Neil Perkin is a consultant, author, and self-described polymath working at the intersection of strategy, digital transformation, emerging technology, and leadership. 

With roots in media transformation at Time Inc during the dot-com boom, Neil has spent the last 16 years helping organizations navigate change. 

He's authored three books on agility and transformation, and now writes extensively about how AI is reshaping the practice of strategy.

In this conversation, Neil shares his perspective on what it really means to work with AI—not as a replacement for human thinking, but as something far more nuanced and powerful.

Five Big Themes from Our Conversation

1. AI as a Genuine Thought Partner
Neil argues that the real opportunity with AI isn't automation—it's augmentation of human thinking through continuous dialogue.

"How you can really use AI as a bit of a thought partner... it's like fully integrated into a strategy workflow, or any other kind of knowledge or thinking workflow, in ways where you're going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth between human and machine."

"Ideally what you are aiming for here, of course, is you're getting to places that you couldn't have got to on your own. And that's the possibility with AI."

2. The Danger of Cognitive Outsourcing
Neil warns against the temptation to let AI do our thinking for us—what he calls "cognitive outsourcing"—and the hidden costs of "work slop."

"This whole idea of cognitive outsourcing is a potentially big problem because if you are able to get the AI to do your thinking for you, you don't need to do any thinking, and thinking is hard."

"It's a big temptation because it's good enough, but it's not good. And so the person, the recipient has to then redo the work and it takes longer to actually do that."

3. Think, Prompt, Think
Before rushing to the AI, Neil advocates for starting with human clarity—a simple framework that changes everything.

"Think prompt think, basically. So the importance of actually just starting with humans. Before you go to the AI engine, just thinking about what it is you're trying to do, what good looks like... So you start basically with your perspective."

"Starting with you and then you having clarity and much greater depth with how you're then going to the AI... means that you're actually integrating it in a way which is not cognitively outsourcing or not disengaging your brain."

4. Five Roles AI Can Play
Neil offers a practical framework for understanding where AI fits—from full automation to human-led illumination.

"There's a model which I come back to a lot, which is just kind of like five sort of key roles that it can play... automator... decider... recommender... illuminator and evaluator. And they sort of balance human AI to different extent."

"The illuminator part is where the AI is augmenting your thinking. It's illuminating things in a way that actually you hadn't seen things before."

5. Don't View the New Through the Lens of the Old
Drawing from his transformation experience, Neil cautions against the natural tendency to apply old mental models to revolutionary technology.

"I learned a lot about not looking at the new through the lens of the old, the need to kind of reinvent and redesign as well as use technology to optimize."

"The first kind of versions of things were always kind of skeuomorphic... online magazines were like literally scans of pages of printed magazines. I think probably we're going to see a lot of that with AI."

Find Neil:

• Substack: onlydeadfish.substack.com
• Blog: onlydeadfish.co.uk
• Named after the Malcolm Muggeridge quote: "Only dead fish swim with the stream"

It's always interesting to see what a network agency in a local market is capable of, especially at a moment in advertising history when geography matters less than it ever has. 

A few weeks back, I got a chance to sit down with Havas Chicago's Chief Strategy Officer, Chase Cornett, and Chief Creative Officer Frank Dattalo to talk about the change they're implementing as a leadership team that includes President Kat Ott. 

Our conversation was wide-ranging and covered their approach to thinking about the new duality of marketing today- a concept they call "High/Low", the importance of building brand, treating talent with kindness, and recognizing the power and the limitations of AI. 

1. The Leadership Triad 

In 2025, Frank Dattalo joined President Kat Ott and Chief Strategy Officer Chase Cornett to rebuild Havas Chicago's creative, strategic, and cultural core. 

Together, they're positioning the agency as a modern, independent, culture-driven hub within the Havas network.

Chase: "It's been great to come back to Chicago and reimagine what Havas Chicago can be, a modern agency with the freedom to build what's needed without red tape.

Frank: "We knew what we didn't want to be, slow or rigid. We wanted a nimble, modern marketing approach with culture at the forefront.

2. The 'High–Low' Model — Think Like a Brand, Act Like an Influencer

Havas Chicago's creative philosophy pairs strategic brand thinking ("high") with the speed, fluency, and emotional immediacy of creators ("low"). Inspired by fashion's high–low aesthetic, it merges rigor and agility to create culturally resonant brands.

Frank: "Our north star is thinking like a brand but acting like an influencer or content creator.

