16

Rob Schwartz is CEO of TBWA\CHIAT\DAY New York. A big agency brand name, TBWA in New York was a shining star then it faded. When Rob arrived, the culture had been decimated and clients were either ...

How Stories Help Service Design - Nadia Piet, Service Designer from 2019-09-02T20:21:46

Nadia Piet is a freelance experience and service designer in Amsterdam. We discuss service design and trying to design a career with a focus on the power and risks in personal narratives, utopia...

Brazil Is Everything - Walk And Talk, São Paulo from 2019-08-31T19:23:37

Saturday afternoon in São Paulo, how good is this? Come for a walk from Pinheiros to Livraria Cultura for some chat about Brazil and strategy. Ask questions here: http://www.instagram.com/markpollard

What Planners In Brazil Are Talking About - Iuren Ramiro, Planners BR from 2019-08-29T03:45:28

Iuren Ramiro is a planner in São Paulo, Brazil. He helps run Planners BR, a Facebook group with thousands of Brazilian planners, as well as the podcast PlannersCast. As a fellow planner who likes t...

Not Working? Find A New Story For Yourself - Vibeke Skov, Psychologist from 2019-08-27T04:00

Vibeke Skov is a Danish psychologist with a focus on creativity. She's published six books and has a keen interest in Carl Jung, art therapy, mythology, and dreams. We discuss the power of using my...

The Disappearance Of Creativity - Anant Rangaswami, Editor from 2019-08-26T13:07:53

Anant Rangaswami watches advertising. Having launched Campaign Magazine in India, worked for CNBC and First Post, and, now working as the editor of MELT on WION, Anant gets around a lot of conversa...

When Strategy Feels Broken In An Agency - Walk And Talk, Central Park from 2019-08-24T17:07:33

Today, we look at a scenario where junior strategists are the only strategists in the agency but the bosses don’t seem to want it to work. What do you do? Also, moving to a new city, charging for s...

Buying And Selling Strategy - Tom Trenta, CEO from 2019-08-21T21:47:55

Tom Trenta runs the research and strategy agency Positive in Chicago. Previously, he was Chief Strategist at EggStrategy and a VP of Account Planning at Leo Burnett. The point of the CV is he's bee...

The Work Of A CCO - Laura Bambach, CCO from 2019-08-20T15:34:40

Laura Bambach is D&AD President, co-founder of SheSays, and Chief Creative Officer of Mr President in London. In this episode, we discuss the work of a Chief Creative Officer. What does a CCO do? H...

Strategic Integrity - Jon Wilkins, Cofounder of Naked from 2019-08-16T10:47:21

Jon Wilkins was a cofounder of Naked, a prolific agency that burst into the world in the year 2000 then rampaged into some of the toughest advertising markets to establish itself as a much admired ...

The State Of Research - Farrah Bostic, Founder from 2019-08-15T15:02:36

Farrah Bostic runs The Difference Engine where she does brand strategy and qualitative research. In this chat, we discuss the latter and Farrah shares very clearheaded and astute observations about...

Working With Other People Isn’t Meant To Be Easy - Walk And Talk, San Francisco from 2019-08-13T22:17

Politics, ego, and extroverts - how do you deal with them? In this episode, we answer 20-plus questions about working with other people - why it’s difficult, whether it needs to be difficult, and h...

Strategy On The Road - Olivia Poglianich, Strategist from 2019-08-08T17:10:28

Olivia Poglianich is a freelance brand strategist from New York. She studied at Cornell and interned at BBDO. She was a finalist in BBH's Griffin Farley's Beautiful Minds strategy bootcamp, she vol...

Has Art Direction Lost Direction? - Cathy Heng, Creative Director from 2019-08-06T18:32:43

Art direction is a beautiful thing - to reach for an idea that says one thing clearly and clearer than the other visual ideas it competes with and to do so in a way that makes unique sense for a br...

Does The World Still Need Digital Strategists? - Bogdana Butnar, Strategy Director from 2019-08-04T13:22:05

Bogdana Butnar is currently contracting as Digital Strategy Director at Accenture, London. She ran strategy at Poke, she once worked at Google, and she was MD of MRM in Romania. She's a ferocious l...

Strategy Job Interviews - Walk And Talk, London from 2019-08-02T11:24:51

Today, a chat about strategy job interviews, Europe, happiness, moving goal posts, problems, favorite projects, and more. Thanks for your questions: http://www.instagram.com/markpollard

Working With A Moving Mind - Faris Yakob, Cofounder from 2019-07-29T06:30:59

Faris Yakob is a Cofounder of strategy and innovation consultancy Genius Steals. A prolific thinker and writer, he has worked all over the world and is now six years into also living all over the w...

Questions About Research Questions - Walk And Talk, Copenhagen from 2019-07-26T10:25

What research is useful research? How can we deal with bias? What’s a good way to take notes? What are common pitfalls in research interviews? Does intuition matter? And more. http://www.instagram....

The Executive View Of Marketing - JP Hanson, CEO from 2019-07-25T04:00

JP Hanson is CEO of strategy consultancy Rouser where he works with executives to improve their marketing. He also contributes to Marketing Week. In this chat, we discuss what makes someone commerc...

