The Strategy Blog.
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Stay home and Hygge
“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower” – Camus Autumn is well and truly upon us now. The nights are drawing in. The clocks are going back, we’re stocking up for Guy Fawkes and many of us are thankfully donning the black tights of concealment. The ad…
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Fresh blood in the mix
At the Royal Television Society conference last month there were calls for “Fresh blood in the funding mix” This felt a bit strange to me, as a panellist from the media agency sector. We have for a long time now been including branded content as a crucial part of the…
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When the machines take control
The machines are coming. In the course of talking about The Glass Wall, success strategies for women at work and businesses that mean business, some people have told me and my co-author Kathryn that there really is no need to be anxious about gender inequality in senior management. They speak…
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Time to add common sense to video view metrics
What is a view? “This is the glory of business travel” According to Rob Norman, Chief Digital Officer of Group M, and he travels a lot, so if anyone should know Rob should know, the glory of business travel is doing your own ironing. He posted a video (which is…
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No regrets
Non, je ne regrette rien. No, I have no regrets. How many of us can truly say that? According to recent research in the US by Allianz 32% of Americans regret major choices in their lives. Topping the regret charts according to the research? Ignoring your health; neglecting to exercise;…
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How did we do that and what can we learn?
As we waved Team GB off on the way to Rio were you thinking what I was thinking? “Good luck, hope you do well, but I don’t really expect you to bring back as many medals as London 2012”. Team GB defied my expectations. The best accumulation of medals in…
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Consensus sounds nice, but is the last thing you need for your business.
“We are the urban elite. We live inside an echo chamber.” Creative genius Dave Trott in Campaign. Telling us off for surrounding ourselves with people who look and sound like ourselves. What’s to be done? More women in the boardroom. Even the best companies in our sector aren’t anywhere…
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Generation Brexit
2016 is 25 years on from the publication of Douglas Coupland’s iconic novel Generation X. So that generation, the generation of young people, just entering the workplace in 1991 and characterised by Coupland as doomed with lousy jobs and a general attitude of bitter cynicism, is all grown up now…
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Attachment Reminder: You may have forgotten to attach a file. Don’t send? Send anyway?
There’s a robot reading our emails. It’s there for our own protection. After all who wants to have to resend an email when they’ve forgotten to actually attach the promised document? It is our little virtual personal assistant. This notification comes up if you write, in the body copy of…
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A call for more to be done by our industry to represent people with disabilities
We clearly still need a Glass Lion. (The Cannes Glass Lion recognises work that implicitly or explicitly addresses issues of gender inequality or prejudice, through the conscious representation of gender in advertising.) Of course we do. It’s not enough. We need more action. We must all decide whether we think women should…
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Turning old media around
Newsbrands have done well in the shortterm out of Brexit with sales and subs going up. Consolidated sales are finally being considered for the medium. Here’s a related world with potential other learnings for the category. Printed book sales are up – are there lessons for printed magazines and newsbrands…
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#womennotobjects
“It’s kinda messed up” “It’s like gross to see” “I don’t like seeing that” “Cover your eyes, cover your eyes” These are the reactions of a bunch of kids when shown ads featuring the objectification of women according to Madonna Badger of the campaign: Women not…
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