Disruption for mind and body

I went last night for my first training sesssion at Concept 10 10 here in Dubai, this is a very different approach to the gym that uses very heavy weight against isolated muscle groups, doing very slow repetitions until you reach muscle failure point – and if you can hold out for too long (2.5…… Continue reading Disruption for mind and body

Has ‘integration’ become a dirty word?

In the rush to evolve the skills of the advertising industry to keep up with an ever changing number of new media channels the buzzword for the last few years has been integration, bringing other skillsets and sometimes other agencies into the fold to deliver an integrated product – whether this was branding, digital or…… Continue reading Has ‘integration’ become a dirty word?

Did AOL peak too early? Are walled gardens the future?

The web is dead, long live the internet – those were the guiding words of a recent Wired article discussing the evolution of how we use the web and the internet – how the relative amount of data and information that we consume in the browser is decreasing compared to the quantity of apps and…… Continue reading Did AOL peak too early? Are walled gardens the future?

Clarifying digital and mobile

It is about time that the industry stopped referring to digital and mobile as channels or as media; we are mature enough now to understand that these are not specific enough and do not group together a set of channels that can, or should, necessarily be used together. The mobile handset exists in a number…… Continue reading Clarifying digital and mobile

The war for digital talent in advertising

Is there enough 360 experience to go around? Are tighter criteria making the talent pool smaller for recruitment today? It seems like everyone is chasing after the golden goose right now – the speed at which digital is invading our industry means that suddenly there is a major need for people that not only understand…… Continue reading The war for digital talent in advertising

Elephant in the room syndrome for agencies

The more I search for information about agency structures and models, the less of it I seem to find, not only are there very few descriptions of the traditional agency structure, how planning, creative and client service work together, but there is even less information about how these models are evolving and what might be…… Continue reading Elephant in the room syndrome for agencies

A fork in the road for advertising

I often find myself wondering how far the advertising invasion will go; dissatisfied with the shrinkage of traditional channels and the still unconfirmed power of the internet, we find that new ideas for advertising are popping up all over the place. Last week I found myself in a meeting with a new media company offering…… Continue reading A fork in the road for advertising

Reinventing marketing strategy, plans and thinking

As I read the pipeline article on ‘learning to unlearn’ it occurred to me how key this idea is when applied directly to the way we plan marketing and communications campaigns today. The last few years have seen the arrival of new channels, the prevalence of content as key to engagement and have put the…… Continue reading Reinventing marketing strategy, plans and thinking