Living Your Principles - Rosie Yakob, Cofounder from 2019-07-23T10:13:37

Rosie Yakob runs the nomadic strategy and innovation consultancy Genius Steals. She moves around the world with her partner Faris doing strategy work and talks, and constantly contemplates their be...

Introversion At Work - Walk And Talk, Amsterdam from 2019-07-21T10:21:53

10+ questions from Instagram answered in Amsterdam, including:  What would you say to an immigrant strategist trying to find work in a new country? Why can’t strategists strategize their own liv...

The Art Of Peaceful Resolutions - Toby Ryan, Security Boss from 2019-07-18T14:59:40

Toby Ryan runs security in a large casino-resort in Macau. It’s one of the biggest in the world. He’s worked in security for over two decades, having trained in martial arts and initially wanting t...

Cross-Race Effect And Not Being Shitty To Each Other - Rachita Vasan, Strategist from 2019-07-16T23:27:47

Rachita Vasan is a strategist at Leo Burnett in Chicago. Recently, she presented thoughts about being less racist and less shitty in the workplace. A friend filmed it. I saw it. We invited Rachita ...

You Are What You Haven’t Done - Tim Levinson, Urthboy from 2019-07-15T06:42:08

Tim Levinson is a rapper, songwriter, label manager, and artist manager. He’s been in the public eye for two decades as Urthboy and as part of the Elefant Traks record label (Hermitude are one of t...

Strategy At Speed - Lauren Joyce, Strategy Boss from 2019-07-11T10:46:55

Lauren Joyce is the National Strategy Director at the Australian Radio Network, a company that reaches millions of Australians every week. She's also worked in media agencies (Universal McCann), br...

Dear Strategy Career, Where Shall We Go Next? - Alasdair Lloyd-Jones, Strategist & CEO from 2019-07-10T08:44:15

Alasdair Lloyd-Jones is a strategist-turned-CSO-turned-President-turned-COO-turned-CEO. Most recently, he led SET Creative, an agency that recently sold. I caught Alasdair as he was contemplating w...

Strategizing While Black - Melle Hock, Strategy Lead from 2019-07-08T10:01:26

How does it feel to be a strategist and have people invite you into strategy projects but not to do strategy? Instead, sometimes you're invited to "represent your people," a solo focus group on beh...

Please, Can We Do Advertising Together? - Trine Keller-Andreason, Strategist from 2019-06-30T17:48:15

Trine Keller-Andreason is a planner at Forsman & Bodenfors. She's worked in Denmark and New York, but now lives in Sweden. Just over a week ago, her team won the inaugural Creative Strategy Grand P...

Strategy For Sales - Walk And Talk, Bryant Park from 2019-06-29T20:09:20

Today - a quick word to strategists who work in pre-sales for tech platforms and publishers, as well as for agencies that are new to strategy and mostly use it in pitches. Plus questions about doin...

A Young Lion In Cannes - Max Slonim, Strategist from 2019-06-27T15:35:12

Max Slonim is a senior strategist at Initiative in New York. He's attended the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity twice. The first time he attended was to compete as a Young Lion. He...

Your Questions Are My Priority - Walk and Talk, Central Park from 2019-06-22T20:25:37

Your questions answered in the face like a dog with its head out the window of a car speeding down a freeway.  For more strategy talk: 1. Strategy newsletter: www.markpollard.net/email-newsletter/...

Get In Where You Fit In (Or Make A Thing To Fit You) - Zoe Scaman, Strategist from 2019-06-21T03:40:53

Zoe Scaman runs Bodacious, a strategy consultancy in London. After a good run through Droga5, Undercurrent, Naked, and Adidas (yeah yeah, this is your dream list), Zoe isn't exactly settling down b...

Your Voice Is In My Hands - Chapin Clark, @RGA from 2019-06-19T21:05:21

ECD Chapin Clark works at R/GA in New York. He has done so for a very long time, so long R/GA put its voice in his hands. It's not because he outlived his coworkers and R/GA had no choice, and it's...

Studying The World - Nayantara Dutta, Strategist from 2019-06-13T17:17:10

Nayantara Dutta has lived in Scotland, Vietnam, Hong Kong, India, and the USA. As a third culture kid, she has had to contemplate how to fit in as she's moved around while also learning different w...

Saying What You Want To Say But Can't - Mickey Taylor, Adweak from 2019-06-11T01:06:35

Mickey Taylor runs Adweak, a satirical Internet presence that mocks advertising and all the silly things we do. He's a long-time creative director on the West Coast of the USA and has navigated his...

How Strategists Speak To Themselves - Walk And Talk, Central Park from 2019-06-09T18:41:09

In this episode, I answer a few questions from Instagram - Does strategy need a rebrand? How do you get an executional client to think bigger? How do you avoid post-rationalizing ideas? What’s up w...

How Advertising Bro Culture Hurts Non-Bros - Megan Averell, Boss from 2019-06-05T23:29:56

Megan Averell runs The Insight Inn, a research and strategy consultancy. After years working in large agencies, she decided she’d had enough of Bro culture - misogyny dressed as creativity and frat...

