Think with Google Firestarters

How can brands use consumer feedback, community, and authenticity to truly engage with their audiences? Claire Hennah, Beauty & Wellbeing Chief Customer & Digital Commerce Officer at Unilever, joins Neil armed with invaluable insights into how one of the biggest packaged goods companies in the world drives brand growth through consumer connection.  Check out our YouTube video series at:  https://g...

Are you making the most of your data? Rishad Tobaccowala, award-winning strategist, podcaster and best-selling author, joins Neil to discuss why storytelling is key to unlocking its true value and how successful companies combine 'maths and magic' in marketing. Check out our YouTube video series at: https://goo.gle/3t13pWt  

Jerry Daykin VP & Head of Global Media at Beam Suntory — and former EMEA Senior Media Director at GSK*, speaks to Neil about the future of media, 'lazy endism', balancing hyper-personalisation with wider insight and empathy, and the power of context in media.  *This episode first came out in September 2021.  Check out our YouTube video series at: https://goo.gle/3t13pWt

Emma Cookson is a partner at The Brandtech Group (formerly You & Mr Jones) which positions itself as being built around in-housing, rooted in technology, and founded on transparency. Neil speaks to her about the power of simplicity, and how the ability to simplify complexity is a superpower for strategists. She also discusses some of the biggest and most disruptive shifts in marketing including th...

Is finding opportunity in constraints the key to inventiveness? Neil speaks to Adam Morgan, highly respected author and the founder of eatbigfish, who describes how asking 'propelling questions' that combine a bold ambition with a constraint can help everyone to think more transformatively, reframe challenges, and get 'productively uncomfortable'.    Check out our YouTube video series at: https://...

What is aspiration in the modern world? How do we achieve it, and how do we differentiate and signal our taste to others through knowledge and curation? Esprit's Global Chief Brand Officer, Ana Andjelic, talks about the premise behind her book on how social, cultural, and environmental capital changes brands.  Check out our YouTube video series at:  https://goo.gle/3t13pWt

Brand consultant Helen Edwards is a columnist for Marketing Week, adjunct professor at London Business School, and the author of a new book 'From Marginal to Mainstream: Why Tomorrow's Brand Growth Will Come From the Fringes – and how to get there first'. In this thought-provoking episode she discusses why marketers need to look beyond the usual places to drive sustainable growth in an increasingl...

What are the parallels between planning and parenting? As both the Planning Director at VCCP and the father of a toddler, Rob Estreitinho distills some brilliant lessons for strategists and marketers. Rob talks about the importance of context in decision-making, flexibility and continuous learning, and creating the conditions in which solutions can emerge. Check out our YouTube video series at: ht...

Sarah Salter has been named by Campaign as one of the UK advertising industry's most renowned and authoritative voices on innovation. In this fascinating episode, Sarah discusses the power of conversations as a path to learning, plus the potential of new technologies such as NFTs to drive brand and consumer value.  Check out our YouTube video series at: https://goo.gle/3t13pWt    

Behavioural science is a powerful tool for advertising, but many marketers overlook it, says Richard Shotton, best-selling author of The Choice Factory. Tune in to hear how it can be used to tap into mood, situation, and human biases to craft more impactful campaigns. Check out our YouTube video series at: https://goo.gle/3t13pWt

What are the key levers of effectiveness? What's the value of difference in driving brand growth? How can brand value be a multiplier to profitability? Kantar MD, UK Insights and Marketing Effectiveness, Dom Boyd, reveals a gold mine of insights into advertising effectiveness. Delving into the current disconnect between advertising effectiveness evidence and spend, and the confidence that marketer...

Are you speaking a totally different language to your customers? Lou Downe, author of the best selling book Good Services and former Design Director of the UK Government, joins Neil to talk about what we get wrong about service design and how improving it can help your users, your team and even the world we live in. Check out our YouTube video series at: https://goo.gle/3t13pWt

Why is thinking differently so important in modern marketing, yet sometimes so hard to achieve? In this episode, Nick Myers, Head of Planning at OLIVER Agency shares his thoughts on why you can only be a true heretic if you really understand the orthodoxy, and why the OLIVER model is such a good example of a heretical approach. Check out our YouTube video series at: https://goo.gle/3t13pWt

In this episode, Lucy Jameson, a founder at Uncommon London, talks about the importance of finding your crew, building an agency culture from the top and the bottom, the enduring power of creativity and disrupting category norms, creating outputs that don't always look like advertising, and why fame is the least used strategy but so often the most effective one.   Check out our YouTube video serie...

