The Strategy Blog.
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Conditions for transformation
Lionel Shriver is not noted for her optimistic outlook on the world. She is an author and spokesperson, her breakthrough book was “We need to talk about Kevin”. This was a dystopian description of a mother’s journey to explain why her son killed 9 people at his high school. Lionel…
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What do you really do?
During a visit to the NASA Space Centre in 1962, President Kennedy noticed a janitor carrying a broom. He interrupted his tour, walked over to the man and said: “Hi, I’m Jack Kennedy, what are you doing?” The janitor responded: “I’m helping put a man on the moon, Mr President.”…
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When ads are welcome
One of my esteemed colleagues used to like to reflect annually on the continued decline in the numbers of people who agreed with the TGI statement “The ads are better than the programmes on TV”. The glorious Tess Alps, ex ceo of Thinkbox would counter that this was because the…
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There are 48 ways to be creative. Here’s number 10: Build communities.
What’s creativity for? One use is creative destruction. To destroy and to clear away old and legacy models so as to allow you to create new mores and standards. Sometimes it is impossible to create the new if the heritage of the past hangs heavily on your organisation or culture.…
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If every aspect of your customer experience does not support, or even exceed, the promise of the brand then you’re limiting your business and its growth.
In 2008 a Chicago based marketing man Jonathan Salem Baskin wrote a best selling book: “Branding only works on cattle”. The argument in the book was that if you focussed solely on building a brand in a silo, separately from customer service and pricing, then you would never optimise the…
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The power of inviting everyone in.
For a couple of years way back in the seventies there were basically two tribes in the UK. You were punk or you were not. The Sex Pistols were storming the charts despite being banned (or arguably because they were banned), and the simple addition of a dog collar –…
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The one thing you must have to win in 2023: an asymmetrical advantage.
Here’s two ways of achieving this. Better use of data than your competition. Better imagination (powered by better empathy and creativity). Author and journalist Derek Thompson says Moneyball has ruined baseball for him. And ruined the music charts (he’s an expert here with his book Hit Makers, the science of…
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Advertising has got better
This might be a controversial statement for some. And it depends of course on what you regard as “better”. After all we are no longer in the so-called Golden Age of Advertising. Creative legend and OG Dave Trott has recently posted lots of great ads on Twitter with his notes…
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There are 48 creative techniques. Here’s number 9: Strip it back.
Rick Rubin is a legendary American music producer, co-founder with Russell Simmons of Def Jam, home to Beastie Boys, LL Cool J, Public Enemy and Run DMC. According to MTV in 2007, he was the most important producer of the previous two decades. He’s also produced Red Hot Chilli Peppers…
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Don’t work in an echo chamber
Back to live events. It’s great to be able to attend conferences in person again. The IPA Effworks week of sessions was vibrant, informative and stimulating. But have you ever (at other conferences of course, never the IPA), ended up feeling that you have been shortchanged because the panel on…
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Stop judging.
Watching old movies on a long haul flight I caught the 2010, teen movie Easy A with Emma Stone. It’s essentially a movie about judgement. Loosely (very loosely) based on the Scarlet Letter by Nathanial Hawthorne, it recounts the experience of Olive, who is condemned for being promiscuous based on…
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Sex sells: A proposal for Sexuality Offsetting
Access to modern contraception is vital to the empowerment of women and girls worldwide. There are 160 million women worldwide who do not have access and a $59bn cost to fulfilling unmet contraception needs. Even when contraception is available, cultural pressures: social norms, traditional gender stereotypes, prejudices and stigmas mean…
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