Selling Clients Online, Selling Yourself Offline - Duane Brown, Digital Marketer from 2019-06-05T02:52:26

Duane Brown runs a digital marketing agency called Take Some Risk. He’s all across PPC (Pay Per Click) and the hashtag of the PPC community #PPCChat. He’s visited 40 countries and he has just moved...

Strategy Upon A Strategist (ZeeMELT) - Walk And Talk, Central Park from 2019-06-01T16:44:27

A quick look at the ZeeMELT Conference in Mumbai this week just after I arrived back in NY. It includes a brief summary of talks by Faris & Rosie, Laura Bambach, Vicki Ross, Dave Trott, Kate O’Neil...

Live Action Strategy - Dos Toros, Mexican Food - Julian Cole, Davis Ballard from 2019-05-27T23:24:52

Dos Toros is a Mexican food joint. They are lunch-sponsoring the first occurrence of The Strategy Super Sizer Megaclass in New York. So we thought we'd throw around some ideas like the last episode...

Writing Creative Briefs - Walk And Talk, Central Park, Memorial Day Weekend from 2019-05-25T16:46:46

Writing creative briefs, creative brief templates, running brief-writing workshops, propositions, and more. Shout-outs to Gillian Rightford and Shane O’Leary for the Saturday morning encouragement....

Not Dancing Around Diversity And Inclusion - Lauren Cole, The One Club For Creativity from 2019-05-24T03:59:07

Lauren Cole is Senior Manager of Inclusion & Diversity at The One Club For Creativity. In this role, Lauren helps organizations improve how they understand and apply important ideas about creating ...

Learning Strategy - Walk and Talk, Riverside Park from 2019-05-18T22:12:55

How do you learn strategy? In this episode we look at 15+ questions from strategists around the world and we discuss deliberate practice, sets, and practice as sanity. Ask questions here: http://ww...

London New York Brooklyn Strategy - Ben Phillips, World Champion of Strategy Skateboarding from 2019-05-18T03:04

Ben Phillips is Strategy Director at Anomaly in New York. His parents are from America. I'll claim him as Australian because my family and I walked past him this one time in Ultimo, Sydney. He did ...

Go For It - James Kirkham, Agency Cofounder from 2019-05-17T02:44:52

James Kirkham co-founded and co-sold the agency Holler. He started it in London. He was young and naive. He worked to spread offices around the world. Then he sold Holler to Leo Burnett. Now, he is...

How To Make Generalization Work - Kate Richardson, Consultant and Coach from 2019-05-16T00:41:20

Kate Richardson is a marketing consultant who can work on a wide array of projects. As a generalist, she touches business strategy, marketing strategy, digital and comms planning, and, now, coachin...

What Makes Strategy Harder Than It Needs To Be - Walk And Talk, Central Park from 2019-05-11T18:48:34

A chat about 27 things that make strategy harder than it needs to be as suggested by the good folks who answered my question about this on Instagram. Plus 21 things that I believe make a good opera...

Putting Yourself And Your Campaigns Out There - Julian Cole, Comms Planner from 2019-05-09T00:11:10

Julian Cole was formerly the Head of Comms Planning at BBDO in New York. We've known each since around 2008. We've blogged, taught Skillshare, and spoken at conferences side by side. And now we're ...

Working In Tokyo While Watching It And Making It Dance - Mike Sunda, Strategist from 2019-04-27T16:33:16

I don't know how good Mike is at strategy but I'd hire him just from how good he is at the things that make a good strategist: finding out stuff, spending time in unfamiliar places, talking to peop...

What Anxiety Is Good For - Rob Estreitinho, Strategist from 2019-04-24T21:34:55

I interviewed Rob about philosophy a year ago. This time, we chat anxiety and what it's good for. For some reason, there are topics like this that I really want to talk about but when I ask the que...

AMA - 20 Questions From Instagram - Walk And Talk, Central Park from 2019-04-19T20:47:34

Here are answers to about 20 questions people asked today via Instagram Stories. The questions include: How do you inspire creative teams? What do I do without a planning director for a year? What ...

How BBDO Does Business Development - Nicole Landesman from 2019-04-12T18:41:45

Nicole Landesman is Head of Business Development at BBDO in New York, where she helps potential clients navigate everything BBDO has to offer. And she was once a planner. We discuss: - The BBDO ne...

The Crucial Challenges Facing Brands And Their Marketers Right Now - Jason Lonsdale, CSO from 2019-04-09T22:39:21

Jason Lonsdale is the Head of Brand Strategy at Ogvily. Originally from New Zealand but now based in New York, Jason manages a team of strategists across America.  We discuss: - What Ogilvy New Yo...

Work That’s Unafraid To Go There - Helene Dick, Strategist from 2019-04-05T21:31:25

Helene Dick is Strategy Director at New York's Barton F Graf, an agency renowned for provocative work. And in a time where provocative work seems rare, how on Earth do these ideas travel through an...

What Makes A Good Planner? - John Kenny, CSO from 2019-04-04T22:44:51

John Kenny is CSO of FCB Chicago, an agency with a planning team of 85 people. A transplant from Ireland who arrived in Chicago many years ago to attend college, John has seen planning in America s...

