Think with Google Firestarters

Patricia McDonald has run strategy teams at agencies including Isobar, BBH, Weber Shandwick and is now the Global CSO, Creative, at Dentsu. In this episode Pats talks about how as a strategist, it's not enough to be right, you need to bring people on the journey with you, and how the best strategists have generosity as an inherent operating system. She describes how storytelling is a superpower in...

Trevor Robinson OBE is the Creative Director and founder of Quiet Storm Advertising and Create Not Hate, the not-for-profit which aims to combat systemic racism and get underrepresented young people into the creative industries. In this fascinating episode, Trevor speaks about the importance of laughter and fun in the creative process, how clients can be brave and take creative risks, and how to g...

Tom Roach, VP of Brand Planning at Jellyfish, discusses how brand planning can be the glue that binds different marketing specialisms together and about the need to break down the false dichotomies in marketing between brand and performance. He describes the inevitability of convergence between media and creative, human capability and automation, and how this is heralding a 'third age' of planning...

Amelia Torode spent many years leading strategy at agencies including VCCP, Good Relations Group and TBWA before launching The Fawbrake Collective, an independent strategy consultancy with a unique model based on distributed planning talent. In this fascinating episode Amelia talks about what's wrong with the current agency 'operating system', the need to move 'from large and layered to faster and...

Brand consultant Jim Carroll is the former Chairman of BBH London. In this episode, Jim talks about how good strategists should have a continuous stream of inputs to get to good outputs. Great planners, he says, bring the outside world into the agency, and act as psychotherapists to clients rather than doctors - uncovering insights, listening, and looking for patterns. He discusses the dangers of...

Before becoming VP Marketing at Bulb Energy Russell Davies led communications and digital strategy at organisations including Nike, Honda, Microsoft, Apple and was the Director of Strategy for the UK Government Digital Service for four years. In this fascinating episode Russell discusses the delicate dance that strategists perform between simplicity and complexity, how the most successful planners...

Rachel Mercer is the Co-founder and CXO of innovation consultancy Proto, and previously served as the VP, Head of Strategy in R/GA's flagship New York office. In this enlightening episode, Rachel discusses the intersection of design and strategy and how critical it is for strategists to be expansive. She describes the need to take both a '20 foot view' and '5 foot view', to look at trends in the c...

Sara Tate is an organisational consultant, the former CEO of TBWA London, and author of the new book 'The Rebuilders: Going from Setback to Comeback in Business and Beyond'. This engrossing episode is full of insights into how curiosity takes you further than knowledge, breaking out of self-imposed constraints, and the value of a beginner's mind in generating new possibilities. Sara also discusses...

Katie Dreke has spent her career working both client and agency side, including seven years at Nike, where she was latterly the Senior Director, Global Concept Development at Nike Women, and stints at Droga 5 and Wieden & Kennedy. In this episode, Neil Perkin, moderator of Think with Google Firestarters, talks to Katie about the future of marketing, what agency strategists can bring to client orga...

Trailer for Think with Google Firestarters. Check out our YouTube video series at  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNBdIP33wJ3rZLkH1iR_Xjy0TznS1Ii_3