Sweathead, A Strategy Podcast

Harriet Kindleysides is Senior Strategist at Nice and Serious in the UK. She also writes a newsletter called 'A Strategist’s Guide to Art' in which she connects her love for fine art to her strategy mind.  In this episode, we discuss what art is, how art can help a strategist, as well as Harriet's pandemic-triggered email-writing practice. You can find Harriet here: Newsletter: https://astrategist...

Ben Culpin is a managing partner at Amsterdam agency Lifely. He turned in a 5-year freelance strategy career to join a company he knew well - as a freelancer and also as friends. Prior to this, Ben worked at Strawberry Frog and Nomads, and, somewhere in-between all of this, he has been a video maker and ethnographic researcher. In this episode of Sweathead, we discuss what it's like to make all th...

Marcelo Ferrarini is a Brazilian in London working for The Lego Group as Senior Manager, Global Insights.  Recently, he published an article on LinkedIn that later made its way to WARC. And, now, you can hear it from his mouth right here. In this episode, Marcelo takes us through what he's learned from the marketing sciences and how what he's learned has changed how he goes about marketing.&n...

Taylor Marks is a senior strategist at SixSpeed in Minneapolis. Taylor completed the very first public Sweathead Strategy Accelerator in 2021. I liked her work and wanted to share it with you. (BTW Our next accelerator starts on March 31, 2022) One of the briefs in our accelerator asks you to sell Party City to people who aren't comfortable partying due to the pandemic. In our chat, Taylor takes u...

Immediately after speaking with Philipp Paster on Friday, March 11, 2022 (the episode before this one), I spoke with three more Ukrainians about their experience of the war they're living through. In this episode, Nata Zaharova joins us from Odessa, Valeria Tymotievych from Dubai, and Andriy Nimkovych from Kyiv.  We discuss this feeling of induced psychosis, how Ukrainian “Creative Forces” ar...

Sweathead Facebook group member Philipp Paster lives in Kyiv, Ukraine. Much of his family is there, too. But everyone lives in different apartments.  On Friday, March 11, Philipp (formerly a brand strategist at TBWA Ukraine) spoke with me about what it’s been like to be living in Kyiv during the Russian invasion. I only watched the documentary “Winter On Fire”, which looks at the toppling of...

Günel Sadigova is eight months into her first strategy role. A pandemic strategy baby (if that's a thing), Günel was once a professional pianist. She then moved into marketing and, now, into a job with Toronto's Performance Art (coincidentally named–you know, because Günel was a performer and artist). In this episode, we discuss what Günel has learned over the past eight months. She discusses comi...

"Any advice for my first strategy job?" is a big question. In this episode, I try to answer it along with eight other questions, including: - Can you get promoted too soon? - How do you do deep thinking when you have to work fast? - How do you sell strategy as a standalone offer? * Find out about our Strategy Accelerator at http://www.sweathead.com Follow the fun on Instagram: http://www.instagram...

Strategy is an odd job. It’s doused in ambiguity and riddled with confusion while sounding important at all times. This is why we brought in Pilar McQuirter. Pilar is a Cultural Strategy Director at Los Angeles' Cashmere Agency. In this episode of Sweathead, Pilar will help you explain yourself to people around you, especially the ones who see you all the time but still don’t know what you do or w...

So. Many. Trends. But what's really worth our attention?  In this episode of Sweathead, Chike Ume (Essence, Seattle), Hayley Grant (VaynerMedia, New York), and Matt Klein (Reddit, New York) each introduce three trends they think we need to pay attention to. We recorded this in front of a small but live virtual audience on Zoom. We managed to remove most of the Zoom glitches and there is a lit...

The strategy career has been kind to me. Frustrating but kind. And I hope it’s kind to you. I often get this question, “Any advice for someone new to strategy?” It’s a grabby question. A little lazy. But I wanted to share some thoughts for all of you who are new to strategy and trying to work out how to thrive. Some of this even makes sense. You can find this post on Instagram: https://www.instagr...

Nick Hirst is Executive Strategy Director at adam&eveDDB in London. He's twenty years into his planning career. He's been at adam&eveDDB for eight years and spent some of them as Head of Planning. That's after being a Head of Planning at Dare and working at Lowe and Grey. In this episode of Sweathead, we discuss the messy reality of doing account planning. You can find Nick here: https://t...