Getting Beyond Stereotypes - Dave McCaughan, CSO from 2019-03-29T20:25:13

Dave McCaughan was a public librarian for 10 years then worked 27 years for McCann in Australia, Thailand, Hong Kong, and Japan. This makes him one of Australia's earliest planners. He is still bas...

Singapore As A Metaphor For The Future Of Advertising - Mylene Ong, Strategy Boss from 2019-03-29T02:03:27

Mylene Ong is the Head of Strategy at Colenso BBDO in Auckland, New Zealand. She has worked in New York, Shanghai, and her hometown Singapore. Much of our discussion uses Singapore, a country that ...

Insights - Walk And Talk, Central Park from 2019-03-27T20:50:05

On Instagram, I recently asked people what questions they had about insights and I responded as an Instagram Story. This episode of Sweathead is those questions and my responses but on a walk aroun...

The Independent Agency Mindset - John Harris, CEO from 2019-03-25T20:45:09

John Harris is CEO and President of Worldwide Partners. Worldwide Partners is a network of 72 independent agencies in 40 countries. It has existed since 1938. One thing that makes Worldwide Partner...

What’s It Like Client-Side? - Emma Brooks, Marketer from 2019-03-23T19:21:29

Emma Brooks leads marketing at Toronto's Wattpad. Wattpad serves stories to 70 million people around the world every month. Many of the authors are anonymous and many share as they write. Some of t...

Short-termism And Writing About Strategy - Gareth Price, Strategist from 2019-03-20T22:01:15

Gareth Price is a senior planner at JWT/WundermanThompson in London. He won the 2017 IPA President’s Prize and the Advertising category in the 2018 WPP Atticus Awards for his IPA Excellence Diploma...

How To Create A Good Culture For Account Planning - Matt Tanter, CSO from 2019-03-19T19:28:37

Matt Tanter is the Chief Strategy Officer at Grey London and the Chair of the Account Planning Group (APG). As far as planning credentials go, CSO + Grey + London + Chair of APG = legit. He's a lea...

What Holds Us Back From Better Creative Work - Gillian Rightford, MD from 2019-03-18T19:49:31

Gillian Rightford grew up in the vibrant South African advertising industry. Now, Gillian lectures at the University of Cape Town and, in her company Ad Therapy, she consults with marketers and age...

How To Make A Global Brand Feel Local - Govind Pandey, CEO from 2019-03-17T23:04:14

Govind Pandey is CEO of TBWA\India, a global advertising agency he sees as a startup. This idea is an easy one to say but Govind can speak to what this actually means as part of his philosophy of r...

The Only Work To Do Is Brave Work - Anselmo Ramos, CCO from 2019-03-15T00:00

Anselmo Ramos cofounded and sold the Miami agency David after years working his way around the world. Madrid, New York, Sao Paulo, and Buenos Aires feature on his itinerary. He recently cofounded a...

Why Live In Public On The Internet? - Lynne D Johnson from 2019-03-14T20:42:30

Lynne D Johnson is an adjunct professor at SUNY, she's worked in agencies like R/GA, in publishing companies such as Fast Company, and she did a stint at the Advertising Research Foundation. She ha...

How To Listen To Yourself - Heidi Hackemer from 2019-03-10T18:46:44

Heidi Hackemer. Many of you have heard of her, met her, watched her speak, or read her. Many of you will have seen her article "I've cried on a few runs lately" in which she documents losing her jo...

The Taboos Of Strategy Work - Kaitlin Maud, Strategy Boss from 2019-03-08T22:48:09

Kaitlin Maud recently set up Current Forward, a strategy collective based in Austin, Texas. And as part of her preparation for our conversation (yes, sometimes people do homework... but I don't jud...

Swashbuckling: A Surprise Strategy Workshop About Doing Riskier Work - Phil Adams, Strategy Boss from 2019-03-07T21:56:50

Phil Adams has helped to merge three agencies. He's also worked in London at BBH and in Edinburgh at The Leith Agency and Blonde, and is now at Signal. He's had strategy and managing director roles...

"Strategy Is Your Words" Book Excerpt - "Fighting Words" from 2019-03-07T14:22:42

We're about to hit 100,000 listens. Seems like a solid number. Thank you for listening and sharing it with your friends. It means a lot to me because this podcast is how I trap people into deep con...

The Agency-Client Relationship - Alexandra Stankiewicz, CMO from 2019-03-06T03:47:39

Alexandra Stankiewicz is CMO and Head of Online Sales at Aloha. She's also worked at Chobani and Calvin Klein. But, guess what? Alex was one of the first ten employees at Mother New York and she sp...

We Are More Alike Than Different - Omer Azeem, Strategy Lead from 2019-03-02T19:11:50

Omer Azeem is 20 years into a career that has taken him from Pakistan to Saudi Arabia, Oman, Eqypt, Qatar and back to Pakistan. We recorded this a few weeks ago before the war talk between Pakistan...

