Blogs

How do you solve a problem like marketing procurement?

6 min read February 22, 2024

Well, in all fairness, probably not by starting with an antagonistic headline like this one. Marketing procurement repeatedly seems to comes under fire, being widely criticised for “not getting” advertising, for “hamstringing marketing”, “gutting agencies” of their fee revenues, and so on and so forth. Cost of everything, value of nothing, blah blah and so […]

Gorillas are not for everybody

3 min read February 22, 2024

Gorillas are not for everybody. Gorilla campaigns are those campaigns that stop you in your tracks, make you think twice or make you join some of the dots yourself. They’re emotive for sure, but they can also be polarising or controversial. M&C Saatchi’s latest work for Huawei appears to be a candidate for Gorilla status. […]

Five ways to spot an agency bullshitter.

5 min read February 22, 2024

“False positive” is a scientific term. It’s used when something gets a positive result from a test that should have produced a negative result. In the world of medicine they are acutely aware false positives (and false negatives) and therefore they will often retest results before acting, particularly if the result seems unlikely and the […]

Dangers of over-fishing in agency fee negotiations

6 min read February 22, 2024

As we approach the ad-agency-contract-renegotiation-season there is a truth that should be known by clients for their own long-term good and for the good of the agencies upon which they rely: ad agencies sometimes do silly deals. There, the cat is out of the bag. To be fair it has been out of the bag […]

Beware the Intermediary ‘Opportunity Racket’

5 min read February 22, 2024

A cautionary word to advertisers: a good intermediary helps you find the right agency, but many employ shady funding models that compromise their basic duty of impartiality.  You might remember the famous Peter Cook and Dudley Moore sketch in which the latter plays an actor auditioning for the role of Tarzan. We could imagine Moore’s agent only […]

Are you choosing an agency or getting the leftovers?

2 min read February 22, 2024

As agency tenure has declined the new business market for agencies has, of course, naturally increased. In a busy new business market, the better agencies have to choose more carefully which pitch invitations to accept – they can’t afford to go after everything. But agencies are repeatedly told their market is oversupplied, and advertisers approach […]

Anybody can cook a steak.

5 min read February 22, 2024

Anybody can cook a steak. This was the observation of an online friend of mine, Derek Walker. His full post read: “Cooking a steak is the easiest thing to do. Buy a steak. Season it. Cook it. That’s it.  And yet… some folks end up eating a juicy tender steak, while others end up chewing on […]

The best question

6 min read December 1, 2023

What question can silence 30+ excited bigmouths?

Then came the question. 

And we all stopped. 

We stopped talking, we stopped laughing, we stopped smiling – because we had to start really thinking about how to answer this simple question.

And this was it: So what will you do differently tomorrow?

Protected: Bike sheds and Nuclear Power Stations

3 min read October 8, 2023

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

The Arrogance Paradox

5 min read October 8, 2023

If it were easy to start a new business and make it a success, surely there would be a lot more businesses around? 

I would estimate that the number of people who would like to be their own boss is greater than those who actually are their own boss by an order of magnitude.

Packing your own parachute

3 min read September 4, 2023

This article relates to the themes explored in David Meikle’s new book, Tuning Up in which he explores the impact of responsibility and control in relationships, and how different levels of responsibility and control influence productivity, quality, work satisfaction and stress. You can find out more about Tuning Up here. It’s available in Hardback here […]