Zopa: Peer to Peer lending

I recently appeared on Channel 5 News as a lender with the brand Zopa.

See it here.

Help find Lance's stolen bike

Lance Armstrong is using Twitter to help recover his time trial bike stolen from the team truck during the Tour of California.














I doubt the bike has a re-sale value due to the fact it will be pretty easy to spot when ridden on the streets of California.

So this is me doing my bit for Livestrong - if you see this bike send Lance a message via Twitter.

Strategy Group Agenda

The strength of the human spirit, along with our appetite for tackling the problems we face at any point in time, is both tested and but often renewed in adverse conditions. As strategists our senses become heightened when we exist within an environment of constant change. This state of high-alert is instructive and should be channelled in a way that can bring about positive results. It is against this backdrop of change that I have taken over the IPA Strategy Group as Chair.





















Image Shepherd Fairey

The timing could not be more perfect. I am not one for complacency. I would much prefer a challenge particularly when, it is exactly as a result of such challenges that we adapt in Darwinian fashion to the circumstance we find ourselves in. The coincidence of a damaged financial ecosystem, an advertising business facing a fall in client expenditure and the rapid adoption of technology means that there could not be a better time for many of us to be practising as strategists.

However, to be successful we must be brave and confident in our approach. It is often the case that when faced with challenges that we revert to the tried and tested methods of the past. This, in part is a normal and sensible response, however we must accept that it is also time to complement decades of learning with a more innovative response.

If I have learnt anything in the last 19 years working within the marketing communications business it is that the people within in it tend to be creatively-driven, positive thinkers who tend to shrug off the issues of the moment and instead look to a vision of the future where the problems have dissipated and the brands and business we help steward are leading the way creating future wealth, prosperity and jobs.

What I have also learnt is that we cannot do it as a collection of individuals. The big advantage of working as Chairman of the IPA Strategy Group is that I am surrounded by people more intelligent than I am. This is a good thing. My success is bundled up into what we can achieve as a cohesive force. I believe strategy is a force for good and if ever there were a time in last 20 years that we should unite in order to bring about positive results it is now.

My hope is that if I can help not only harness the collective brain-power of the Strategy Group but also the wider strategic community then we may all reap the wider benefits of collaboration.

This collaboration should give rise to a more visible strategic community, a more open one and one that is best able to meet the challenges we face. We are not doing this from a standing start. Many strategists now write excellent blogs that help to inspire, agitate and capture something that we are all feeling but don’t quite know how to put into words.

We want the Strategy Group to help to enhance this already thriving community through the recognition and reward of outstanding thinking. Moreover, we want to seek out the next generation of strategists and help to accelerate their ability to influence how we go about solving problems.

The Group are in the process of formulating a plan that will shape what we do and what we achieve over the next two years. There will, of course, be events, debates, articles, thought-pieces that will help amplify the thoughts of strategists across the industry.

However, there are many who do not know about the Group, what we do and how we go about it. If this is the case then I would encourage you to look at the IPA Strategy Group blog at http://ipastrategygroup.blogspot.com/. We would love to, need to, here your thoughts about strategy.

So what does success look like? What do we want to achieve? We’ll know when we have been effective when we have something tangible to show for our efforts. The vision would be to find someway of harnessing the collective force of our community in a way that is visible, vocal and is able to bring about positive change.

This could be a book, an event, a web series, a wiki or an informal gathering. Or it could be all these things. All we know is that an opportunity exists so fulfilling that needs has to be a primary objective of the Group, so please check the blog for details. In the meantime if you would like to be involved do let us know in whatever way you choose.

Sierra Nevada turns beer into bio-fuel

You may or may not have heard of Sierra Nevada, they sell it on draft at the Green Man on Wells Street, but it's a slightly cloudy, pale ale.

Well I could have sat in a lot of brainstorms and failed to think of the brand extension, fuel when starting with a beer, but that's exactly what they've done.

It takes a corporate belief and creates further value from waste (1.6 million litres of it every year). In turn this creates more profit and they're doing their bit for the envioronment.

This idea breaks so many rules: beer and petrol in the same product range, using the same logo - it's genius I love it. And not to mention drinking and driving.

See more loveliness from Sierra Nevada here.

Chocolat and other random ideas

We met at Chocolat and I quickly came to a conclusion.

The conclusion, well at least mine, was that good things can come from bad or less good. They are related to each other helping to maintain some form of balance. The snow brought all sorts of problems but on the whole good things came from it: collectively we rose to the challenge, we thought of others first and we played spontaneously, these things may have been absent on a large scale if it hadn't snowed.

So members of the Group who weren't held back by the snow arrived in a positive frame of mind. The snow had gone but the memory lingered. We are better when we're forced to make decisions agaianst a common enemy.

