Sweathead, A Strategy Podcast

Welcome back. It’s 2020. What are you going to do about it? Come read 15 Instagram essays here http://www.instagram.com/markpollard and top up your brain with this official Skillshare class http://skl.sh/markpollard PS Much love to friends, family, and strangers in Australia dealing with the bushfires

Sam Sterling is Managing Director of AKQA Greater China and Japan. Mega title, right? She's a doctorate candidate at Fudan and Durham University where she's doing a DBA (Doctorate of Business Administration), in which she's trying to bring a practitioner's mindset to academia while bringing academia a little closer to the practitioner's reality. She's studying the life expectancy of brands. We discuss this. You can find Sam https://www.linkedin.com/in/samsterling For more strategy talk: 1. Newsletter: http://www.markpollard.net/email-newsletter/ 2. Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/markpollard 3. Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/markpollard 4. Facebook - join 7,000+ strategists: http://www.sweathead.co 5. The deskbook “Strategy Is Your Words" http://www.strategyisyourwords.com

Kate O'Neill went from studying linguistics to making websites to Silicon Valley to Netflix to starting an agency to writing books and speaking around the world. Like many of us, she's interested in meaning. How do we work out what means something to us and how do we express how we mean that something? And this is what we talk about.  You can find Kate here: https://twitter.com/kateo For more strategy talk: 1. Newsletter: http://www.markpollard.net/email-newsletter/ 2. Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/markpollard 3. Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/markpollard 4. Facebook - join 7,000+ strategists: http://www.sweathead.co 5. The deskbook “Strategy Is Your Words”: http://www.strategyisyourwords.com

Rory Sutherland has a brain the size of a whale in the head of a short, scruffy Englishman who's spent a lifetime trying to work out people while mostly being among them. He’s the Vice Chairman of Ogilvy in London and he recently published the book “Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense”. The book has two subtitles depending on where you look and this makes complete sense because why not? In this chat, Rory douses us in tens and tens of ideas while avoiding most of my attempts to corner him in a deep, cozy, unnecessarily revealing series of confessions about his inner life. We touch on behavioral economics, dating profiles, how Spanish takes longer to write and say than English, taxing wealth not income, homeownership, public speaking, possible Asperger’s, government policy, Rory’s mother, how Rory is contemplating making his next book, travel photos, how your long haul is someone else’s short haul, Humanitarians of Tinder, how young people have it both great and not so great at the same time but in different ways than ever before. This is unedited.  Enjoy the segues because they’re infinite and you’re bound to learn something useful. And, yes, "segue" is said "segway". You can find Rory here https://twitter.com/rorysutherland Rory's book "Alchemy" is here: https://www.amazon.com/Alchemy-Surprising-Power-Ideas-Sense-ebook/dp/B01F1HOAWA For more strategy talk: 1. Newsletter: http://www.markpollard.net/email-newsletter/ 2. Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/markpollard 3. Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/markpollard 4. Facebook - join 7,000+ strategists: http://www.sweathead.co 5. The deskbook “Strategy Is Your Words”: http://www.strategyisyourwords.com

Helen Edwards is a columnist for Marketing Week, a strategy consultant, and a teaching fellow at London Business School. We discuss the tensions between the worlds of the practitioners and the academics of marketing, amassing credentials, and overachievement. Then we discuss what Helen wants to see change in marketing.  You can find Helen here https://twitter.com/helenedw For more strategy talk: Newsletter: http://www.markpollard.net/email-newsletter/ Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/markpollard The deskbook “Strategy Is Your Words”: http://www.strategyisyourwords.com

Amber Benson is a strategy consultant and an executive-in-residence at SMU in Texas. She consults and she teaches. Yes, she does both. And she believes doing both helps you get better at both. We discuss Texas, what the creative culture is like in Texas, and how she encourages students at SMU to develop empathy and creative skills. You can find Amber here: https://twitter.com/AmberBenson For more strategy talk: 1. Newsletter: http://www.markpollard.net/email-newsletter/ 2. Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/markpollard 3. Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/markpollard 4. Facebook - join 7,000+ strategists: http://www.sweathead.co 5. The deskbook “Strategy Is Your Words" http://www.strategyisyourwords.com

Ryan Ford is CCO of Cashmere in Los Angeles. Ryan entered the agency world after working as the executive editor of The Source magazine, one of the most powerful hip hop media voices of all time. So how do the two worlds connect? What did Ryan learn from his journalism days that he applies to his advertising role? How do brands "work within culture"? You can find Ryan here https://twitter.com/fordryan and Cashmere Agency here http://cashmereagency.com/ "Strategy Is Your Words" the deskbook is here: http://www.strategyisyourwords.com

About 15 of your questions answered today. ASMR soon - I promise. Tickets to Strategy Upon A Strategist are $40 and on Eventbrite it you can get a ticket plus book for more here: http://www.strategyisyourwords.com

Vikki Ross is a copywriter in London. She does a lot for the copywriting community - she organizes events and drinks, and she is a powerful and independent voice fighting to improve the respect the industry has for the craft (of copywriting, not of drinking). Also, she would have hated seeing the word "organizes" spelled like that. She probably flinched seeing "spelled" in the passive voice, too. Finally, see how I used brackets? Tsk tsk.  In this episode, we look at a few ads and try to break them down. What's the strategy? What are the words doing? You can watch the video of this discussion in the Sweathead Facebook group and on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyCX2nKj0wY You can find Vikki at https://twitter.com/VikkiRossWrites The book “Strategy Is Your Words" is here: http://www.strategyisyourwords.com

Ryan Wallman is back to talk about his first book Delusions of Brandeur. He's compiling his most powerful pieces of the Internet to put into a compendium dedicated to puncturing the pretensions of marketing. We discuss why the industry is so serious about itself and how this hurts it, the copy-writing community, and self-deprecation.  You can find Ryan here: http://twitter.com/dr_draper.  His book website is here: https://www.delusionsofbrandeur.com/ The Kickstarter for the “Strategy Is Your Words" book is live until December 4 http://bit.ly/strategykickstarter