In this episode, Andy Nairn, co-founder of Lucky Generals talks about the risks of overthinking marketing and brand problems, how the quest for perfection can suffocate serendipity and luck, and how becoming buried in process can mean that you become blind to everything else around you.   Check out our YouTube video series at: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNBdIP33wJ3rZLkH1iR_Xjy0TznS1Ii_...

What role does creativity play in creating net new value and enabling both disruptive and incremental growth? In this episode, Agathe Guerrier, Global Chief Strategy Officer of TBWA\Worldwide, discusses the all-important distinction between efficiency and effectiveness in marketing, the risks inherent in over-focus on one at the expense of the other, and the need to look at ratios in the context o...

What are the key technology trends that every marketer should be paying attention to? In this episode, Scott Brinker, renowned martech writer and the author of Hacking Marketing, explains as opportunities for innovation multiply, the skills needed for creating real differentiation will increasingly be focused on how marketers can orchestrate and bring together the lego bricks of technology, apps a...

How can belief and craft drive what we deliver? What are the challenges of working at the speed of culture? What role can marketing leaders have in connecting the dots between specialisms? Find the answers in this episode with Ian Fitzpatrick, Global Director for Brand and Strategy at New Balance. Check out our YouTube video series at: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNBdIP33wJ3rZLkH1iR_Xjy...

What's next for planning and marketing? R/GA Chief Strategy Officer, Tom Morton, discusses strategy as the assembling of truths to create advantage, why brand strategy has never been more important, and how 'the revolution doesn't care about your content calendar'.  Check out our YouTube video series at: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNBdIP33wJ3rZLkH1iR_Xjy0TznS1Ii_3

What opportunities exist for marketers to drive sustainability transformation and green growth? Leo Rayman, former CEO of Grey Consulting and Grey London, is now CEO of Green Growth consultancy EdenLab. In this episode, Leo discusses the need to connect climate expertise with marketing's ability to shape aspiration, paint compelling visions of the future, and change behaviour.  Check out our YouTu...

Thas has worked as a Senior Strategist at BBH, Group Strategy Director at Deutsch, and now runs independent agency Omelet. In this episode Thas speaks about the future of advertising, making creativity more accessible to business, how agencies can move upstream with clients, and the idea of leadership as the 'amplified self'. Check out our YouTube video series at: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?...

Gareth is Founding Partner at Chapter in San Francisco. In this episode, he discusses how planning, marketing and advertising are all evolving. Gareth speaks about the power of having a high density of creative talent, the danger of planning specialising into irrelevance, the importance of diversity in inputs, and the challenges and opportunities that are emerging from the increasingly blurred lin...

Richard Huntington is the Chairman and Chief Strategy Officer of Saatchi & Saatchi London Group. In this episode, he discusses the critical lessons from his career in advertising, his insights into how marketing is changing, and predictions for the future of the industry.  Check out our YouTube video series at: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNBdIP33wJ3rZLkH1iR_Xjy0TznS1Ii_3

Ian Leslie is a strategist and the author of acclaimed books on human behaviour including Conflicted, How to Disagree, and Curious. In this thought-provoking episode, Ian talks about the power of healthy argument in helping groups to get to the right answer and why 'thinking is a collaborative activity'. He also discusses how doing our best work requires managing our ego, how to avoid common bias...

Dan Cullen-Shute is the CEO & Founder at Creature, as well as being the CEO of White Crow, and a member of Forbes Agency Council and the IPA iList. In this compelling episode Dan talks about the potency in combining stubbornness with positivity, and in always believing that 'something magical is about to happen'. He describes the importance of 'intelligent misbehaviour', of self-awareness as a lea...