Doing Strategy Alone (But For 1.3 Billion People) - Priyanka Agrawal, Strategist from 2019-03-01T22:56:15

I spoke to Priyanka today. She was in Bombay - or "Mumbai," as some call it. Earlier this week, news abounded with fears of international war between India and Pakistan. We discuss this then we dis...

How To Work The System - Jerrold McGrath, Disorderly from 2019-02-27T19:37:57

Jerrold McGrath helps artists and creators solve big problems and work out how to make a living from their art. He spent a decade consulting with companies and leaders at the amazing Bannf Centre i...

Who Can Even Do Brand Strategy? - Tom Donald, Strategy Lead from 2019-02-24T00:48:27

Tom is 20+ years into strategy work and now runs brand strategy at Re in Sydney, Australia. He's worked in the UK, NYC, and Sydney.  We discuss: - The blindspots of different types of agencies doi...

Go Deep, Go Offbeat - Mel McShane, Brand Strategist from 2019-02-23T00:01:20

Mel McShane has spent well over a decade at renowned design agency Wolff Olins and consults with executives around the world on their brand strategies.  One question up-coming strategists are somet...

The Billionaire’s Strategist - Simon Smiles, UBS from 2019-02-20T20:01:42

Simon Smiles is the Chief Investment Officer for the Ultra-High Net Worth investors of UBS in Switzerland. He spends his days with people who have over $50M in investments with UBS. UBS banks with ...

Solve Your Own Problem - Open Strategy's Jonathan Colmenares & Matt Butler from 2019-02-15T16:12:34

Jonathan Colmenares and Matt Butler established Open Strategy at the start of 2015. They assembled strategy presentations and tools into a website. Then they launched a Slack channel which housed t...

Strategy To Right Wrongs - Harsha Prag, Strategy Boss from 2019-02-14T17:54:39

Imagine if you could put your strategy skills to work for some kind of good. All that brainpower, that empathy, and that creative lust... surely you could change the world. Well, in some places it ...

Quick, Double Down! The Heart of American Strategy - Tom Morton, CSO from 2019-02-13T18:06:44

Tom Morton is co-CSO of R/GA in the USA. It's a new role, so new it was announced this week. Tom shares the role with Jess Greenwood. With over 60 strategists in 7 US offices while working with lar...

When A Strategist Runs The Agency - Samanta Judez, MD from 2019-02-05T20:00

Samanta Judez is Managing Director of DDB Barcelona. Before this, she was the agency's CSO. She isn't alone as a planner-turned-agency-leader but the convention is to reserve the role for someone f...

Strategists, Where Are Your Spines? - Murray Calder, Strategy Lead from 2019-02-04T18:12:15

How would you feel the day you found out you had cancer? How would you feel the afternoon after your first chemotherapy session? How would you feel the sleep before spinal surgery? Would you seek o...

This Business Is Personal - Sudeep Gohil, Strategy Head from 2019-01-30T01:09:09

Sudeep Gohil has worked in Sydney, London, Portland, LA, Mumbai, and Tokyo. He's run a Droga5 office, led strategy at Wieden and Kennedy, helped 72andsunny develop plans for Asia, and now runs bran...

You Have To Be Part Of Something - Tina Yip, STRTGST from 2019-01-28T23:56:03

The strategy life is full of lonely strolls through the garden of the mind, blank timesheets, and career paths. Sometimes, there are allies. Sometimes, there aren't. Sometimes, you don't even know....

Raising Children In Advertising - Jake Rusznyak, Creative from 2019-01-23T23:36:25

Jake Rusznyak has held very senior creative roles in very good advertising agencies in Sydney. BMF, Host, and The Monkeys feature on his resume. But what caught my eye was an article Jake recently ...

Designing Research for Design Thinking - Kate Bordwell, Researcher from 2019-01-22T02:09:06

Kate Bordwell leads design research at Skyscanner in Scotland. Yes, the website that helps you fly places for your Instagram feed. And in former lives she was an account planner and a digital strat...

The Early Years Of Strategy Careers - Tess McGourty, Strategist from 2019-01-17T06:46:20

Tess McGourty is strategy lead at Elephant in Los Angeles. Elephant is part of digital agency Huge so Tess now works on digital projects. She started in a media agency then spent several years in a...

Advertising Under Pressure - Nancy Hill, Former 4As President from 2019-01-16T06:45:22

Nancy Hill became President and CEO of the 4As in 2008. The 4As is the American Association of Advertising Agencies. It is the main advertising agency body in the USA. In 2008, the economy tanked, ...

Getting People To Work In Digital Agencies - Tom Beck, SoDA from 2019-01-15T03:37:30

Tom Beck once ran then sold an agency. Now, as the Executive Director of the Society of Digital Agencies (SoDA), he helps other people who run agencies.  We discuss: 1. The eras of digital agencies...

Five Critical Marketing Facts - Wiemer Snijders, Consultant from 2019-01-13T21:04:06

Marketing consultant Wiemer Snijders recently gathered some of his favorite brains into a book. The book is a call to marketers and strategists of all kinds to deploy more evidence and more facts i...

Marketers Fight For Ideas - Fernando Machado, Global CMO Burger King from 2019-01-12T03:16:08

Fernando Machado is the Global CMO of Burger King. His marketing team is one of the most creatively awarded teams in recent years. And that's all you need to know. I recorded this interview with a ...