Pooja Munshi is Head of Web, Data Analysis, and Digital Transformation at the UN Environment Programme. She's based in Nairobi, Kenya, but she's lived and/or worked in Paris, Berlin, London, Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta, Miami, and New York. In fact, after ten years of working in advertising in New York, Pooja felt somewhat burnt out and decided to follow her partner to Paris.  In this episode, we...

In this episode I run you through some recent student work from the Sweathead Strategy Accelerator (thanks to Colin Craig from Moon Rabbit) as well as ten tips about doing strategy while exhausted. Our next strategy accelerator starts on March 31. You find find details at http://www.sweathead.com You can find the Instagram version of this episode on Instagram at http://www.instagram.com/markpollar...

In today's Sweathead episode, Rakaa Taylor shares with us how he made the leap from being a rapper, musician, and artist to being a full-time strategist. He draws parallels between songwriting and strategy writing and discusses some of his strategy work.  Rakaa Taylor, aka Rakaa Iriscience, is a world-class rapper, performer, artist, and musician who's part of the group, Dilated Peoples. They...

In today's Sweathead episode, Ambika Pai teaches us what Instinctual Leadership is and why it is important for leaders and managers to learn how to lead with instinct. She also discusses the types of leaders and the common misconceptions that the world has of them. Ambika also shares how leading with instinct transformed her life and work and gives advice to young leaders who are just starting to...

Last episode of 2021! We discuss why creatives might dislike a strategist, what to do as the only creative strategist in a team, why “right” doesn’t matter, and how to turn despair into creativity. Thank you to everyone who shared prompts and questions with me over on Instagram @markpollard. Happy new year!

In today's Sweathead episode, Anastasia Karklina Gabriel talks about cultural intelligence and how it can affect brand strategy. She discusses how difficult it is to grapple with diversity, inclusion, and identity, and gives advice on how to deal and wrestle with these topics within the strategy and advertising landscape. Dr. Anastasia Kārkliņa Gabriel is a formally trained cultural analyst who wo...

"Thou shalt not cut and paste the client brief." "No brief is an island." "Show the tension in the strategy." "Share it with the creatives." In today's Sweathead episode, Will Humphrey talks about 20 pieces of no-nonsense advice on how to write, sharpen, and present a creative brief. Will Humphrey is an integrated planner of 15 years' experience, having worked at a huge variety of agencies (Advert...

In today's Sweathead episode, Giles Edwards shares with us how ISOLATED Talks was born during the early days of the pandemic to help people, both in and out of the strategy world, cope with crisis through creativity. He also talks about his feelings and experiences surrounding his father's death, and how they have helped him make sense of and carry on with his life now. Giles Edwards is Creative D...

What is it like to lead the strategy team in a social media agency right now? How can brands capitalize on social media platforms without just spraying content everywhere and praying for it to work? Are playbooks and creative brief templates relevant to social media strategy? These questions and more are answered in this Sweathead episode with Rob Engelsman, Head of Strategy & Relevance at Ann...

In today's Sweathead episode, Dr. Clint Johns takes us on a nostalgic trip back to the heyday of magazines, particularly at Tower Records. Clint shares his experiences working at the forefront of distribution and sales of a wide array of magazines at Tower, he talks about the traits possessed by zine-makers large and small, and discusses the stories of independent zine-makers around the globe. He...

In today's Sweathead episode, Itumeleng Ndaba tells us how she got inspired to take up a career in advertising as an art director. She also discusses her five-year plan to become a full-time strategist.  Itumeleng is an art director (soon to be strategist) who is passionate about building sustainable brands for the benefit of Africa and her people. Born and raised in sunny South Africa, she holds...

In this episode of Sweathead, Penny Norman talks about her journey from working in account planning and startup strategy to focusing her strategy work in the niche of social good. She discusses how strategy can encourage individual behavioral change as well as government policy change. And Penny shares examples of her contributions to social impact campaigns in mental health, substance abuse, vacc...

Esther Wang is two years into her strategy career. We recently spoke in a Sweathead Happy Hour (online) about creative briefs–How do you make them good? How do make them better? How do make them something that creative teams will use?  So, in this episode, we wanted to have that kind of conversation again.  We talk about why talking about creative briefs is a much more complicated discus...