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What is an insight?
This post was first published on Hill + Knowlton Strategies. More on that change in my life later! What is an insight? They are the things upon which multimillion (billion?) dollar decisions are made....
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What are the components to great storytelling?
It seems like storytelling is all the rage these days. Marketers, communicators, sales people, journalists, trade pubs. Everyone is a storyteller these days – and everyone is advocating for telling...
View ArticleWhat can go wrong, and right, during a pitch
I love a good pitch. The chaos, the creativity brought into sharp sharp focus by the constraints of time, the late nights, the camaraderie and the sheer relief at the end of it. By no means am I an...
View ArticlePresentation Tips for Agency Life
When I was writing last week’s post on the new business process, I started to conflate the idea of the pitch process with the presentation itself – and as the list was getting a little unwieldy so I...
View ArticleOn brands and branding
What is a brand and why do so many organisations spend so much money asking very smart people to dedicate so much time to them? Way back when, brands were logos and colour schemes. Kellogg put his...
View ArticleThe Quarantine Diaries – Calgary Edition
Everything is changing, seemingly day to day in the wake of COVID-19 and the advertising business is no different. The Message put out a call for folks to tell them about the new normal they are...
View ArticleA funny thing happened on the way to the forum
I was on a bike ride through the Toronto trails, coming downhill on a steep track and ahead of me there were two women walking side by side, deep in conversation. I rang my bell several times but they...
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Marketing during a recession
Like most people, I have a visceral reaction to the word recession and can map my career against the recessions I’ve lived through. While no two recessions are the same, it doesn’t mean we can’t learn...
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Going to work
Or to borrow a phrase from Heat, Is the action the juice or is the juice the action? When watching sports these days, its common to hear a commentator talk about one of the players “doing their work”...
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Some Interesting Trends for 2022 and Beyond
It is December so it’s time for a lot of looking for guidance into how the next year or so will go. There are lots of good one’s out there. I sent Pinterest’s 35 trends and 175+ predictions to a...
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What Marketers Need to Know About…Inflation
The strategy team at Venture Play has started writing a weekly newsletter focusing in on things our clients and companies in the District Ventures Fund may want to know about, which I’ll start to...
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Brands and the Metaverse…a Primer
WHAT: Technologists and futurists talk about it daily. The markets couldn’t fund it fast enough. Facebook changed its name to it. It’s supposed to be worth almost a trillion (with a “T”) dollars in...
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The Underwear Recession Indicator
WHAT: There are no shortage of technical indicators that a recession is coming. From the inverted yield curve to the Federal Reserve’s probability model, financial wonks can dive into the minutiae to...
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11 bullet points on awards
One week this summer, along with being trained by a new puppy, hosting a 5yr old’s birthday party and having a long over due vacation, I was lucky enough to judge the Strategy Awards. I had a bunch of...
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Generational Guide: Understanding Gen Z Consumers
WHAT: Gen Z is the second fastest growing generation in Canada, growing 6.4% between 2016 and 2021 (millennials are growing the fastest at 8.6%). With this growth comes increased spending power so...
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The Problem with 1% Better Every Time
Like many new converts I’ve become somewhat of fervent lover of my Peloton. In the first few months last year, I was riding 2-3 times a week. When I found out there was a Google Sheets template to...
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Snack Time; All The Time
Young woman holding bowl with snacks WHAT: Whether it’s because there’s more WFH, the increased pace of the modern world or simply the changing consumer tastes, snacking is at an all-time high and...
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Eating, and Changing, Our Feelings
WHAT: Do you need coffee to start your day? How about a “stick to your ribs” meal to comfort you on a cold evening? Or maybe a glass of red wine to soothe the nerves over dinner? We’ve long known how...
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Le Creuset Mystery Box Masterclass
In 2017, to publicise his keynote at CommsCon, Faris Yakob wrote that “everything is PR”. It was a bold, provocative statement at a time where we really were at the start of the attention economy. It...
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Never mind the quality, feel the width
We’re all feeling the width of advertising these days. Either as a consumer being bombarded with what seems like a never-ending stream of ads or as a practitioner where the media requirements for...
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