Grow Your Brain a podcast of The Strategy Collective made by strategists, for strategists.
Hosted by Pedro Porto Alegre, the show features long-form conversations with people shaping how our industry thinks, from strategists and creatives to researchers, founders, authors, and cultural observers.
Rather than chasing hot takes, career stories, or surface-level marketing commentary, Grow Your Brain explores the deeper ideas behind the work: how people form beliefs, how culture moves, how brands create meaning, how technology changes behaviour, and what better thinking requires in a noisy world.
Each episode is designed for intellectually curious listeners who want to go beyond the obvious and spend time with ideas worth wrestling with.
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Joe Burns is Partner and Head of Strategy at Quality Meats Creative in New York. His career includes senior strategy roles at Mother and BBH, and he's known for his provocative thinking on strategy, creativity, and the advertising industry.
Joe and Pedro discuss why strategy is fundamentally about navigating uncertainty, making decisions without having all the answers, and finding ways to win when the outcome isn't guaranteed. They explore the difference between risk and uncertainty, why marketers should think more probabilistically, and how placing multiple bets can create opportunities for outsized returns.
They also unpack the limitations of marketing science when applied too rigidly, why learning from campaigns matters as much as measuring their performance, and why strategy is ultimately about competition. Joe shares his perspective on what clients really value from agencies, how strategists can move further upstream into business decisions, and why the ability to simplify complex thinking into something people can act on remains one of the profession's greatest strengths.
Resources talked about in this episode:
On the Edge by Nate Silver
The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
Eating the Big Fish by Adam Morgan
The Long and the Short of It by Les Binet and Peter Field
Grow Your Brain is a podcast of The Strategy Collective, a community for strategists to connect, exchange ideas, and sharpen their craft. Learn more and become a member at https://www.thestrategycollective.co/
Grow Your Brain is proudly sponsored by The Gathering, the award-winning brand festival hosted in the Canadian Rockies. The next Gathering Festival takes place October 6–8, 2027, in Banff, Alberta. Learn more at https://www.thegatheringfestival.com/
Timestamps:
00:00 The Gathering Festival Overview 00:58 Welcome and Meeting Joe 03:09 Strong Opinions, Loosely Held 03:44 Deciding at Low Certainty 06:40 Loss Aversion and Thinking Probabilistically 10:57 Risk vs. Uncertainty 14:20 Hedging Bets and Learning from Campaigns 18:01 Making Strategy Followable 21:26 Marketing Science and Aggregate Data 26:44 Deductive vs. Abductive Logic 27:36 The Enduring Role of Strategy 31:23 Strategy Is About Competition 34:50 Challenger vs. Category Leader 38:06 What Clients Really Come to Agencies For 41:43 Strategy Moving Upstream 46:09 Joe's Intellectual Diet: Do, Feel, Then Think 49:20 Where to Find Joe
Tilly Scullion: Strategy Is Both an Art and a Science
Episode 10
Tuesday, October 20, 2026 • Duration 52:08
Matilda “Tilly” Scullion is a New York-based Group Strategy Director at Havas. Her agency experience includes Anomaly, Grey, and Superunion, and she studied English at the University of Cambridge.
Tilly and Pedro discuss why storytelling is part of doing strategy, not just presenting it. They explore how strategists balance analytical rigour with human understanding, turn research into a persuasive story, and stay open to information that challenges their initial assumptions. Tilly also shares what ghost stories taught her about making every word count, why understanding the right problem matters more than rushing towards a solution, and how involving creative partners early helps shape stronger strategic directions.
Tilly will be teaching a class at the APG Canada School of Strategic Goodness on October 21, 2026 titled “The Art of Storytelling: How to Think in Stories, Not Slides.”Register here.
Resources talked about in this episode:
Truth, Lies, and Advertising: The Art of Account Planning by Jon Steel
Join The Strategy Collective to connect with, learn from, and support the country’s strategic planning community. Become a member at https://www.thestrategycollective.co/.
Grow Your Brain is proudly sponsored by The Gathering, the award-winning yearly brand festival hosted in the Canadian Rockies. Learn more at .
Hannah Tabor: Seeking Out Unexpected Experts
Episode 9
Tuesday, October 6, 2026 • Duration 46:43
Hannah Tabor is the Group Strategy Director at Mother New York. Her work spans brands including Target, Bombay Sapphire, iShares, Dave & Buster’s, Seventh Generation, The Wall Street Journal, Stella Artois, Panera Bread, and Lee Jeans.
