Why you don’t need a digital strategy, but you need an HR strategy

What’s the point in having a different strategy for your digital world than the rest of it? Does your brand offer different products and services online than off? Are your consumers split into those that only go to stores and those locked in their basements on a laptop? It doesn’t make sense – yet we…… Continue reading Why you don’t need a digital strategy, but you need an HR strategy

Why content marketing will be hard for agencies

  One of the major changes in online marketing for 2012 will be the rise of content. A brand’s content strategy will be a key weapon in breaking through the clutter of ‘old school’ advertising, engaging with the consumer and delivering a brand message. But moving from advertising to content will mean major changes for…… Continue reading Why content marketing will be hard for agencies

Media + Advertising = Strategy & Execution Success

As the battle heats up in the advertising business and the friction between agencies, even those who are meant to be sister companies, grows even more severe the challenge laid out by Govindarajan and Trimble in their book The Other Side of Innovation: Solving the Execution Challenge becomes ever more obvious for our industry. It’s…… Continue reading Media + Advertising = Strategy & Execution Success

My Job is about Change – Agitating & Activating

Depending on who I’m talking to, I find it very hard to describe what I do – a lot of the time I talk about ‘digital strategy’ but I know that if I find it difficult to explain, that probably means that others find it even harder to understand – it’s a logical conclusion. What…… Continue reading My Job is about Change – Agitating & Activating

Learning to walk – by the book

The major challenge affecting agencies today is how to keep up with technology as it explodes in the communications landscape around us – never before in the history of the business have so many changes, happened so fast and with such greater impact. As we try to keep up, to learn, to understand and to…… Continue reading Learning to walk – by the book

Digital strategy is dead – Long live digital strategy

Today I participated in a Mirren Business Development session run by Brent Hodgins and one of the most interesting things he mentioned reminded me of the keynote from the BDW workshop I attended last week in New York – he said that in an increasingly competitive and changing market, the future for agencies was in…… Continue reading Digital strategy is dead – Long live digital strategy

BDW Making Digital Work – Day 2, Afternoon

The afternoon session kicked off with Scott Prindle (@prindlescott) VP Creative technology at CP&B giving us real insight into the development of technology within the agency and the appearance (and importance) of the creative technologist. He told us that now at CP&B, 1/3 of their digital work is on mobile and them proportion is growing;…… Continue reading BDW Making Digital Work – Day 2, Afternoon

Treating creatives like adults

For far too long this industry has treated creatives like the goose that lays the golden egg – a mysterious creature that must be locked away, waited on hand and foot, and generally treated like a jewel that must pandered to and protected. But times are changing. Times are changing both for the industry as…… Continue reading Treating creatives like adults

Marketing services should have acquired advertising

I’m slowly coming to the firm conclusion that marketing services (and all that it comprises) should have acquired advertising – and not the other way around which is what seems to have happened in the industry. Marketing Services (despite their appalling name) agencies had one of the most interesting remits of the late 90s and…… Continue reading Marketing services should have acquired advertising