Chase: "This isn't agency fluff. It changes how we hire, how we make, and how we operate."

3. Breaking Down Silos — The Feed as the New Brand Canvas

Havas Chicago rejects the traditional divide between social, brand, and performance teams. Culture, not channel, drives brand growth, and the feed is where that happens.

Chase: "Brand building starts and ends in the feed. If it's not in the feed, people aren't talking about it.

Frank: "Networks separate social and strategy, we're building an agency that does both."

4. Reclaiming Brand Building — Escaping the Performance Trap

Cornett frames the 2010s as the "gold-rush era of performance marketing," where brands traded long-term equity for short-term metrics. The new Havas model rebuilds meaning, pricing power, and emotional value.

Chase: "Performance became the buzzword, and brand was painted into a corner as arts and crafts." "If you follow the efficiency train, you're racing yourself to the bottom."

5. Culture, Kindness, and Creativity — Building a Human-Centered Agency

The trio's internal philosophy blends high creative standards with genuine humanity. They aim to make Havas Chicago a place where talent thrives, not just performs.

Frank: "It's not about being nice; it's about being kind. Be hard on the work, kind to people."

Chase: "We've created mandatory maker hours; no meetings, just making."

6. AI as Tool, Not Savior — Protecting Creativity's Human Core

Both leaders embrace AI for speed and efficiency but reject its overuse. For them, imagination remains the irreplaceable differentiator.

Frank: "AI is like a bionic arm; powerful, but it doesn't have a creative point of view."

Rachel has spent over a decade at Work&Co. In the episode, we discuss the company's unique origin story and how it has evolved alongside the transformative changes in the world of technology. 

We talk about..

1. The importance of carving out space for creative risk, which clients demand because they find it challenging to accomplish in their environment. 

2. How constraints increase the odds of innovation. 

3. Why is simplicity hard? Because it requires a combination of iteration and bravery.

4. Experience matters- be a user, feel and find the frictions- go to the edge and experience those use cases because innovation comes from trial and immersion. 

5. AI is transformative, but now is the time to get deep into the sandbox and play. 

Seven years ago, Rob Baird, Seth Gaffney, and Krystle Loyland left Mother NY to set up their own shop- Preacher.

I got the chance to sit down and have a chat with Rob and Seth. I learned they made a deliberate decision to locate to Austin- partly because Rob wanted to head back to Texas, but also because they wanted to impact, connect, and contribute to a place with a diverse artistic culture. They added an art gallery to their agency space from the get-go.

In the conversation, we talk about the importance of having a point of view as an agency, the advantage of having skilled practitioners from different disciplines as founders, working with friends, and building a "family" culture that is strong enough to support a cast of 60 folks.

Importantly, they've learned from some of the best along the way, and instead of jettisoning some of that thinking- they've used it as a foundation to build from; they clearly have tremendous respect for their alma mater- Mother; they parted as friends, and the larger agency has consistently supported them from the sidelines. 

Charlotte is the CEO of The Talent Business in North America.  

She has a background in advertising having worked in the client services side of a number of agencies including - TBWA, McCann, and JWT. 

For the past eight years, Charlotte has worked for The Talent Business in Los Angeles in New York.

In our conversation, we talk about the new energy around marketing talent and the desire for companies to find the right people to help them grow. 

We discuss the qualities that companies and brands are looking for and how these compare to the leadership qualities of old. 

In addition, we also talk about how the pandemic has accelerated the demand for change and has in some ways been a kind of incubator for a new breed of more vulnerable, open, and empathetic management. 

Cindy Judge is the President and CEO of the Boulder, Colorado-based- creative collective that works across the areas of research, strategy, design, and communication for its clients. 

SRG has expertise and a reputation for its work in the food and beverage space having worked with many of the leading restaurant chains and CPG brands. 

The focus of the conversation with Cindy focused on food- what we are seeing in the pandemic, what are some of the broader trends she is noticing and how are Americans' attitudes to food changing. 

Kristen Cavallo re-joined the Martin Agency as CEO 3 years ago. 

The agency was in crisis and was in urgent need of rejuvenation. 

She had spent 13 years at Martin in a variety of roles ranging from Planning Director to Head of Business Development but left in 2014 to join Mullen.

It was Kristen's first CEO job and she leaned in on her experience as a strategist- applying brand planning skills to the Martin Agency brand.

By going back to the origins, she unearthed the first principles of the agency and found they were still relevant today. 