Hannah and Pedro discuss how conversations with unexpected experts can lead to more inspiring insights. They explore why strategists need to look beyond their own cultural bubbles, make room for human conversations, and stay curious even as timelines shrink and AI makes quick answers easier to find. Hannah shares how outside perspectives can help teams see familiar categories differently, why being a beginner is valuable, and how to balance creative intuition with research. They also unpack the importance of a “curiosity diet” and making strategy clear enough for others to understand without losing what makes it interesting.
Hannah will be teaching a class at the APG Canada School of Strategic Goodness on November 18th from 12pm-1pm EST titled “Strategy Has Left the Building: How to Turn Outsider Inputs Into Insider Insights.”Register here.
Join The Strategy Collective to connect with, learn from, and support the country’s strategic planning community. Become a member at https://www.thestrategycollective.co/.
Grow Your Brain is proudly sponsored by The Gathering, the award-winning yearly brand festival hosted in the Canadian Rockies. Learn more at .
Samantha Francis: Emotionalizing the Product Truth
Episode 8
Tuesday, September 22, 2026 • Duration 43:14
Samantha Francis is VP, Head of Strategy and Planning at Saatchi & Saatchi Canada in Toronto. Her career spans book publishing, digital and content marketing, professional services, client-side marketing, and agency strategy, with a focus on brand strategy, research, and effectiveness.
Sam and Pedro discuss what brands actually are, and why building one ultimately comes down to creating and maintaining useful associations in people’s memories. They explore the difference between the positioning an organization wants and the brand image consumers actually carry around, why so much advertising drifts toward category sameness, and how brands can turn familiar product truths into more distinctive and emotionally resonant creative.
Sam also unpacks the Toyota Canada "For What Matters Most" work and why good diagnosis requires knowing when to use quantitative research, when to go deeper with qualitative research, and when to acknowledge what you simply don’t know.
Resources talked about in this episode:
How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren
Join The Strategy Collective to connect with, learn from, and support the country’s strategic planning community. Become a member at https://www.thestrategycollective.co/.
Grow Your Brain is proudly sponsored by The Gathering, the award-winning yearly brand festival hosted in the Canadian Rockies. Learn more at .
Imogen Lee: Targeting Isn’t A Growth Strategy
Episode 7
Tuesday, September 8, 2026 • Duration 50:06
Imogen Lee is a Senior Marketing Scientist at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, specializing in advertising effectiveness. Her work spans Category Entry Points, Distinctive Brand Assets, and advertising messaging.
Imogen and Pedro discuss how brands grow by reaching more category buyers and building useful memory structures over time. They explore why narrow targeting can limit growth, why “wastage” is often misunderstood, and why clicks and engagement are poor substitutes for actual business outcomes. Imogen also unpacks how marketers can use Category Entry Points, Distinctive Brand Assets, and mental and physical availability to make advertising more effective, easier to process, and more likely to be remembered in buying situations.
Resources talked about in this episode:
How Brands Grow by Byron Sharp
How Brands Grow Part 2 by Byron Sharp and Jenni Romaniuk
Building Distinctive Brand Assets by Jenni Romaniuk
Better Brand Health by Jenni Romaniuk
Marketing: Theory, Evidence, Practice by Byron Sharp
Missing the Target? Investigating Targeted Advertising by Imogen Lee
Are Swede Dreams Made of This? IKEA, Wicker and the Art of Staying on Brand by Imogen Lee
Nielsen NetEffect (CPG) meta analysis: “There is no correlation between CTR and ROI” (study)
Join The Strategy Collective to connect with, learn from, and support the country’s strategic planning community. Become a member at https://www.thestrategycollective.co/.
Padmini Mangunta: Empathy As A Discipline
Episode 6
Tuesday, August 25, 2026 • Duration 46:11
Padmini Mangunta is a strategist whose career spans senior roles at Interbrand, Barkley OKRP, Intouch Group, McCann New York, and McKinney.
Padmini and Pedro discuss why strategists need to get more comfortable with human contradiction, tension, judgment, and emotional nuance. They unpack the limits of personas when they stand alone, the importance of asking better questions, and why great strategy often comes from understanding people as fluid, dynamic, and sometimes inconsistent human beings.
