When is the last time the advice you gave a client turned our perfectly in the end? Seriously. Of course, if you're in the shifting brand health scores business, I guess you might answer pretty recent and very frequently. But about the job we are supposed to be doing? Transforming business? We're very sure of…

Years ago I worked on a pitch for a car brand. The main idea we came up with was 'the brand that makes you feel more'. It came from the observation that modern middle class men were pretty jaded, with oversupply of stimulation on all fronts, they had become 'numb'. Thought, and still do, this…

It's years since I read Daniel Miller's 'A Theory of Shopping'. Something or other at work made me look at it again and it's still interesting. Basic premise, most acts or shopping, especially in the supermarket are fundamentally social and mostly an act of love. Think about the main shopper, rushing around the aisles. The…

I was reading here why we really like Chilli. It's less to do with taste and smell and more about as, as yet, hard to define third set of receptors that are mostly about touch. We don't taste chilli as much as feel it, our mouths think they are feeling actual heat. Which brings me…

Back in 2003 I was at an APG lecture that was pretty compelling. It was basically a call to arms for a role for good planning in the modern age. Except that modern age looks a bit antiquated. Talk was of websites and blogs as the future. Facebook was mostly unheard off, no one had…

Meetings are tough, especially if you're a little shy like I am. Let's face it,this industry (and western business culture at large) seems to gravitate to the confident, eloquent charismatic type, no matter how inadequate their logic or ideas might be. As always, it's not about the best ideas, it's about people wanting to buy…

Always tricky this, especially in the days when clients like to work with a collective of different specialists. There is no such thing as handbook, but the unwritten rules are legion. Under no circumstances should you offer a direct opinion on a partner agency's work in a client meeting, even if they are not there.…

If you like food, you'd love my eldest sister. She's one of those people who can look at a few leftovers in the fridge and turn them into an experience to make your tastebuds weep with joy. She never used recipes, even for precise baking, she just makes it up as she goes along. Or…

I found out last week there is such as thing as iceberg watching as a job. There is a funded, shadowy collective, paid to monitor the world's icebergs for anything about to cause a Titanic-esque shipping catastrophe etc. I don't know how many catastrophes they've averted, but that's sort of the point, if they do…