21 Challenges Facing Strategists Right Now - Lucy Cochran, Strategy Head from 2019-01-11T06:04:52

Lucy Cochran has just arrived in New York. She's run strategy teams in Australia and Amsterdam. She's won a bunch of awards. She ran the Melbourne arm of the Account Planning Group. And we decided ...

Take Creative Risks Or Else - Suzy Batiz, Poo-Pourri from 2019-01-09T01:53:29

Suzy Batiz is founder and CEO of Poo-Pourri. She is in a minority of business leaders who insist creativity is so important to a business that it's a default expectation of everyone in her company....

Applying Strategy To Life - Heather LeFevre, Strategist & Author from 2019-01-05T05:50:04

Heather Lefevre has done a lot for strategy people. With The Strategist Survey, she helped strategists understand their salaries. With her book "Brain Surfing", she takes strategists around the wor...

What Can Go Right? A Primer On Positive Psychology - Courtney Ackerman, Researcher & Author from 2019-01-04T03:54:34

Courtney Ackerman is a researcher and author. She focuses on positive psychology. Her first booked was called "My Pocket Positivity" and contains tens of exercises to help people practice positivit...

Can You Plan Happiness? - Mo Seetubtim, The Happiness Planner from 2019-01-02T01:00

How much is happiness a leap of faith? And, like entrepreneurship, does the leap ever end? Meet Mo Seetubtim. Mo runs The Happiness Planner while running around the world to cities such as Bangkok,...

On Being Somebody And Hip Hop - Miguel D'Souza, Journalist from 2018-12-24T01:11:14

In October 1990, Miguel D’Souza started The Mothership Connection on 2SER FM with Roxanne. Within a couple of years it was Sydney’s preeminent hip hop radio show. Every Tuesday at 2pm (or at 2.30pm...

It's More Than A Numbers Game - Becky Wang, CEO from 2018-12-20T06:07:51

Becky Wang is CEO and Founder of Crossbeat, a company she set up after running data and analytics at Saatchi & Saatchi New York then at Droga5. She's worked in Hollywood, she's published a book ("C...

Working In Media Strategy In China And New York - Shann Biglione, CSO from 2018-12-19T17:22:26

Shann Biglione recently moved to New York as the Head of Strategy at Zenith after five years in China, including a stint as CSO of Publicis Media. And he's French. With an Italian last name. So wha...

What Can A Journalist Teach A Strategist? - Ky Chow, Journalist from 2018-12-19T02:09:21

Ky Chow is a journalist. He's appeared on or in Sky News, The Financial Review, ABC, and SBS in Australia. But he didn't start his journalist career until his late 20s. He spent his early twenties ...

It's Noisy In My Head - Natalie Tran, National Treasure from 2018-12-18T04:09:28

Natalie Tran has spent her entire adulthood on YouTube. Not literally. But she first published videos to YouTube in 2006 when she was 20 and she kept going.  Well, until recently. In public, Natali...

What Am I Doing With My Life? - Sam Hammington, Actor from 2018-12-13T15:27:06

Sam Hammington is an extreme freelancer. When he's working, he's really working. And when he's not, he's really not. That's because Sam is an actor. He's an Australian actor in Seoul, South Korea. ...

How Do You Think About A Museum? - Seb Chan, CXO from 2018-12-09T23:50:52

Seb Chan is Chief Experience Officer at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) in Melbourne, a museum that over 1.5M people visit every year. Seb has also led digital efforts at the Powe...

Extreme Is Clear - Fredrik Öst, Creative Director from 2018-12-04T17:32:43

Fredrik Öst is Founder and Creative Director of Stockholm agency Snask. Snask makes bold, frank, outspoken work. This is why I've had a crush on them for two years, which was nine years into their...

The Power Of Negativity - Ryan Wallman (Dr Draper), Copywriter from 2018-12-03T10:38:21

Ryan Wallman is an Associate Creative Director at Wellmark in Melbourne, Australia. He's also a prolific Internet satirist. It's not that he satires the Internet but he does satire marketing and ad...

Insights Are Life And Death (But You Take Them All Too Seriously) from 2018-11-30T03:38:51

An update about all things Sweathead as well as the talk from Google Firestarters in London mid-November. It's not the actual talk. It's a reading of an 11-page script of the talk. If you like it, ...

How Could You Work On That? - Jen Bonhomme, Strategist from 2018-11-28T14:14:50

Where are your morals? Do they exist on one side of a line and prevent you from working on projects and clients on the other side of the line? Where is the line? How did it get there? Has it ever m...

Starting Out In Social - Jack Appleby, Creative Strategist from 2018-11-27T23:47:45

LA's Jack Appleby is a Director of Creative Strategy. He has touched projects for Beats by Dre, Microsoft, Rockband, and more. Almost a decade into a career that has focused largely on whatever soc...

Freelance Strategy For Life. Or Is It? - Camilla Grey Petty, Freelance Strategist from 2018-11-21T22:00

Camilla Grey Petty is an independent strategy director who's walked the halls of London's Wolff Olins, Brand Union, and Moving Brands, and is now three years into a freelance lifestyle. We discuss...