Padmini will be teaching a class on the APG Canada School of Strategic Goodness on September 9, 2026 titled: “No more cliches: How to defy stereotypes and meaningfully connect with consumers”. Register here: https://www.apgcanada.ca/event-calendar/#id=198&cid=1396&wid=201
Join The Strategy Collective to connect with, learn from, and support the country’s strategic planning community. Become a member at https://www.thestrategycollective.co/.
Grow Your Brain is proudly sponsored by The Gathering, the award-winning yearly brand festival hosted in the Canadian Rockies. Learn more at .
Claudia Aguirre: Strategists Need to Leave Their Desks
Episode 5
Tuesday, August 11, 2026 • Duration 53:50
Claudia Aguirre is a Calgary-based brand strategist, qualitative researcher, and consultant with more than 20 years of experience across Mexico, the US Hispanic market, Latin America, Canada, and Europe. She began her career in research and planning in Mexico, working with firms including Leo Burnett, JWT, FCB, and Research International, before eventually building her own consulting practice focused on research, branding, civic causes, not-for-profits, and sustainable brands.
This conversation between Claudia Aguirre and Pedro Porto Alegre explores strategy through Claudia’s deeply human lens: getting out into the world, observing real behaviour, and turning it into insights that creatives can actually build from. Claudia reflects on her early days in planning in Latin America and why great strategists often come from unexpected paths, before diving into why leaving the desk is essential for good strategy. They also discuss vulnerability as a strategic skill, how culture and language shape what people are willing to share, and the role of AI in modern strategy—useful for the groundwork, but no substitute for real-world observation, perspective, and judgment.
Resources talked about in this episode:
The Jay Chiat Awards
Balzac and La Comédie Humaine
Generative AI enhances individual creativity but reduces the collective diversity of novel content by Anil R. Doshi and Oliver P. Hauser, Science Advances
Poll: 62% of Americans Say They Have Political Views They’re Afraid to Share by Emily Ekins, Cato Institute / YouGov
Listen to full episodes wherever you get your podcasts:
Umar Ghumman: Digital Experiences Have a Brand Problem
Episode 4
Tuesday, July 28, 2026 • Duration 47:58
Umar Ghumman is an experience strategist and founder of NewBrains, a website strategy studio built around the intersection of new technologies and enduring human behaviour. Over his career, Umar has worked across digital agencies, startups, Publicis, and VML, where he served as Chief Experience Strategy Officer.
This conversation explores how brands should think about websites, customer experience, AI, positioning, and distinctiveness in digital environments. Umar Ghumman explains why websites should be treated as complete buying systems that build both physical and mental availability, and why generic digital experiences are becoming less effective as AI increasingly compares, summarizes, and filters brands.
The episode also looks at the shift from social media to AI, the trade-offs between privacy and convenience, and how brand positioning should show up online. Pedro and Umar discuss how brands become habits, why consistency needs variation, and how developing taste and judgment in an AI-shaped world comes from experience, exposure, and feedback rather than aesthetics alone.
Resources talked about in this episode:
A New Operating System for Brand Building in the Age of AI by Umar Ghumman
The Social Dilemma
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff
Join The Strategy Collective to connect with, learn from, and support the country’s strategic planning community. Become a member at .
Marc Binkley: Your Mental Model Might Be Wrong
Episode 3
Tuesday, July 14, 2026 • Duration 47:55
Marc Binkley is an evidence-based marketing consultant, President of the Calgary Marketing Association, and co-host of the Sleeping Barber podcast. Through his consultancy, Quatical, he helps organizations apply marketing science to brand and business growth.
This conversation explores how evidence-based thinking can improve marketing decisions, why digital measurement has distorted our understanding of effectiveness, and what marketers can learn from the scientific method. Marc and Pedro examine the limitations of the traditional marketing funnel, how people actually make buying decisions, and why better diagnosis often matters more than having more tactics.
They also discuss mental and physical availability, the 95–5 Rule, the Theory of Constraints, and how marketers can build a stronger latticework of mental models without mistaking any single framework for reality.
