Inspiring Futures - Lessons from the Worlds of Marketing and Advertising

Connor Moore and Paul Amitai are the Executive Creative Director and Executive Strategy Director of Listen. Listen is a sound agency that helps companies and brands create and build audio and sound strategies. Connor designed the sound of  Tesla's Model 3  engine tone to a family of alerts and notifications for Uber's Drivers App.  He helped define Google’s audio design language for Google Glass, Waymo, and Google PayIn the podcast, we talk about both their backgrounds, the types of work they are engaged in, and the process and approach behind the work.

Ben Dietz led commercial partnerships at VICE Media and is now a consultant for media and consumer brands. He publishes the [SIC] Weekly newsletter and is the co-host of the Culture Club Show on Clubhouse on Wednesday nights. Ben has spent time advising brands on how to reach into unfamiliar and potentially risky spaces through his work with VICE and youth culture.In the podcast, we discuss his experience and what we learned from it, and how it applies to understanding the new worlds that are forming the foundational building blocks of the metaverse- as in bitcoin, digital currency and NFTs 

Neil Parker is the co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of co: collectiveOver a decade ago co: collective was born- founded by Neil, Rosemarie Ryan, and  Ty Montague.  Rosemarie and Ty had run the NY office of JWT and Neil had been the global strategy head of design firm Wolff Olins.co: collective's arrival on the scene caused something of a stir because it wasn't the typical start-up from senior ad agency figures- it wasn't an ad agency- it was a brand consulting company with a difference.As I learn in the conversation with Neil he brought something very different to the table from a strategic perspective. He wasn't your classic ad strategist, his background was in management consulting- so he brought more of a business perspective to the world of brands and branding.We talk about what this means, how co works, how it works with others, and discuss various developments that we see in the world of brands and branding in 2021. 

One of the best things strategy-wise to come out of the last couple of years is the 30-minute University of Planning which was the brainchild of Dr. Gordon Euchler. The university does 2 things..1- Connects mentors to mentorees 2. Organizes talks/learning sessions. This platform has allowed strategists from all over the world to learn for mentors and for mentors to learn from the mentorees. We are in a world where in-house training and mentoring are hard to come by- not that this is a replacement, but it's a nice addition. In this podcast, I talk to Gordon about his career trajectory, the challenges of strategy in Germany, learning from John Lowery, the origins of 30 Minute University, where it is headed, working at Deloitte with the opportunity to make ideas real businesses and Shakespeare. 

Matt Davies and Pieter-Paul von Weiler are freelance strategists based in Melbourne, Australia who have created a consulting service to help clients construct better briefs. The idea is fueled by an extensive research project that found up to 33% of marketing budgets are wasted from the inefficiencies created by bad briefs- Matt and Pieter-Paul are on a mission to change that.In our conversation, we talked about their backgrounds, the catalyst behind Better Briefs, the reception so far, the disparity between agencies and clients over briefs and where Better Briefs is headed in the future. 

Lindsay Stein is the new chief of social impact at Havas in NY. Havas has been making some big moves around social impact recently and Lindsay is freshly installed in the New York office with the charge to make a difference inside the agency and with clients.Lindsay's started her career in sports journalism but has a deep knowledge of the US marketing communication scene from her stints at PR Week, Advertising Age, and Campaign US.Her last role was with the non-for-profit organization-  "Today, I'm Brave" which unlocks bravery in underserved youth around the world and helps them become our next generation of leaders. Her role will encompass the breadth of social impact including diversity and sustainability and she is keen that this isn't seen as an opportunity to seize competitive advantage and plans to share learnings and findings with agency competitors and even host events on the topic.These are clearly early days, she is less than a month into her role, so it will be very interesting to see where this goes. As we discussed in the conversation this is about having a serious commitment from the leadership of the organization and recognizing that this is a long-term effort- things will not be solved immediately and there will doubtless be numerous challenges that need to be overcome. Her take is to keep things optimistic and positive.  

Rob Walker is a writer, teacher, and journalist. He studied journalism and started his career working for trade magazines. In the early 2000s, he worked for Slate under the leadership of Michael Kinsley who suggested he should write a weekly column about advertising. Kinsley's perspective was advertising was a key cultural force but it wasn't understood or appreciated as such. Rob found this somewhat of a challenge, being dismissive of brands and ads himself. However, eventually, he got hooked on the topic and he ended up spending a decade writing the "Consumed" column for the New York Times Magazine. Rob is now focused on helping people find interesting ways of escaping the Attention Economy by seeking out new moments of opportunity and discovery which he started exploring with his 2019 book, the Art of Noticing, and has followed up with in his subsequent Subtack newsletter. 

Nick is one of the creative leaders over at design and strategy company- COLLINS. We had a very interesting, but somewhat rambling conversation where we covered his background in music, his work for record companies, and the magazine Frank. To be honest, I talked a little too much - Nick was either interviewing me or I was interviewing myself. We did manage to talk about some of the work and process for COLLINS clients like Crane, Clubhouse, and Robin Hood. And we touched upon the old favorite of how we work and create together during COVID, which led nicely to a chat about their new space in Brooklyn., 

Design is tough to understand and that makes design strategy even tougher. In this episode, Paul Collins the Strategy Director of Elmwood does a brilliant job of explaining how strategy works in a design agency. What is there to do? How it inspires and how it works with clients.  We also talk about boundaries, like- where design ends and advertising begins. Elmwood and Paul have a lot of interesting experiences especially with the Tecate beer brand which we discuss in some detail. 

David is the Founding Partner at HUSH. Hush is a unique experience design practice where they create experiences designed for physical environments that use digital technology and data.Think of a space like the lobby at Uber's HQ and HUSH are the folks that bring that experience to life.This requires a really interesting set of skills from architecture through to coding and finding the talent and getting them to work seamlessly together is a fascinating challenge. So, in the conversation, I talk to David about the company- how it functions,  how they use inspiration, how they create and present their ideas- plus how they've been managing to do this in the pandemic enforced virtual workspace.