Sweathead, A Strategy Podcast

Rachita Vasan is a strategist at Leo Burnett in Chicago. Recently, she presented thoughts about being less racist and less shitty in the workplace. A friend filmed it. I saw it. We invited Rachita to present it at The Strategy Super Sizer Megaclass in Chicago. And, now, she’s here sharing it into your ears. This episode features Rachita’s talk and then an interview. You can find Rachita here https...

Tim Levinson is a rapper, songwriter, label manager, and artist manager. He’s been in the public eye for two decades as Urthboy and as part of the Elefant Traks record label (Hermitude are one of the groups representing the label around the world). We discuss how Tim thinks about his art and touch on many ideas a strategist would do well to absorb into their lives. You can find Tim here https://tw...

Lauren Joyce is the National Strategy Director at the Australian Radio Network, a company that reaches millions of Australians every week. She's also worked in media agencies (Universal McCann), branded content, and in another publisher (Mamamia, a publisher that reaches 4 million Australians each month). We discuss how strategy is different in each of these types of companies, how to deal with sh...

Alasdair Lloyd-Jones is a strategist-turned-CSO-turned-President-turned-COO-turned-CEO. Most recently, he led SET Creative, an agency that recently sold. I caught Alasdair as he was contemplating what to do next - should he create his own agency, go client-side, or join another agency with deep experience design expertise? This feels like a rare conversation - someone who's lived in multiple count...

How does it feel to be a strategist and have people invite you into strategy projects but not to do strategy? Instead, sometimes you're invited to "represent your people," a solo focus group on behalf of an entire population. How does it feel to be a lead strategist and have people invite you to meetings but treat you like you're not a lead strategist? These things have happened to Melle. And Mell...

Trine Keller-Andreason is a planner at Forsman & Bodenfors. She's worked in Denmark and New York, but now lives in Sweden. Just over a week ago, her team won the inaugural Creative Strategy Grand Prix at The Cannes International Festival of Creativity. The project took Volvo's history and focus on safety somewhere it hadn't been before. This will come as no surprise because Forsman & Bodenfors is...

Today - a quick word to strategists who work in pre-sales for tech platforms and publishers, as well as for agencies that are new to strategy and mostly use it in pitches. Plus questions about doing strategy without much time, finding out things without being able to talk to people, and what planners need from Heads of Planning.  For more strategy talk: 1. Strategy newsletter: www.markpollard.net/...

Max Slonim is a senior strategist at Initiative in New York. He's attended the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity twice. The first time he attended was to compete as a Young Lion. He and his partner had 24 hours to come up with a campaign. This year, he attended the academy.  You can think what you want of the festival - good or bad. That's because you're an independent thinker. I h...

Your questions answered in the face like a dog with its head out the window of a car speeding down a freeway.  For more strategy talk: 1. Strategy newsletter: www.markpollard.net/email-newsletter/ 2. Strategy drawings: www.instagram.com/markpollard   3. Strategy Twitter: www.twitter.com/markpollard 4. Join 5,000+ strategists: www.sweathead.co New book "Strategy Is Your Words" out soon.

Zoe Scaman runs Bodacious, a strategy consultancy in London. After a good run through Droga5, Undercurrent, Naked, and Adidas (yeah yeah, this is your dream list), Zoe isn't exactly settling down because maybe that's not how she's made. In fact, after growing up bouncing around, getting expelled twice, living in America, West Sussex, and Sydney, and constantly seeking new experiences and new ideas...

ECD Chapin Clark works at R/GA in New York. He has done so for a very long time, so long R/GA put its voice in his hands. It's not because he outlived his coworkers and R/GA had no choice, and it's not because Chapin got all Hunger Games at the office one long Winter's day. He just knows how to write things we wish we could say.  We discuss: - Moving from journalism into advertising - Why on Earth...

Nayantara Dutta has lived in Scotland, Vietnam, Hong Kong, India, and the USA. As a third culture kid, she has had to contemplate how to fit in as she's moved around while also learning different ways of being. And, in advertising, she's found a way to take this experience and contemplation and turn it into a career in New York, then into a report about young Muslim women.  We discuss: - Growing u...

Mickey Taylor runs Adweak, a satirical Internet presence that mocks advertising and all the silly things we do. He's a long-time creative director on the West Coast of the USA and has navigated his career from more traditional channels into running a Twitter account that thousands pay attention to every single day. We discuss: - What Adweak is all about and what Mickey has learned from doing it -...

