Sweathead, A Strategy Podcast

Nick Hirst is Executive Strategy Director at adam&eveDDB in London. He's twenty years into his planning career. He's been at adam&eveDDB for eight years and spent some of them as Head of Planning. That's after being a Head of Planning at Dare and working at Lowe and Grey. In this episode of Sweathead, we discuss the messy reality of doing account planning. You can find Nick here: https://twitter.com/nickhirst  ** Find out about our Strategy Accelerator at http://www.sweathead.com Follow the fun on Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/sweathead Subscribe to our newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dscjW5

Pooja Munshi is Head of Web, Data Analysis, and Digital Transformation at the UN Environment Programme. She's based in Nairobi, Kenya, but she's lived and/or worked in Paris, Berlin, London, Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta, Miami, and New York. In fact, after ten years of working in advertising in New York, Pooja felt somewhat burnt out and decided to follow her partner to Paris.  In this episode, we discuss burnout, purpose, and what it's like to live and work in so many different cities.  You can find Pooja here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/poojamunshi/ ** Find out about our Strategy Accelerator at http://www.sweathead.com Follow the fun on Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/sweathead Subscribe to our newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dscjW5

In this episode I run you through some recent student work from the Sweathead Strategy Accelerator (thanks to Colin Craig from Moon Rabbit) as well as ten tips about doing strategy while exhausted. Our next strategy accelerator starts on March 31. You find find details at http://www.sweathead.com You can find the Instagram version of this episode on Instagram at http://www.instagram.com/markpollard Don't forget to subscribe to the newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dscjW5

In today's Sweathead episode, Rakaa Taylor shares with us how he made the leap from being a rapper, musician, and artist to being a full-time strategist. He draws parallels between songwriting and strategy writing and discusses some of his strategy work.  Rakaa Taylor, aka Rakaa Iriscience, is a world-class rapper, performer, artist, and musician who's part of the group, Dilated Peoples. They're an underground group that found mainstream success through record labels all over the world, particularly in the US, UK, and Japan. Rakaa is now on his journey to becoming a full-time strategist and is developing an agency with his partner. It's called Angles. You can find Rakaa here: https://www.instagram.com/therealrakaa/ ** Find out about our Strategy Accelerator at http://www.sweathead.com Follow the fun on Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/sweathead Subscribe to our newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dscjW5

In today's Sweathead episode, Ambika Pai teaches us what Instinctual Leadership is and why it is important for leaders and managers to learn how to lead with instinct. She also discusses the types of leaders and the common misconceptions that the world has of them. Ambika also shares how leading with instinct transformed her life and work and gives advice to young leaders who are just starting to navigate the strategy world. Ambika Pai is Chief Strategy Officer at Mekanism. She believes a strategist can solve any problem and is working to diversify and dimensionalize how the world thinks about leadership. She's a mom to a toddler and still trying to figure out how working parents do it. Connect with her at: Twitter/IG: ambikagp Email: ambikagpai@gmail.com Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ambikagpai ** Find out about our strategy classes at http://www.sweathead.com Follow the fun on Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/sweathead Subscribe to our newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dscjW5

Last episode of 2021! We discuss why creatives might dislike a strategist, what to do as the only creative strategist in a team, why “right” doesn’t matter, and how to turn despair into creativity. Thank you to everyone who shared prompts and questions with me over on Instagram @markpollard. Happy new year!

In today's Sweathead episode, Anastasia Karklina Gabriel talks about cultural intelligence and how it can affect brand strategy. She discusses how difficult it is to grapple with diversity, inclusion, and identity, and gives advice on how to deal and wrestle with these topics within the strategy and advertising landscape. Dr. Anastasia Kārkliņa Gabriel is a formally trained cultural analyst who works at the intersection of culture, brand, and innovation. She uses her expertise in critical race, gender, and sexuality studies to help both agencies and brands build culturally intelligent, incisive, and inclusive strategy. Dr. Gabriel specializes in social impact, brand authenticity, and diversity, equity, and inclusion, drawing on 10+ years of experience in grassroots social justice movements, and is fiercely committed to producing rigorous, critically conscious, and people-centered work.  Connect with her at https://www.linkedin.com/in/anastasiaxgabriel/ ** Find out about our strategy classes at http://www.sweathead.com Follow the fun on Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/sweathead Subscribe to our newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dscjW5

"Thou shalt not cut and paste the client brief." "No brief is an island." "Show the tension in the strategy." "Share it with the creatives." In today's Sweathead episode, Will Humphrey talks about 20 pieces of no-nonsense advice on how to write, sharpen, and present a creative brief. Will Humphrey is an integrated planner of 15 years' experience, having worked at a huge variety of agencies (Advertising, PR, CRM, Digital) on many different clients - from telco to charity, to FS and beer. He's taught APG courses, judged the Effies, written the odd award paper, and won a pitch or two. He likes good writing, tea, pub quizzes, and taxidermy. One of those is a lie. Connect with him at http://twitter.com/will_humphrey or https://will-humphrey.com/. P.S. I (Mark) managed to skip words in parts of this interview. As in, I introduce Will as "strategy", which is pretty good for Will but makes no sense. Sometimes my brain misfires but, luckily, Will is fully coherent.  ** Find out about our strategy classes at http://www.sweathead.com Follow the fun on Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/sweathead Subscribe to our newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dscjW5

In today's Sweathead episode, Giles Edwards shares with us how ISOLATED Talks was born during the early days of the pandemic to help people, both in and out of the strategy world, cope with crisis through creativity. He also talks about his feelings and experiences surrounding his father's death, and how they have helped him make sense of and carry on with his life now. Giles Edwards is Creative Director and Founder of Creatively Memorable and Boringly Effective™ agency…Gasp!, founder of ISOLATED Talks®, and host of UK top 5 marketing podcast, Call To Action®. He also manages ...Gasp! Books, is dad to two much more likeable humans, and to quote Professor Mark Ritson, “a bit of a tit”. He remains annoyingly curious about most things. Trigger topics: death, murder, anxiety, grief You can find Giles here: https://twitter.com/Giles_Edwards ** Find out about our strategy classes at http://www.sweathead.com Follow the fun on Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/sweathead Subscribe to our newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dscjW5

What is it like to lead the strategy team in a social media agency right now? How can brands capitalize on social media platforms without just spraying content everywhere and praying for it to work? Are playbooks and creative brief templates relevant to social media strategy? These questions and more are answered in this Sweathead episode with Rob Engelsman, Head of Strategy & Relevance at Annex88. As the Head of Strategy & Relevance, Rob leads a team that works with brands like adidas Originals, Courvoisier, HUGO BOSS, and Keurig Dr. Pepper. He created the Science of Hype, a methodology for measuring viral influence of ideas, products, and brands. Previously, Rob spent time at Droga5 and Huge, developing social & brand campaigns for smartwater, DICK’S Sporting Goods, Cap’n Crunch, and more. Connect with Rob at @rcengelsman on Twitter, IG, and LinkedIn. ** Find out about our strategy classes at http://www.sweathead.com Follow the fun on Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/sweathead Subscribe to our newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dscjW5