Resources talked about in this episode:
A More Beautiful Question by Warren Berger
How Brands Grow by Byron Sharp
The Long and the Short of It by Les Binet and Peter Field
Jon Crowley is a Toronto-based brand strategist, Partner, Head of Strategy, and SVP at FUSE Create. He is also the writer behind A Benign Conspiracy and a founding editor of Rebrief, an independent Canadian journal of advertising.
This conversation explores the realities of modern strategy, agency culture, and the tension between creativity, business, data, and measurement. Jon Crowley shares his perspective on what strategists often misunderstand about their role, why agencies need to better understand how clients make money, and how the pursuit of certainty has shaped marketing’s obsession with attribution, funnels, and performance metrics.
The episode also covers the importance of writing as a way of thinking, the value of intentional friction in creative work, the role of print in a digital world, and why individual success in advertising is largely a myth. Jon argues that strategy is ultimately an elevated form of educated guessing, where the strategist’s job is to increase the probability of success by understanding the business, the audience, the market, and the creative problem clearly enough to point teams toward better decisions.
Resources talked about in this episode:
A Benign Conspiracy by Jon Crowley
Rebrief
The Walrus
Monocle
Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man by Marshall McLuhan
How Humans Decide (Oxford Saïd Business School / WPP research on brand preference)
00:00 Introduction to Grow Your Brain Podcast 00:53 Introduction to Tilly Scullion 03:29 Tilly's Journey into Advertising 06:18 The Duality of Strategy: Art and Science 08:58 The Influence of Literature on Storytelling 11:49 The Power of Ghost Stories in Communication 14:22 Storytelling as a Strategic Tool 17:04 The Balance of Qualitative and Quantitative Insights 19:35 The Process of Building a Strategy 22:19 The Role of Open-Mindedness in Strategy Development 25:09 Navigating Hypotheses in Strategy 27:49 Challenging Preconceived Notions 29:28 The Importance of Contradictions 35:53 Understanding the Right Problem 38:45 The Role of Strategy in Creative Solutions 42:19 Expanding the Role of Strategists 44:33 Collaborating with Creative Partners
00:00 Introduction to Grow Your Brain Podcast 00:53 Introduction to Hannah Tabor 01:49 Hannah's Journey into Advertising 05:48 Cultural Perspectives: East Coast vs. West Coast 09:03 Keeping a Pulse on the Outside World 10:33 The Importance of Journalism in Strategy 13:38 The Value of Human Conversations 15:17 The Impact of AI on Human Interaction 17:20 Inserting Friction into the Process 20:03 Understanding Unexpected Experts 21:38 The Value of Fresh Perspectives 24:23 Embracing the Novice Mindset 26:37 Defining Insight in Strategy 28:47 The Art of Storytelling in Insights 31:12 Balancing Qualitative and Quantitative Research 33:42 Curiosity as a Core Competency 37:42 The Importance of a Curiosity Diet 43:04 Navigating Over-Intellectualization in Strategy
03:17 From Publishing to Strategy: A Unique Journey
05:53 The Importance of Strategy in Marketing
08:13 Understanding the Client Perspective
10:38 The Art of Making Strategic Choices
12:55 Brand Building: Creating Lasting Memories
15:21 The Role of Associations in Branding
17:39 Awareness vs. Salience in Brand Strategy
19:59 The Concept of Wastage in Marketing
20:20 The Importance of Mental Availability
23:58 Brand Image vs. Brand Positioning
28:24 Creative Approaches in Automotive Advertising
33:15 Emotional Storytelling in Brand Campaigns
38:22 Balancing Quantitative and Qualitative Insights
Grow Your Brain is proudly sponsored by The Gathering, the award-winning yearly brand festival hosted in the Canadian Rockies. Learn more athttp://thegatheringfestival.com.
Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction to Grow Your Brain Podcast
00:53 Introduction and Time Zones
02:20 Imogen's Journey into Marketing Science
04:21 Research Focus: Targeted Advertising
06:15 The Evolution of Targeting in Digital Media
09:09 The Importance of Reach for Brands
11:46 Distinctive Brand Assets and Category Entry Points
14:09 Mental and Physical Availability Framework
17:41 Bridging the Gap Between Academia and Practice
20:08 Understanding Loyalty in Marketing
22:08 Targeting Strategies in Marketing
25:59 Understanding Target Markets vs. Actual Buyers
28:21 Rethinking Wastage in Marketing
31:15 The Disconnect Between Clicks and Business Outcomes
34:49 Building Useful Memory Structures in Advertising
38:22 The Importance of Message Clarity in Advertising
40:33 Developing Effective Category Entry Points
43:24 Cultural Cues in Advertising
46:24 Embracing Marketing Science for Better Decisions
00:00 Introduction to Grow Your Brain Podcast 00:53 Introduction and Background 05:28 Career Journey and Transition to Advertising 10:48 The Role of Journalism in Strategy 17:31 Understanding the Customer: Beyond Personas 22:20 Exploring Human Tension and Judgment 26:07 Balancing Nuance and Simplification in Strategy 31:15 The Importance of Empathy in Storytelling 38:29 Understanding Empathy and Human Connection
Join The Strategy Collective to connect with, learn from, and support the country’s strategic planning community. Become a member at https://www.thestrategycollective.co/.
Grow Your Brain is proudly sponsored by The Gathering, the award-winning yearly brand festival hosted in the Canadian Rockies. Learn more at http://thegatheringfestival.com.
Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction to Grow Your Brain Podcast
00:49 The Gathering Festival Overview
01:13 Claudia Aguirre’s Career Journey
04:17 Building the Planning Profession
10:43 Why Strategists Must Get Out Into the World
17:37 Research, Human Behavior, and Creative Collaboration
20:49 Observation, Insights, and the Brief
28:40 Vulnerability as a Strategic Skill
33:33 Culture, Language, and Connecting With People
Grow Your Brain is proudly sponsored by The Gathering, the award-winning yearly brand festival hosted in the Canadian Rockies. Learn more at http://thegatheringfestival.com.
Timestamps:
01:15 Umar’s Background and the NewBrains Perspective
02:58 From the Social Media Shift to AI
05:07 Privacy, Trust, and the Pull of Convenience
08:23 Websites as Complete Buying Systems
10:08 Websites, Physical Availability, and Mental Availability
13:49 Bringing Brand Positioning to Life Online
15:54 Balancing Immersive Experiences with Utility
18:38 How to Define Brand Positioning
23:14 How Positioning Drives Website Conversion
24:58 Measuring Website Success
27:46 Customer Journeys and Brand-Rooted Experiences
28:34 AI’s Role in Modern Brand Building
30:10 Consistency, Variation, and Distinctiveness
32:13 How Brands Become Habits
35:15 Customer Centricity Without Sameness
38:22 Developing Taste and Judgment
Join The Strategy Collective to connect with, learn from, and support the country’s strategic planning community. Become a member at https://www.thestrategycollective.co/.
Grow Your Brain is proudly sponsored by The Gathering, the award-winning yearly brand festival hosted in the Canadian Rockies. Learn more at http://thegatheringfestival.com.
Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction to Marc Binkley and His Work
03:31 The Importance of Evidence-Based Marketing
06:10 The Evolution of Marketing Measurement
08:32 The Impact of Digital Marketing
11:00 How Digital Changed Marketing Thinking
13:37 The Limits of Digital Measurement
16:18 Why Small Brands Default to Social Media
17:21 The Importance of Asking Better Questions
20:36 Can Scientific Thinking Scale Across Marketing Teams?
22:55 Why New Ideas Threaten Core Beliefs
23:16 The Origins of the Marketing Funnel
24:59 The Strongest Arguments For and Against the Funnel
27:10 How Consumers Actually Make Buying Decisions
28:32 Mental and Physical Availability
29:48 Satisficing and the Reality of Consumer Choice
Join The Strategy Collective to connect with, learn from, and support the country’s strategic planning community. Become a member at https://www.thestrategycollective.co/.
Grow Your Brain is proudly sponsored by The Gathering, the award-winning yearly brand festival hosted in the Canadian Rockies. Learn more at thegatheringfestival.com.
Timestamps:
00:00 The Indie Agency Experience
06:25 The Importance of Team Culture
11:59 The Journey into Writing and Strategy
17:12 Launching Rebrief: A New Perspective on Advertising
22:34 The Value of Print in a Digital World
22:57 Understanding Marketing in Business Context
28:00 The Importance of Clear Objectives in Briefs
33:25 The Shift Towards Performance Marketing
38:49 The Role of Media Mix Modeling
44:14 The Challenge of Teaching Young Strategists
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