In 2019, she was named Ad Age's Executive of the Year. 

Elizabeth Paul joined Martin from Mullen in January 2020 and has been instrumental in bringing new strategic thinking to the table- like the "Diversity Brief". 

Having built a strong team-when the pandemic struck, the team's strength paid dividends since they already had such a solid working relationship. 

Out of the gate- within days of the pandemic and the impending "work from home" IPG mandate, the Martin team brainstormed implementable ideas for every one of the agency's clients and was all in on getting these ideas made and ensuring there was no slow down or pause.

The change of leadership, the doubling down on the importance of getting brands talked about by consumers, and the commitment to diversity have all been strong transformative forces for Martin; not only has this helped to maintain the confidence of its existing client base, but it has also been instrumental in bringing in new clients. 

Since the pandemic struck in March of this year, the agency has brought on seven new pieces of business. 

In a wide-ranging conversation, we talk about the process of change, what the agency believes in, and why and how they managed to keep it all together working remotely and via Zoom

This episode features an interview with John V Willshire. 

John has been running his innovation consultancy- Smithery for the past nine years- after graduating in Economics- he trained as a market researcher, worked for Viacom Out of Home, and then took on various roles at PHD- including separately - in the disciplines of econometrics and innovation.

Somewhat disillusioned with agency innovation offerings - he set up his own with the guiding mantra "Make Things People Want, rather than Make People Want Things."

Our conversation was broad and touched on his background in economics to building motivating narratives and onto the future of work. 

We covered a lot of territory in the sixty or so minutes but looks like we are going to need to do a part 2 because we have more ground to cover. 

In this episode, I talk with Tim Maleeny who is the President and Chief Strategy Officer at Havas- NY.

Tim has an interesting background which includes stints at Hal Riney when Hal was working there, Ogilvy, RGA, and Havas.

In our conversation, we talk about how the discipline has evolved and is evolving, the importance of department and teamwork, and how to run an agency and win business during a pandemic- which Havas appears to be doing OK at.

We also talk about the importance of being passionate about something else other than advertising because that fuels the day job. 

Tim is the author of six almost seven mystery novels.

Many people from adland might be thinking that now might be a good time to start their own shop.

This episode features an interview with Meryl and Gaelan Draper who have been running their own shop- Quirk - for the past six years.

They have built a niche for themselves in the world of video advertising with a focus on delivering performance- this focus has attracted them to a host of DTC clients- including- the likes of Third Love and Keeps. 

In the conversation we talk about their backgrounds- Gaelan comes from film and Meryl has experience in PR, but also ran the IBM global business for Ogilvy in Bangalore, India. 

We also discuss how the past six years have been about how they have been continuously optimizing which comes from listening to their clients and really understanding needs. 

Zeus Jones was founded in 2007 by former employees of ad agency Fallon. They wanted to do things differently and do different things- help clients come up with new ideas that could help their business, but those things were more action-oriented than word-based.

Fast forward to 2020 and the company has a new generation of leaders and in the podcast, I get to speak to the Creative and Strategy Leads Jason Zabel and Elsa Perushek. 

We talked about how they work together as creative and strategist and how the company is driven by a collaborative work style and what that means for their roles and how they work with others.

We also discussed how COVID challenges these workstyles and what they have been doing to adapt their working practices. 

Katie is currently the Senior Director, Global Brand Concept at Nike Women, 

It is her 7th job at Nike in her 7 years at the company. In the episode, we talk about a lot of things from her unconventional route into strategy, to the changing consumer landscape and the importance of opening yourself up to new experiences.

Katie is unique in the fact she has worked at 180 and Wieden and Kennedy and both of their icon clients Nike and Adidas. She has also got out of the country and has had stints in Holland, Australia and Japan. Did I mention that she also worked for Droga 5?

She believes the secret to success is getting the money/business end of the strategy right, once you have that down, you will have permission to be rebellious and creative. 

Kelli Robertson and William Esparza are partners and co-founders of Hyphenated which describes itself as a clandestine operation bridging companies and communities.

Kelli is a strategist and William the creative. They both have impressive and extensive backgrounds at shops like AKQA, RGA, Goodby, MAL and have worked on their fair share of amazing brands like- Nike, Beats, Activision etc.

They met while working together at R/GA and recognized the importance of the disciplines working together- seeing that it led to better work.

In the podcast, we talk about what this means and what it takes for a strategist to be a creative advocate, ally, and enhancer. 

