Sweathead, A Strategy Podcast

What does it mean to do provocative thinking and why is it easier to do it for brands than for ourselves? Hugh Munro is Head of Planning at one of Australia's most prolific agencies The Monkeys, an agency that sells one thing - provocative thinking.  We discuss: - The positioning of The Monkeys   - Building brands for the long-term - Australia Day advertising - Working through the pandemic - Being malleable - Questioning the value of what strategists do   You can find Hugh here https://www.linkedin.com/in/humun/ and The Monkeys here https://themonkeys.com.au/ ** Find the book "Strategy Is Your Words" and 100 strategy classes at Sweathead here: http://www.sweathead.com

How do you conduct useful research? Simple question, right? At Current Forward, a research and brand strategy consultancy in Austin, Texas, Ashley Lapin and Kaitlin Moon spend their working lives trying to answer this question.  With COVID-19 throwing everything up in the air and forcing even more research to happen through screens, we decided to discuss practical ways to conduct research in a pandemic but also not in a pandemic. We discuss: - Helping clients work out what research to do - Pricing research - Quantifying qualitative research - Creative testing and is there really a point? - Working out which outputs would be useful  You can find Current Forward here: http://www.currentfwd.com ** Find the book "Strategy Is Your Words" and 100 strategy classes at Sweathead here: http://www.sweathead.com

What do you do when where you work is hurting you? This episode was a livestream within the Sweathead Facebook group.  We discuss working at toxic companies. - Is it you? - Is it the company? - What can you do about it? Our guests: 1. Emma Siu is a seasoned scientist who is currently working in the gaming industry in Seattle as an award-winning community manager. https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmasiu 2. Thiago Bersou is a Brand Strategy Consultant in Los Angeles. He has 15 years of brand work under his belt with brands like Nike, Diageo, and Unilever. He also used to have his own agency in '06. https://www.linkedin.com/in/tbersou/ ** Find the book "Strategy Is Your Words" and 100 strategy classes at Sweathead here: http://www.sweathead.com

What happens when you draw a card from a strategy card deck and apply it to your life? Jye Smith runs Double Star in Sydney. He recently made a deck of strategy cards called "Strategy Action Deck: Stupid Questions And Bad Ideas". I've known Jye for close on 15 years so I thought it would be interesting to use his cards on him as a sneaky way to get him to talk about mental health challenges, the ups and downs of his career, good and not good decisions he's made, and what he's learned about himself in the process. You can find the cards here: https://youregoodgetbetter.com/shop/strategy-action-deck You can find Jye here: https://twitter.com/jyesmith  ** Find the book "Strategy Is Your Words" and 100 strategy classes at Sweathead here: http://www.sweathead.com

What shapes can a strategy career take? This episode was a livestream from the Sweathead Facebook group. In it, we discuss what shapes strategy careers can take.  Our guests: 1. Serena Berra is a strategist based out of Miami. From being a planner to director of marketing to teacher to co-founding her own IOS application, she is now back freelancing as a strategist and enjoying it. https://www.linkedin.com/in/serenaberra/ 2. Monica Duran is a freelance marketing consultant based out of Miami. She is a bilingual and bicultural marketer that specializes in shopper and brand marketing. She's had multiple clients and has experience in working on different brands and industries. https://www.linkedin.com/in/monicaduran/ 3. Matilde Ricon Peres is working at Mondelez in London as part of the category development insights team. She started out as a researcher that worked to analyze different channels to create innovative insights. Now with Mondelez, she is now focused on driving insights on category, shopper, consumer metrics by analysing & translating data on the Chocolate UK market in general and Cadbury brand products in particular. https://www.linkedin.com/in/matildericonperes/ ** Find the book "Strategy Is Your Words" and 100 strategy classes at Sweathead here: http://www.sweathead.com

What if you think you're a strategist who happens to write but you're really a writer who happens to do strategy? Claire Strickett is a senior planner at one of the world's best agencies adam&eveDDB. In London. She writes all day every day - research debriefs, workshop agendas, presentations, and creative briefs. But she just co-wrote a book with Bert Blaize. It's about food and wine and it's called "What Wine When: What to drink with the food you love". So we investigate the difference between being a strategist who writes and a writer who does strategy. You can find Claire on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/clairestrickett You can find "What Wine When" here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1529104858/ref=c ** Find the book "Strategy Is Your Words" and 100 strategy classes at Sweathead here: http://www.sweathead.com

What are your desires, goals, and cravings? In this episode, Libby Swan takes over as host and brings four of us together to discuss our desires. Grace Steite is Head of Program Management at Square’s Creative Studio and has recently been working from Ireland: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gsteite/ Anjali Ramachandran is the Director of Storythings and Co-Founder of Ada’s List: https://twitter.com/anjali28 Libby Swan runs digital agency PRDXN: https://prdxn.com/ ** Find the book "Strategy Is Your Words" and 100 strategy classes at Sweathead here: http://www.sweathead.com

What do the 15,000 people in the Sweathead Facebook Group think about working in advertising and dealing with each other online? 2020 managed to infect the community with rage and frustration so, a few months ago, Stephen Yap helped coordinate a research project for Sweathead.  One hundred people in the group got together and ran discussions about the advertising industry as well as the Sweathead Group. In this episode, Stephen discusses the project and what we found. We thought it would be a 45-minute debrief but it ended up being a ninety-minute therapy session.  Stephen is utterly coherent throughout. I'm less coherent from the midpoint as I try to discuss difficult issues such as aggressive behavior in the group and towards me and people I know online, racism, and sexism. You can find Stephen here https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-yap/ ** The Sweathead Annual Report 2020 is here: http://bit.ly/sweathead2020 ** Find the book "Strategy Is Your Words" and 100 strategy classes at Sweathead here: http://www.sweathead.com

How do you help a brand stay in someone's mind by going through their ears? Steve Keller is Sonic Strategy Director at Pandora. Pandora has over 60 million active users per month and is worth a few billion dollars. Steve sits in Studio Resonate, a small part of this few-billion-dollar company in Oakland, USA. At Pandora's Studio Resonate, Steve works with brands on how to appear in people's ears - on and beyond Pandora. In this interview, we discuss: - The science of sound - The key concepts of sonic branding - How the money works (who gets paid for what)  You can find Steve here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevekeller1/ You can find Resonate Studios here: https://www.pandoraforbrands.com/studio-resonate ** Find the book "Strategy Is Your Words" and 100 strategy classes at Sweathead here: http://www.sweathead.com

Why are networks for women in advertising needed and how do they work? Anita Schillhorn van Veen is Director of Strategy at McKinney LA. Anita is also on the leadership team of Ladies Who Strategize, an online community for women-identifying strategists.  We discuss: - Ladies Who Strategize and creating networks for women within the advertising and strategy world - Writing and being creative in stressful times - Empathy and empathetic leadership You can find Anita here https://www.linkedin.com/in/anitasvv/ You can find Anita's newsletter here https://framestrategy.substack.com/about You can find Ladies Who Strategize here http://www.kimbklyn.com/ladies-who-strategize/ ** Find the book "Strategy Is Your Words" and 100 strategy classes at Sweathead here: http://www.sweathead.com