In this episode, I answer a few questions from Instagram - Does strategy need a rebrand? How do you get an executional client to think bigger? How do you avoid post-rationalizing ideas? What’s up with “purpose”? For AMAs: http://www.instagram.com/markpollard  For more strategy talk: 1. Strategy newsletter: www.markpollard.net/email-newsletter/ 2. Strategy drawings: www.instagram.com/markpollard 3....

Megan Averell runs The Insight Inn, a research and strategy consultancy. After years working in large agencies, she decided she’d had enough of Bro culture - misogyny dressed as creativity and frat games. So, she left. Then she researched her own industry and, after speaking to 20 women, she published what she’d found on her website and she presented it at The 3% Conference. Now, she discusses it...

Duane Brown runs a digital marketing agency called Take Some Risk. He’s all across PPC (Pay Per Click) and the hashtag of the PPC community #PPCChat. He’s visited 40 countries and he has just moved from Vancouver to Montreal. And along the way, he’s spent time working out the company he wants to work in while building it. We discuss:  Basic digital performance marketing concepts Not charging for h...

A quick look at the ZeeMELT Conference in Mumbai this week just after I arrived back in NY. It includes a brief summary of talks by Faris & Rosie, Laura Bambach, Vicki Ross, Dave Trott, Kate O’Neill, Mr Sodhi, Samuel Scott, Fernando Machado, Rodger Beekman, Gerardo Mazzeo, JP Hanson and Wiemer Snijders. Complete with at least 200 mistakes and mispronunciations. Shout-outs to Payal, Sanika, Tushar,...

Dos Toros is a Mexican food joint. They are lunch-sponsoring the first occurrence of The Strategy Super Sizer Megaclass in New York. So we thought we'd throw around some ideas like the last episode Julian and I did together. Can we think out loud and messy and try - just try - to find a thread from problem to comms idea and tactics in less than an hour and then draw it up? Will any of it make sens...

Writing creative briefs, creative brief templates, running brief-writing workshops, propositions, and more. Shout-outs to Gillian Rightford and Shane O’Leary for the Saturday morning encouragement. http://www.instagram.com/markpollard For more strategy talk: 1. Strategy newsletter: http://www.markpollard.net/email-newsletter/ 2. Strategy drawings: http://www.instagram.com/markpollard 3. Strategy T...

Lauren Cole is Senior Manager of Inclusion & Diversity at The One Club For Creativity. In this role, Lauren helps organizations improve how they understand and apply important ideas about creating workforces that represent the communities they're in, while helping individuals understand more about the industry they are in or might enter. We discuss: - The very concepts of diversity and inclusion -...

How do you learn strategy? In this episode we look at 15+ questions from strategists around the world and we discuss deliberate practice, sets, and practice as sanity. Ask questions here: http://www.instagram.com/markpollard For more strategy talk: 1. Strategy newsletter: http://www.markpollard.net/email-newsletter/ 2. Strategy drawings: http://www.instagram.com/markpollard 3. Strategy Twitter: ht...

Ben Phillips is Strategy Director at Anomaly in New York. His parents are from America. I'll claim him as Australian because my family and I walked past him this one time in Ultimo, Sydney. He did work in Sydney. Then he spent a bunch of years in London and he worked at R/GA there. He's also the best skateboarder on the strategy Internet. He got engaged last year but, when we spoke, he either got...

James Kirkham co-founded and co-sold the agency Holler. He started it in London. He was young and naive. He worked to spread offices around the world. Then he sold Holler to Leo Burnett. Now, he is the Chief Business Officer of Copa90, a football fan media empire. We discuss:  - Going from freelance to business - The power of young naivety - Luck, proximity, hard work, recession, catching waves, a...

Kate Richardson is a marketing consultant who can work on a wide array of projects. As a generalist, she touches business strategy, marketing strategy, digital and comms planning, and, now, coaching and training. She once worked at Naked in Australia (news came out this week of their merger with BMF), she was the National Strategy Director of the TV network Channel Ten, and she believes in sabbati...

A chat about 27 things that make strategy harder than it needs to be as suggested by the good folks who answered my question about this on Instagram. Plus 21 things that I believe make a good operating system for doing good work. If you like these walks, let me know: http://www.instagram.com/markpollard   For more strategy talk: 1. Strategy newsletter: http://www.markpollard.net/email-newsletter/...