Christine Olivas began her career by hand-delivering 50 resumes to San Francisco startups, which resulted in one startup hiring her. 

Her entry into agency work came when an owner heard a webinar she produced and was impressed enough to bring her aboard. 

At this agency, she excelled by running two departments and contributing to significant growth. 

After years of success there, she transitioned to a strategy role at a New York agency before going freelance. 

When client demand exceeded her capacity, she built a team, evolving into her current thriving business (No Single Individual) that provides agencies with talent across multiple disciplines. 

Christine's journey illustrates the power of hard work, risk-taking, entrepreneurship, and market understanding. 

Our hour together revealed not only her remarkable path but also her insights on how agencies have the opportunity to be more flexible and adaptable with talent in today's challenging environment.

A shift that's creating new opportunities thanks to the breadth and depth of freelance talent. 

Ana was the first guest on the Inspiring Futures podcast and it was great to have her back on the show to talk about her new book- The Business of Aspiration.

The book is all about a new way for marketers and strategists to think about the interaction and intersection of brands and consumers. How brand value is now found in social good and the power of niches which serve as distinct worlds and cultures which create their own brands, but places where bigger brands need to connect.

We talked about the importance of curators as providers of knowledge for those consumers who want to acquire category and brand expertise.

When it came to specific brands, Ana mentioned Patagonia driving is brand strength not just from its environmental credentials, but also from the power it has within a diverse set of outdoor niches, Tracksmith for its dedication and focus, not just to running, but a specific type of runner.

The Business of Aspiration is going to be published October 27th

It can be pre-ordered on Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/Business-Aspiration-Cultural-Environmental-Capital/dp/0367554402

A few weeks ago Jeff was a guest on my podcast and we talked about his take on the agency landscape, through the lens of his role as a PR person and consultant to agencies. 

At the end of the chat, Jeff mentioned to me that he also wrote books and had, in fact, written a couple. 

Hence- the 2nd pod- where Jeff talks about the process of writing and we go into the weeds on how this stuff gets done- the late nights, the editors, the re-writes, dealing with publishers and the marketing piece of the puzzle.

It's a good listen for those who dream of writing the next great American novel or maybe just a book. 

Rob Campbell is a planner who thrives on being in the thick of the creative process. When it comes to creative work he wants to enhance it, inspire it, and nurture it. 

In the episode, Rob shares his philosophy on Strategy and some stories from his experiences which includes time spent at agencies HHCL, Wieden, and R/GA. 

Rob started out as a session guitarist - so he knows the creative process first hand. He was working with leading artists when he was just 18 years old.

So, this is a must-listen if you are a strategist who is committed to inspiring better work and being intimately involved in the process. 

Lucy Jameson is one the best UK planners of her generation and has featured on Campaign's list of top 10 planners multiple times.

She started her career at one of the founding agencies of the account planning discipline- BMP- where she stayed rising through the ranks for 19 years.

She was one of a handful of leaders hired by Grey to transform the London office and operation, a task she succeeded in winning multiple new accounts, Campaign's Agency of the Year, and many creative and effectiveness awards. 

In 2015 she was made CEO of the shop.

Prior to starting her own agency Uncommon Creative Studio-in 2017 with Nils Leonard and Natalie Graeme- she worked as an intern at Facebook and spent time in a tech incubator. 

Uncommon Creative Studio has worked with the likes of the WWF, ITV, Habito, and many others and is all in the business of building its own brands like Halo- a more eco-friendly alternative to Nespresso and a candle company which donates money to COVID related causes.

In the episode, we talk about her career trajectory, her thoughts on planning, brands, and the approach Uncommon takes to clients and business. 

For the past 20 + years- Mark and Adam and the crew at Eat Big Fish have been helping brands to think like challengers, unlock the pirates inside and overcome constraints. They also happen to be the themes of the books that they have written about brands, internal cultures, and innovation.

This is a consulting company that believes in doing the research to back up and build its thinking, frameworks, and tools. 

In the episode, I talk to Adam and Mark about how EBF came into being, how it thinks and works, and the purpose and role of writing and publishing books.

Given the moment, we give some time to a discussion about a book they wrote 5 years ago - called A Beautiful Constraint which is all about achieving things against the odds when resources and barriers are put in the way of success. It seems like now is a time when companies will find a myriad of barriers that can in the way of progress. Through fascinating examples and tools- EBF shows how these barriers can be overcome. 

Tracey Faux Pattani is the recently hired CEO of BSSP.