Strategy For Sex Lives - Lani Wyche, Product Strategist from 2018-11-21T00:47:19

Lani Wyche is a product strategist at Dame Products. She holds a BA from Stanford and she has spent some time in agencies, but now she spends her days trying to understand people's sex lives. We d...

Get Your Head Into Words - Justine Bloome, CSO from 2018-11-14T01:28:24

CSO Justine Bloome runs strategy at Vayner in NYC and is about to run a planner into the world. Not a strategy planner - a book planner. A journal planner. It's called The Mindful Strategist. It's ...

Pass it on. Plan, teach, plan. - Germaine Fagan, Strategist from 2018-11-10T22:00

Germaine Fagan recently hosted an event to honor the life of a planner, Grace McDermott, in Dublin. Grace was a planner from New York who passed away in Ireland last year after what sounds like yea...

Where Are My People? - Rachel O'Donovan, Thomas Geoghegan, Strategists from 2018-11-10T15:31:20

Dublin's Rachel O'Donovan and Thomas Geoghegan are strategists who want other strategists to talk about strategy. They recently set up a Dublin branch of London's Group Think, a community of hundre...

Could I Get Some Agile On The Side, Please? - Neil Perkin, Consultant from 2018-11-08T16:37:54

Neil Perkin is a digital consultant and author who helps businesses move faster. One could call him a jockey. Workshops are his gentle whip. Live from across the road of Web Summit which Neil was n...

What If Strategy Were Stand-up Comedy? - Fanny RK, Strategist from 2018-11-07T23:29:13

Fanny RK makes jokes. She also does stand-up comedy. That's not to say her strategy at companies like Shopify and Johns St has ever made anybody laugh. But what if it did? What if a strategist used...

Have Passport. Will Travel, Teach, And Plan. - Edwin Rager, Strategist from 2018-11-07T02:39:39

Edwin Rager is a Bolivian in Argentina who is about to move to Colombia. He's taught strategy at Brother and worked at Mother, Google, and MediaMonks having made Buenos Aires his strategy home for ...

The Strategy and Planning Scrapbook - Alex Morris, Strategist from 2018-10-24T21:39:51

Alex Morris has just published a strategy scrapbook that will stir the soul of even the most rusted strategist. And it will set alight the rainbow of the strategist who's simply trying to get stead...

Run, Strategy Department, Run! - Agathe Guerrier, Strategy Head from 2018-07-02T20:08:02

BBH LA Head of Strategy Agathe Guerrier has run a strategy department or two, and, right now, when it seems strategy doesn't always know where it's running, it also seems useful to speak with someo...

The Search Of Strategy - Michael King, CEO from 2018-06-29T14:11:05

Rapper-turned-search specialist Michael King knows a thing or six about search - what the search engines pay attention to, missteps advertising agencies make when showing search data, and whether a...

Spend Your Privilege - Sarah Moran, CEO from 2018-06-27T13:48:17

Girl Geek Academy Co-Founder and CEO Sarah Moran is on a mission. With her team, she's aiming to teach technology to 1,000,000 women by 2025. The greater goal is to ensure that the Internet of the ...

How To Do Account Planning - Mark Pollard from 2018-06-14T18:24:14

In 2010, I wrote an article about how to do account planning. For the 25th episode of Sweathead, I thought I'd read it to you and add a little extra context (but not too much). Over 90,000 people ...

Turn Your Data Wars Into Wrestles - Tony Clement from 2018-06-08T00:42:57

Tony Clement has worked data in agencies in Sydney, London, and New York. We've worked together in two of these places - Leo Burnett in Sydney about a decade ago and then at Brooklyn's Big Spaceshi...

Work The Angles - Tony Effik, Strategist from 2018-06-05T21:53:22

Tony Effik is SVP, Client Strategy at NBCUniversal and an adjunct assistant professor at Columbia University. Before, he ran Media & Connections at R/GA and he was CSO of Publicis. Big titles. The...

Planning Is For Punks - Gareth Kay, CSO from 2018-06-01T13:56:35

Gareth Kay co-founded Chapter after a stint as CSO of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners and leading planning at Modernista! in Boston. However, he's originally from England where he achieved a MA in...

Respect Words, Respect Writers - Vikki Ross, Copywriter from 2018-05-31T11:16:52

Vikki Ross copywrites. That means she finds words for brands to help those brands express themselves in ways that are unique and compelling. Vikki Ross also trains, mentors, and judges. She does ...

Why You Aren't Getting Ahead - Dr Kasey Windels, Academic from 2018-05-29T18:16:11

Why have so few women progressed into senior roles within creative departments? Dr Kasey Windels has researched this. In 2008, she analyzed the 1984, 1994, and 2004 issues of the Communication Ar...

You Can't Growth Hack Your Way Out Of Being F&*ked - RG Logan, Strategy Head from 2018-05-24T16:16:28

Know Vice? RG Logan works for their agency Virtue. He's worked in advertising, social, and digital agencies, but now spends his days helping brands to create content worth watching. We discuss: -...

