(With apologies to the mighty The Sundays, here a few of the favorite things I’ve listened to, watched and read in this odd year) Well what a year this has been. It’s been odd being cooped up for 3/4 of the year (but not as odd…

A few of the favorite things I’ve listened to, watched and read. — LISTENED TO Music 2019 may not have some of the stellar releases of the last decade but there was lots of good stuff (as always thanks to the best record store in the world, Piccadilly Records in Manchester, for keeping my ears and mind open). Bubbling under my top 10…

A school of UX design thought posits that technology can become more useful to people if it becomes calm, that it should inform and create calm, that it should take up the smallest possible amount of attention. How might these principles help the advertising industry’s situation? I’m writing this the…

The New Year has traditionally been about making predictions about all the new stuff the industry will do, all the new tech, new companies. What would actually make an impact, argues Gareth Kay, is a renewed interest in the things we do that work, and what can make them better…

Another more than pointless addition to year end lists…here are some of the things I’ve enjoyed listening to, reading and watching this year. Music As always, thank you to my friends with better taste than me for keeping me in touch with what’s going on and to the invaluable weekly list…

Brands are rarely made better when we add to them. The more we add stuff — be it for the sake of ‘the new’ or to fend off what we see as competitive threat — the greater the risk that we dilute and obfuscate what we really are. You’ve seen…

Strategic thinking is getting flabbier and flowerier by the minute, with fluffy language that is highly evocative, imaginative and inspirational but is devoid of the brutal rigor needed to create a robust foundation on which to build a brand or business. I’ve just spent the past 48 hours back in…

The notion of the importance of “community” in building powerful brands has been around for a long time but has the term now become so overused that it has been rendered meaningless? One of the strange things in the world of marketing is the way we use concepts very loosely…

The pursuit of perfection is slowing marketers down and damaging their ability to build and shape brands that people care about. It is often imperfect brands — the ones that show their flaws and have real roles in people’s lives — that can feel a little bit more perfect. This…