For Tracey, it is a return to an agency she last worked in 15 years ago.

This is also her first agency CEO job - she joined the agency from Digitas SF where she headed up client service.

To overuse, the cliche- these are unprecedented times, and certainly if you are a new CEO you want to be able to meet everyone in person both client and agency-side, but COVID has made this an impossibility. Instead, she only had the luxury of a week in the office before shutdown- making her a CEO who is forced to lead via Zoom.

In the episode, I talk to Tracey about her experiences leading up to this position and what she has learned along the way from agencies with a variety of diverse working styles, cultures, and leaders like Lintas, Ogilvy, FCB, and Digitas. 

We talk about leading during COVID - how she does it and how she has had to adapt and her plans for the agency moving forward. 

 

Ad agencies have lots of skills but they rarely use them for the benefit of those who really could use them outside of their paying clients.

Over in the UK, Akil Benjamin worked with M&C Saatchi to create Saturday School a program that helped provide mentoring for Black-owned businesses.

Blackbusiness.mcsaatchi.com 

He achieved a lot of success with that program and is now scaling it up on his own. 

In the UK- agencies signed an open letter of solidarity after George Floyd's death and Akil's program provides a chance for them to put transfer this intent into action. 

In the episode, we talk about his background, his work, and support from M&C and the idea behind his new program and the support it has generated. 

Donate, volunteer and sign- up for the mentoring scheme 

John Dempsey is one of the founders of the digital shop Road Trip.

John got to experience the contemporary world of brand marketing while working on the KFC team at Wieden and Kennedy in Portland.

In the episode, we discuss his thinking behind setting up Road Trip, the worlds of digital and brand marketing, and what he learned from his experience on the KFC account at W&K.

Chas Edwards is one of the founders of Pop-Up Magazine.

The idea of Pop-Up Magazine started as an experiment with friends to turn a physical magazine into a live experience.

Word of mouth soon followed and Pop Up became something of a cultural phenom selling out venues like the Lincoln Center and rolling through the country on a national tour.

In the episode, I talk to Chas about his career trajectory- what took him into the magazine space and the secrets behind creating a compelling live experience for a generation who have a tough time putting their cellphones down.

Of course, we also talk about COVID and how Pop-Up has pivoted to creating its experience online and what the implications of this learning might be for the business in the future.

https://www.popupmagazine.com/

Jeff Sweat runs his own ad agency PR and consulting shop (Sweat and Co) in Los Angeles.

Having started his career as a tech journalist he then moved to Yahoo where he got the chance to interact with a number of ad agencies.

He then went agency side and had stints leading new business efforts at 72 and Sunny and Deutsch in LA before setting up on his own.

My conversation with Jeff involved asking about his career trajectory and what he learned from his different experiences and inside agency cultures.

We went onto talking about agencies today - how they have a unique opportunity to be real advisors to their clients and how important it is for agencies to practice what they preach to their clients by building their own differentiated and distinctive brands and cultures.

Jeff is also a podcaster himself and has a very successful series- with Agencies under Quarantine

https://www.sweatandco.com/quarantine

He is also a novelist which will be the topic for our next conversation.

https://www.sweatandco.com/

Tara is the Chief Creative Officer at Rethink NY.

She has extensive creative experience from agencies including Y&R, BBH, Mother, and Droga (x2).

In our conversation, we discussed her experience at Miami Ad School, where she was forced to think seriously about funny- to an approach and perspective on being sensitive enough to find funny in the world around you.

We discussed her experiences and challenges at the different agencies she's worked at.

How Rethink throws has a unique West-Coast culture that's designed to make working in a New York agency less like a hot house.

How clients still want great work

But this all depends on the relationship and how Rethink has a unique way of making this work from the get-go. 

It has been 15 years since David Charles and I worked together at BSSP. David has since gone on to jobs at AKQA, 72 and Sunny, and opening the Los Angeles outpost for KesselsKramer. He started off in Brazil writing comic books before making his way into advertising with the dreams of becoming a filmmaker. At AKQA and KesselsKramer he got the chance to direct spots and hone his skills. This all was put to good use when he came across an amazing opportunity while working with the team at Airbnb. Post the Trump election the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus announced it would be protesting by touring the South by Bus. After winning over the chorus and Airbnb David went on to make the documentary Gay Chorus Deep South which has picked up a ton of accolades on the festival circuit including the audience award at Tribeca. The film was recently purchased by MTV. In the episode, we talk about David's journey from advertising to filmmaking and the process involved in making his first documentary. We also talk about how the film served to explain the essence of the Airbnb brand and the power of long-form filmmaking to tell brand stories. 