So it was in that context that we dicussed what we're going to do as a Group this year and wondered whether all these potentially disruptive local and global events could give rise to something better. Recession, climate change and poverty demand us to question the imapct we have made in past. This necessary moment of reflection can help us to shape a better future. Better for us personally, professionally and collectively.

We called this Renaissance. A process of re-birth.

That's something for us all to feel positive about. History has shown that in moments of adversity we become more creative, dynamic and spirited. Now is that time.

We would like to help nurture this movement. Shine a light on it and help it grow as an inspiration for those strategists within our industry looking to help shape a new future and more broadly champion Renaissance Britain in what shape or form it takes.

Check back for details of how our movement unfolds and if you can help us on the way then feel free to join in.

Fast Stratgey

Flying in the face of adversity, following boycotting and protests from some leading agencies and not forgetting a good old-fashioned pummellling from Russell Davies, the Fast Strategy Conference went ahead without a hitch.

While the subject of the conference has polarised opinion and lead to cries of heresy it has certainly aroused the interests of planners in a way that has not been witnessed since 'Is blogging Killing Planning' debate. For the record the IPA Startegy Group are not promoting the idea of 'Fast Strategy' or that fast is better than slow. Instead we are trying to recognise the fact that the world of commerce is changing and our clients needs are changing too. This has never been more clearly evidenced than in the events of the last two weeks. We can ignore this evidence but at our peril. The least we can do is raise the debate and in that respect we have achieved taht simple objective.

So what of the conference itself?

There were some outstanding presentations on the subject of Fast Stratgey from leading planners within the industry including Adam 'Eat Big Fish' Morgan, Rita Clfton and Richard Storey. You'll be able to view their presentations here very soon and follow the on-going debate.

The winning team was lead by Amelia Torode answering the challenge set by Ian Armstrong of Honda who asked the three teams to help them lanuch a new eco car in the context of increased financial pressures on consumers. The winning pitch was encapsulated in the thought 'waste nothing'. The runners up were lead by Dave Trott with the thought 'We not Me' and Kate Stanners' team with the thought 'The Power of Frugal'. All provided some compelling thinking in the time they had available and this was recognised by the client and audience alike.

Please keep the debate alive, thank you all for your contributions and look forward to seeing you at our next conference in Spring 2009.

Fast Strategy

Walker Media’s Phil Georgiadis and Mark Syal, and M&C Saatchi’s Richard Storey and Simon Dicketts were voted the winning team in a live (fictitious) pitch for the COI at this week’s IPA Strategy Conference with Times Media for arriving at a great strategy and fast!
One of the greatest pressures on our industry today is to meet the demands of arriving at good answers fast. During the conference strategy-at-speed was tested with three teams who competed against each other to answer a fictitious brief given by Peter Buchanan, Deputy Chief Executive of the COI, on establishing a dog owners’ register in the UK.
Phil Georgiadis’s team took 37% of the audience vote with their winning strategy which recommended creating a physical symbol of ‘responsible dog ownership’ in the form of a silver rosette which would be attached to the dog’s collar. They suggested that the scheme should be renamed M.A.N (Merit in Authority over, and Nurture of, your dog) allowing the adoption of the line:‘M.A.N. A dog’s best friend'; a clever inverse of the usual ‘dog is man’s best friend’.
Key things to come out of the conference included:“When all three teams were asked would they have pitched better if they’d had more time, aside from fine-tuning and making their solution to the brief more rigorous, the answer was essentially…no.” (Guy Murphy, Chairman IPA Strategy Group, and Worldwide Planning Director, JWT, and Chair of the day’s proceedings)
“If clients could brief a multi-disciplinary agency team all at once, as has been the case today, they might get quicker answers to their brief.” (Phil Georgiadis, Chairman, Walker Media)“In order to do things quickly you have to know what the objectives are at briefing stage. These should be clear and agreed business objectives, and unfortunately the consensus from the audience at this conference today is that agencies rarely get this.”(Guy Murphy, Chairman IPA Strategy Group, and Worldwide Planning Director, JWT,)
All three teams only had three crucial hours to come up with their winning pitch. The voting was close and in second place was communication consultant Mark Earl’s team with 35% of the vote, followed by CHI’s Johnny Hornby with 28%. The winning team was presented by Claire Myerscough, Development Director of Times Media, with holiday vouchers worth £10,000.
Said COI’s Peter Buchanan, “It was a challenging brief in a fast-paced environment and the teams had no knowledge of the brief beforehand. It was fascinating to see what could be achieved in a short space of time. ”
Throughout the morning, whilst the teams prepared for their afternoon pitch, leading strategists from across the industry elaborated on how developing strategy fast is changing the way we do business and presented their top tips for how they think at speed.
So what do you think about strategy-at-speed? Is it possible, will it get the best results? We'd love to here your thoughts and comments.