Sweathead, A Strategy Podcast

Katrina Grönberg (née Wong) is a career-long planner. Her first planning role was at Leo Burnett in Sydney then she worked at Droga5 and then she went to BBDO in New York, met a guy, moved to Sweden, and had two boys. We discuss all of this. You can find Katrina here https://www.instagram.com/katrinagroenberg For more strategy talk: Newsletter: http://www.markpollard.net/email-newsletter/ Instagra...

Brian Wakabayashi leads strategy at 215 McCann in San Francisco. He started as an admin. Well, as an admin to an admin. And, as he grew into bigger roles and roles that weren't only about doing the strategy work but making the strategy team his work, he's had to reflect a lot on what that work is. So we discuss this.  You can find Brian here https://twitter.com/brianwaka For more strategy talk: Ne...

Dabs runs Adland. It's a website with over twenty years of ads from around the world. Adland went down recently after a copyright dispute. But it's back up. This week. And that's really cool. In this interview, we discuss what Dabs has learned about advertising over the years, issues with copyright and DMCA takedowns, as well as how creative award show juries–and their jurors– work. You can find A...

In which I answer about 10 of your questions, chat creative briefs, and agencies doing a better job taking care of their lone strategists: http://www.instagram.com/markpollard

Duncan Blair runs marketing at Article in Vancouver. Article is a furniture powerhouse in the e-commerce world, growing quickly and appearing everywhere. In this interview, we discuss how marketing responsibilities have eroded from the 4 Ps to just an A–advertising. We also discuss working with introversion, especially in business cultures and regions where extroversion is prized. You can find Dun...

Nicolas Lévy is Managing Partner and CSO at Marcel in Paris. Marcel is part of the huge holding group Publicis but it tries to maintain an independent spirit. We discuss how Marcel works, getting strategy to work at Marcel, as well as mentoring strategists. And I accidentally call Nicolas "Marcel" once - maybe twice - but let's see if it sticks. You can find Nicolas here https://twitter.com/nico_a...

Welcome back. It’s 2020. What are you going to do about it? Come read 15 Instagram essays here http://www.instagram.com/markpollard and top up your brain with this official Skillshare class http://skl.sh/markpollard PS Much love to friends, family, and strangers in Australia dealing with the bushfires

Sam Sterling is Managing Director of AKQA Greater China and Japan. Mega title, right? She's a doctorate candidate at Fudan and Durham University where she's doing a DBA (Doctorate of Business Administration), in which she's trying to bring a practitioner's mindset to academia while bringing academia a little closer to the practitioner's reality. She's studying the life expectancy of brands. We dis...

Kate O'Neill went from studying linguistics to making websites to Silicon Valley to Netflix to starting an agency to writing books and speaking around the world. Like many of us, she's interested in meaning. How do we work out what means something to us and how do we express how we mean that something? And this is what we talk about.  You can find Kate here: https://twitter.com/kateo For more stra...

Rory Sutherland has a brain the size of a whale in the head of a short, scruffy Englishman who's spent a lifetime trying to work out people while mostly being among them. He’s the Vice Chairman of Ogilvy in London and he recently published the book “Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense”. The book has two subtitles depending on where you look and this makes complete sense be...

Helen Edwards is a columnist for Marketing Week, a strategy consultant, and a teaching fellow at London Business School. We discuss the tensions between the worlds of the practitioners and the academics of marketing, amassing credentials, and overachievement. Then we discuss what Helen wants to see change in marketing.  You can find Helen here https://twitter.com/helenedw For more strategy talk: N...

Amber Benson is a strategy consultant and an executive-in-residence at SMU in Texas. She consults and she teaches. Yes, she does both. And she believes doing both helps you get better at both. We discuss Texas, what the creative culture is like in Texas, and how she encourages students at SMU to develop empathy and creative skills. You can find Amber here: https://twitter.com/AmberBenson For more...

Ryan Ford is CCO of Cashmere in Los Angeles. Ryan entered the agency world after working as the executive editor of The Source magazine, one of the most powerful hip hop media voices of all time. So how do the two worlds connect? What did Ryan learn from his journalism days that he applies to his advertising role? How do brands "work within culture"? You can find Ryan here https://twitter.com/ford...

About 15 of your questions answered today. ASMR soon - I promise. Tickets to Strategy Upon A Strategist are $40 and on Eventbrite it you can get a ticket plus book for more here: http://www.strategyisyourwords.com

Vikki Ross is a copywriter in London. She does a lot for the copywriting community - she organizes events and drinks, and she is a powerful and independent voice fighting to improve the respect the industry has for the craft (of copywriting, not of drinking). Also, she would have hated seeing the word "organizes" spelled like that. She probably flinched seeing "spelled" in the passive voice, too....

Ryan Wallman is back to talk about his first book Delusions of Brandeur. He's compiling his most powerful pieces of the Internet to put into a compendium dedicated to puncturing the pretensions of marketing. We discuss why the industry is so serious about itself and how this hurts it, the copy-writing community, and self-deprecation.  You can find Ryan here: http://twitter.com/dr_draper.  His book...

An episode for all my people thinking about their next jobs when, maybe, a brief pause to think about their next lives is due. Plus some of your questions answered. http://www.strategyisyourwords.com

Natalie Kim runs We Are Next. She is urgently trying to get diverse advertising voices into public while also helping people start their advertising careers well. We hear from hundreds of people every month. So we thought we’d compare notes about what we are hearing for the We Are Next podcast and Sweathead podcast. PS Happy maternity leave, Nat! http://www.we-are-next.com For more strategy talk:...

Barry Mowszowski has worked at Droga5 in New York as well as Contagious and, after a good stint in the agency world, he decided to go to the Berlin School of Creative Leadership. We discuss getting an executive MBA and the work Barry now does helping leaders to understand how to adapt their companies for creative minds and makers.  You can find Barry here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barrymow The...

Kaitlin Maud is back. As co-founder of Austin's Current Forward, Kaitlin has spent time thinking about and developing products from strategy services. It's one of those ideas that sounds cool and seductive but what does creating strategy products mean and can it even work? You can find Kaitlin here https://twitter.com/kaitlinmaud The Kickstarter for "Strategy Is Your Words" is live http://bit.ly/s...

Jason Fox is a copywriter who also writes the social media presence known as Lee Clow's Beard. We discuss how Jason came to create Lee Clow's Beard, melancholy, writing, and the fundamentals our industry can seem too advanced to defend. You can find Jason here https://twitter.com/jason_fox and Lee Clow's Beard here https://twitter.com/leeclowsbeard * The Kickstarter for the “Strategy Is Your Words...

Simon McEvoy runs strategy at Omobono in the UK. He's working with his agency on decentralizing how they operate, as well as on building give into the company and into the culture. "Give" - as in encouraging a sense of safety, vulnerability, and forgiveness. But are agencies meant to act like this? And how does it work? This is what we discuss. You can find Simon here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/...

Jessie White is Executive Creative Director at Instrument in Portland. We discuss two main topics: the graduation from designer to leader and how designers and strategists can work better together. If you work with people in any other kind of discipline and if you're contemplating a shift from being on the tools to being on the people, you'll get something out of Jessie's insights. You can find Je...

Thoughts from SoHo about knowing when you have an insight or strategy or idea plus THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING MY KICKSTARTER: http://bit.ly/strategykickstarter

Reema Mitra is VP of Brand at New York's Today Tix, a ticketing platform that gets you into your favorite shows. In this episode, we discuss how brand and product can work better together, the importance of research, and finding your way in a career that has a hunch about what it wants to do but knows it will take a few twists and turns to find it. You can find Reema here: https://twitter.com/rmit...