Michael Arterberry is the Executive Director of the Youth Voices Center. His work involves working with high schoolers to get them to think beyond race and skin color and to understand their fellow schoolmates as people.

 In a wide-ranging conversation, we talk about his life experiences, the work he does and his observations on the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement following the death of George Floyd.

Justin Small is the founder and mastermind behind FSC- Future Strategy Club. Justin is determined to reinvent the agency model by creating teams for clients made up of the best talent possible,

FSC is not a no thrills remote network- it has an HQ, host parties, trains its members, and is even in the process of setting up a ventures arm.

Justin wants agencies to be great again and FSC is his attempt to make that happen.

https://futurestrategyclub.com/

Jay Chaney is a strategist and part of a crack team of Canadian advertising professionals who have gone and done something completely insane by launching an ad agency in the middle of the Covid 19 crisis. 

Chaney has teamed up with Beverley Hammond, Todd Mackie, Carlos Moreno, and Denise Rosetto to create Broken Heart Love Affair

Chaney is no stranger to challenges has been part of successful turnarounds at both DDB and Cossette. 

In the interview, we talked about Jay's interesting career that included time as a Canadian broadcaster, the inspiration for the new agency, the name, and what they are hoping to achieve. Plus, of course, the challenges and perhaps some of the advantages of launching during Covid. 

George Olver is the co-founder of Movidiam.

Movidiam is all about changing how films get made. 

It is basically a global network of skilled practitioners in the world of film production. The network allows production to be more efficient at a time when clients are short on both time and money. It also ensures a level of quality because the experience of individuals is fully transparent. 

Think of it as a global production house at your fingertips which allows for both payment and project management.

In the episode, I talk to George about the evolution of the company and where it headed. 

Jen Patterson is now a mom and a life-coach after spending over 20 years as a strategist. She started her career at Wieden and spent time at Deutsch in LA and at Wunderman in Seattle. 

In the episode, we talk about her career trajectory - growing up at Wieden and then moving to Deutsch. About agency cultures and her thoughts on the magic part of the culture that make Wieden, Wieden, and how different things were at Deutsch. We discussed her time in Miami with The Community and the challenges involved in getting clients to understand the importance of the Hispanic market. 

We also talk about her passion which is listening and learning from others. 

Nowadays Jen has channeled her passion into life-coaching and motherhood. We talk about these two roles and some of the challenges. We discuss the way in which agency life and corporate life in general squeeze the self out of people and how the best advice she gives people is about getting centered around who they are and what they want is.

Her life-coaching practice is about paying close attention to you and developing a program which is, in simple terms. a gym for the mind. 

Niclas is one of the most experienced strategic planners in Sweden. He began his career at Acne and had stints at the likes of TBWA, Naked and Grey, and in consulting. He now finds himself back at Acne- which is now owned by Deloitte UK. 

In this episode, we talk about his career, the history, the evolution of Sweden's ad agency landscape, and talk a little about COVID-19.

What emerges from the conversation is a perspective on an agency landscape driven by creative entrepreneurs, where the integration of multiple disciplines is expected and demanded by clients and the working style is very open, collaborative, and transparent. 

In March, creatives at R/GA Chloe Saintilan, Zach Roif, and Matt Woodward sold in an initiative to their agency leadership which was designed to help small businesses impacted by the COVID-19 crisis. The 

The initiative called Merch Aid, which went live in early April, helps local businesses by selling specifically designed merchandise created by designers. The initiative started in New York but is expected to roll out to other cities in the coming months.

In the podcast, I talk to the team about the genesis of the idea, how it works, the challenges of making it happen, and what they have learned along the way. 

13 years ago, Adrian Ho left his strategy job at Fallon to create a new offering for clients in the form of Zeus Jones. In this episode, I talk to Adrian about the evolution of the Zeus Jones business and what he has learned along the way. We also take a moment to discuss the Covid-19 situation, which given this was recorded a few weeks back, might be a little dated.

Shaun is the global chief creative officer of Iris Worldwide. He has been at the agency since 2008 and took on his latest role in 2016. Shaun has worked with a number of interesting brands over the years including the likes of  Adidas, Guinness, Samsung, Domino's, Pizza Hut, Mini and Jeep.