Is Advertising For You Anymore? - Jocelyn Lai, Consultant from 2018-05-23T17:23:31

Jocelyn Lai has assembled teams at Droga5, R/GA, and GSD&M. She now does this for companies all over the place through her own consultancy in Pittsburgh, JSL Talent Consulting. We discuss: - Ways ...

Advertising Is Up For Grabs - Bennett D. Bennett, Writer from 2018-05-23T01:39:39

The Drum's Bennett D. Bennett once worked as a copywriter inside a large New York agency but now writes about agencies and the media world in which they live. He's also hosting a free portfolio pr...

All Your Socials Look The Same - Adam Pierno, CSO from 2018-05-19T18:20:50

CSO Adam Pierno thinks you think too much, not too well. This was Hamlet's problem. Adam also thinks all your social media looks the same. Hamlet would have killed at social media. Straight out of...

Got A Gang? Every Advertising Career Needs One - Chelsea Coleman, Rachelle DiGregorio, Strategists from 2018-05-18T15:29:38

Meet Chelsea Coleman and Rachelle DiGregorio. They recently formed Flock, a community of women from the University of Oregon that helps each other get jobs, get paid, and shine. Flock is a gang a...

An Executive Strategy Director Who Grew Up Digital - Rachel Mercer, Strategy Boss from 2018-05-17T19:50:34

Rachel Mercer is an Executive Strategy Director at R/GA in New York City. In fact, she just started the job. Three weeks ago. And we discuss this but we also discuss: - American culture shock in L...

"I Want To Do Work With More Meaning" - Malaka Gharib, Writer from 2018-05-16T14:04:22

Whenever someone working in strategy or marketing says, "I just want to do work that has more meaning," Malaka's face is one of the faces that rushes through my head as an example of someone who is...

Your Career Needs Your Confidence - Lexie Perez, Strategist from 2018-05-06T16:59

How do you grow your confidence? Meet Lexie Perez. She's lived and worked in New York, Seoul, and San Francisco. She's worked in TV production, digital agencies, and, now, she's the strategy lead...

Do Your Ads Even Work, Bro? - Tom Roach, Data Boss from 2018-05-04T18:30:48

Yeah! Tom! Tom is the Head of Effectiveness at BBH London. He shares such good things on the Internet, things that will help you do more effective work for your clients. And guess what? We discuss...

How A Production Company Runs (Hint: No Legs!) - Jason Prohaska, MD from 2018-05-03T17:43:49

How does a production company even work? Whether you live in an agency or not, it's so important to spend time understanding how your industry works. Especially right now as... well, hang on, is it...

Strategy Jobs. What's Going On? - Erin Noel, Recruiter from 2018-05-01T16:40:51

Have you ever wanted to ask a recruiter... "Like, come on now, could you tell me what's really going on?" Well, I just did. And - BONUS - Erin Noel who's currently Director of Team Operations at St...

Working Through Cultures (Social Media, Agencies, Countries) - Maura Tuohy, Marketer from 2018-04-26T17:56:32

Maura Tuohy is the Global Head of Social Content & Experiential Marketing at Mozilla (think the Firefox browser) in San Francisco. She has an MBA, she's studying law, she's worked in agencies and i...

Data And The Right Side Of Creepy - Mark Cripps, CMO from 2018-04-23T18:47:42

Mr Mark Cripps is CMO at The Economist in London. Mark grew up around advertising and direct marketing and then spent his career in agencies in roles that often involved working out how to help "di...

What You Learn When You Learn Advertising - Prof Deborah Morrison from 2018-04-19T22:18:54

Deb is a Shogun. A professor at the University of Oregon, she doesn't just teach, she doesn't just hold down a job, she gets people careers. She does this with how she teaches but she also takes a ...

What's On Strategists' Minds? - James Lees & Arthur Perez from 2018-04-18T18:45:12

Group Think is a London-based strategy community that gets people together to think, drink, and discuss. They have 500+ members. Here's an interview with James Lees (strategist at Sword and Stone...

The Philosophy of Strategy - Rob Estreitinho, Strategy from 2018-04-15T15:31:18

Philosophy is dope. Sure, some of the books are dense and the words longer than a giraffe, but we all have philosophies and can improve our lives by learning how to debate them with ourselves. Me...

Starting Out In Strategy - Natalie Kim from 2018-04-10T23:48:46

Yo! It's Natalie Kim from We Are Next. After 10 years in the agency world with her last role being Director of Strategy at Firstborn, Natalie now runs We Are Next where she helps people new to the ...

Where Did The Advertising Industry Go Wrong? - Eaon Pritchard, CSO from 2018-04-10T23:46:28

Eaon Pritchard recently published "Where Did It All Go Wrong? Adventures At The Dunning Kruger Peak of Advertising". Eaon is the Head of Strategy at Universal McCann in Melbourne, Australia. We d...

What Makes People Buy Things? - Richard Shotton, Data Boss from 2018-02-26T01:00

Richard Shotton is the Deputy Head of Evidence at MG OMD over in London and has just released a book called "The Choice Factory: 25 behavioural biases that influence what we buy."  We discuss the p...