The Strategy Blog.
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2016 Strong women rise
2016 trend for cultural traction: Strong women on the rise. “If she doesn’t do the challenge, then Beyonce will weep” This is Vicky Pattison talking about Lady C’s first jungle challenge. Vicky, who the Radio Times quaintly characterises as being famous for “getting drunk and shouting a lot on MTV’s…
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Apps are dead, long live the app
The balance of power is shifting because of a step-change in how people search. This change is enormous. It must inform our planning for brands. Search is changing The App is the start place for search now in many cases. 44% of product searches start on Amazon not Google according…
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8 out of 10 people only read the headline.
Hello there if you’ve got past the headline. You’re in the minority. Though we often accuse the young of having a short attention span it turns out that this is not in any sense confined to that generation. Only a couple of us get past the headline to the body…
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I completely disagree
Tom Goodwin, SVP at Havas in NYC, and I have never met, but we’ve disagreed about things publically on Twitter, and been in violent agreement there too. We share a view that a bit of devil’s advocacy is important to our industry. Last month he tweeted “Passive agreement is killing…
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What would make you happier at work?
On a scale of 1 to 5, how do you feel about your role in the company? Both these questions are lifted from Jeff Sutherland’s new book “Scrum: the art of doing twice the work in half the time”. In many sectors, including media agencies, we need to do more…
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You call it advertising, I call it content: A view from a media agency
Why has the term Content roused such fury amongst some in our industry? At Time Inc’s recent Campaign summit exploring the Future of Content there was quite an argument about the term Content itself. Some say it is yet another way of complicating matters and ask where is the exact…
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What advice would you give your 21 year old self?
It’s that time of year when we’re welcoming a whole new intake of talent into MediaCom. Fresh from academic pursuits. First jobbers. Up for anything. All of them have survived at the time of writing. There are precedents here. I worked somewhere once where a new graduate didn’t make it…
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“I’m never going to put boundaries on myself ever again. I’m never going to say I can’t do it. I’m never going to say maybe. I’m never going to say I don’t think I can. I can and I will.”
Nearly 15m viewers for the Great British Bake Off Final on the BBC. More than a quarter of everyone in the UK tuned in to Nadiya’s heartfelt speech (all audience figures used in blog are Source: AdvantEdge (BARB) – Individual Max TVRs). I personally have my doubts about marshmallow fondant…
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Every office needs a devil’s advocate
“I would rather be a devil in alliance with truth, than an angel in alliance with falsehood.” ― Ludwig Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity Sky One’s new comedy drama, “You, Me and the Apocalypse” gives a starring role to Rob Lowe as the Devil’s Advocate. What a job, I mean the actual…
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Welcome to the Age of Friendly
“Friendly is the new cool” Journalist Jess Cartner-Morley is talking about Fashion. “Smiling is the new pouting, friendly the new cool and softly-softly the new sell.” She calls Instagram the new heart of fashion, replacing the catwalks of London, Milan and New York. She comments that to shine on Instagram…
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2 by 4: 2 ways to deal with the 4 minute rule.
The nation is hooked on watching people watch TV. Once you start watching Gogglebox, it’s hard to stop. Do we even know how we feel about XFactor, The last night of the Proms and This is England until we’ve heard from Sandy and Sandra, June and Leon and the inimitable,…
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Get your own back
In a recent Sunday Times article business writer Adrian Furnham proposes the idea of a “Restoration Day” at work. A time when the wronged confront those that have acted against them. A day every year when the wrongdoers make things right. According to some surveys three quarters of people who…
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