In the episode, we cover his unique background which includes writing for theater and how his non-conventional career trajectory has served him well over the years. 

The bulk of the conversation centers on Shaun's expansive view of creativity. He believes that creativity needs to be in service of solving a client's business problems and that solutions shouldn't be confined or limited by media choices.   

  

The latest Inspiring Futures podcast features an interview with Pip Bingemann- the co-founder of Springboards.ai

As strategy departments grapple with how to use AI, this podcast seems timely.

Pip is an agency strategist who embraced AI from the early days, learned basic code, and built a model that attracted the attention of several agencies. 

Fast-forward two and a half years, and Springboards.ai has funding, sales,  and customer service teams in multiple countries, as well as a bench of tech talent that includes a 17-year-old math genius. 

Pip is doing something different with AI- recognizing that strategists need partners to help them bring their ideas to life, Springboards.ai is designed to be fun and creative. Its focus is on delivering variance vs. the typical AI model, where output is about conforming to an average.

Terry Young is the founder of Sparks and Honey an Omnicom owned company that specializes in helping clients understand potential futures. In this episode, I talk to Terry about his background and the development of Sparks and Honey as a company from the process to people. We talk about how the company combines people and machines to understand key trends and underlying themes. We also talk about what his clients are asking right now and what Sparks and Honey is telling them. 

Matt is the founder of Green Stone- a virtual or rather an officeless agency that helps design experiences for brands. Matt started his career at R/GA where he was part of the Nike team. He then spent 8 years at Crispin Porter Bogusky as EVP/Executive Experience Director where he led a team of 25 experience designers.

For the past six years, Matt has been running Green Stone which obsesses about the customer journey and builds experiences around those journeys which create greater brand love and loyalty. 

In our conversation, we talk about his 6 years of learning from building an agency that word and operates remotely. We talk about how you make up the physical distance and build things like culture. We also talk about companies and the digital experience and how there is still work to be done to get to true digital transformation and we also get to compare and contrast the work of experience design vs. advertising. 

Zoe Scaman is the founder of her own strategic consulting company Bodacious and Global Head of Strategy at Ridley Scott Creative Group. 

Zoe's experience includes Naked, Universal-McCann, Isobar, and Droga5.

In this episode, we discuss the current situation from a global and London perspective, focusing on how people and brands are responding and could be responding. 

We also discuss how Zoe approaches her consulting assignments and her work with Ridley Scott Creative Group 

Doug is the Senior Editor at Adweek where he covers the world of ad agencies. He has a background in the world of radio as a producer and DJ and currently is offering VO talent for free to anyone who could use it for a good cause. Our conversation covers his dream of a copywriting job at Wieden and Kennedy and his career in radio and onwards to the state of creativity, advertising, and communication, against the backdrop of Covid-19.

Dave has been an expert in Asian consumer culture for the past 20 years. 

He was responsible for spearheading the development of McCann-Erickson's regional planning network for McCann and its processes and protocols. 

For the past five-plus years, he has been consulting and developing his own own businesses- one focused on AI for market research and the other is a small consulting company based in Bangladesh. 

In the conversation, we were focused on COVID-19 and discussed what we are currently seeing across the world overall, but Dave highlighted some of the specific nuances that are important to understand for the Asian market.

This podcast was recorded earlier in the week before Thailand went into broad lockdown. 

Lucy Von Sturmer is a young entrepreneur based in Amsterdam. She runs, together with a partner,  Humblebrag; a media communications consultancy focused on corporate and individual leadership around purpose and sustainable change. 

Lucy has found her way to Amsterdam and this world via broadcast journalism, working as the head of digital communication for an NGO and was head of communication at MediaMonks in Amsterdam. 

Our conversation covers her career trajectory, how she and her company and clients are coping with the current situation, the work she has done setting up Creatives for Climate and how despite the terribleness of the Coronavirus, the silver lining could be how it serves as a catalyst to a new more sustainable economy.

Orlando Wood is the Chief Innovation Officer of System 1. System 1 is a research company that has built its reputation in advertising testing and has a proven methodology that links emotional response to marketplace impact. Orlando is also the author of Lemon- published by the IPA, the book examines the world from left and right brain perspective and takes that learning into an evaluation of television advertising which Orlando proves and demonstrates has become a lot more left-brained in recent years. Building on the work of Peter Field and Les Binet, Orlando argues that this is leading to less memorable and less impactful advertising. In the episode, we explore the genesis of the idea, the research work that went into the book and Orlando's thoughts on why we have ended up with more left brain work and some thoughts on where all this might be heading. Sadly, Orlando's talk with the ARF at SXSW was canceled, so I am hoping those who planned to attend can listen to this and get and a very good idea of the great work that Orlando has done. 

The book Lemon can be found here.

https://ipa.co.uk/knowledge/publications-reports/lemon

Lindsey has spent the last 7 years on the frontlines of a changing marketing landscape. Through her work with Sunday Dinner, she has been helping clients navigate the complexities of modern marketing. Helping them with goal setting, measurement, organization and the orchestration and management of their agency and creative partners snd internal audiences. This work gives Lindsey unique visibility into this landscape and in the episode, she explains how she works, what she recommends to clients and what she feels are the new ways to work in this changing environment. 

Amelia is one of England's sharpest strategic minds. Inspired to join the ad business by a personal response from a letter she wrote to Sir Martin Sorrell.

She joined the WPP fellowship program and worked directly with Jon Steel and from there built an amazing resume of experience including stints at Naked, TBWA, and VCCP where she was part of the team that won the ad account for the 2012 London Olympics. 

Today, she is the co-founder of the Fawnbrake collective- a network of strategic thinkers that are deployed on teams to work on client projects. In this episode, we cover her career trajectory and the evolution of strategy from a discipline that mainly existed inside of agencies to one that is now thriving outside of its traditional confines. 

This is the world of Fawnbrake,  a world where everything and everyone is a brand and they all need strategic thinking even if they do no advertising. 

Thas worked in strategy roles at Chiat, BBH, and Deutsch. She joined Omelet 4 years ago as the CSO and six months ago was promoted to CEO- a rare thing for a Strategist since CEOs usually come from the ranks of client service. Omelet is a 15-year-old- LA-based independent agency with an impressive client roster that includes- Google. in a wide-ranging conversation, we talk about her transition from strategist to CEO, about the importance of culture and creating an environment where employees can thrive and how important it is for the leadership to have an honest dialog about agency direction and strategy.  

The latest Inspiring Futures podcast features an interview with Michael Miller and Chris Nobile- two of the three founders of consulting group Consiglieri.

Before the founding of the consultancy, Michael and Chris worked together and helped build T-Mobile's in-house capabilities. 

In our conversation, we talk about what they learned from the T-Mobile experience and how it informed the development of their consultancy. 

We discussed the pieces that matter, like the power of asking why certain things are happening, building operational competence, and doing things that help turn legacy marketing organizations into modern ones. 

In a complex and complicated marketing world, Consiglieri exists to help CMOs build and operationalize their marketing function, allowing the CMO to manage the day-to-day. 

Alexander Rea and Christian Colasuonno are the partners of Aux- a company that brings together Alex's tech process and Christian's production savvy. For the past decade or so, ad agencies have grappled to find a place for technology in their output understanding its power and relevance, but unsure how to get it made and done. Aux are the guys who do that stuff- quite simply- they get the complex stuff done. They are not tinkerers, theorists, academics, but doers who love nothing better than making a creative team's brilliant idea come to life.  Alex was an integral part of the Framestore team that helped make McCann's schoolbus for Lockhead/Martin become a believable mars mission. The rest of the story is history with this idea cleaning up in various awards shows across the globe. In our conversation, we talk about their backgrounds, the proposition of Aux as a business, how they like to work, their passion for the creative process and what new technology excites them. 

Aux can be found at https://www.aux.works/ 

Global nomads since 2013, Faris and Rosie Yakob are a creative and strategic duo- who have served their time as creatives and strategic thinkers with the likes of MDC, McCann, and 360i. 

In a conversation that covers a lot of ground, we talk about a shrinking world- one that appears ever more similar, but how you need to dig deeper to unlock local differences, the rise of creativity as a response to the growth hacking plateau, tourism and the idea that the world is getting full because everyone wants to go to the same places, trashvertising, banks making money but making brands less interesting, brand safety, the future of the agency and buying avocados. 

Gary is a visual artist and an improv performer. For the past 21 years, he has been the leader and co-founder of a company called On Your Feet. As he explains in the podcast, this company helps companies find their humanity by using the dramatic arts as a tool for catharsis. In a world where wooly and fluffy language dominates the corporate world, he helps executives find their truth and the difference in the stories that lie beyond the language. In the podcast, we talk about the importance of parsing language, collaboration, and how the arts can help commerce.