What’s the difference between a good observation and a real insight? According to Mark Pollard, one of the most sought-after strategy consultants and trainers in the industry, it often comes down to whether someone’s willing to confess something they’ve never said out loud before. As an Australian strategist, Mark brings a different voice to the po…

Where do the best insights come from? For Kate Rush Sheehy, Chief Strategy Officer at GSD&M, it’s not always based on what people say or even what they do. Sometimes, it’s about what they don’t say or what they don’t do in certain situations. Sometimes, it’s about having a sixth sense or some feral intelligence. In this episode, Kate shares her uni…

Dave Harland LOVES words. Big ones. Little ones. Silly ones. Serious ones. He has a talent for taking the world’s most boring categories and breathing new life into them with a few flourishes of his pen and some rat-tat-tat-clickety-clacks at his keyboard. During our conversation, we dig into all kinds of things, including the micro dignities of da…

Zoe Scaman knows how to rebuild brands and fandoms from the ground up. Her work with brands like Nike, Netflix, and the NBA has allowed her to dig deep into consumer behavior and organizational structures, resulting in numerous aha moments around community building and how to encourage a culture of co-creation with brand superfans. Zoe builds a num…

Joe Burn has done a LOT of award-winning strategy work, including but not limited to brand strategy, creative strategy, communications strategy, and design strategy. And it’s these diverse experiences in strategy that have helped Joe connect the dots in the most interesting and unexpected ways for brands like KFC, Heineken, Samsung, Puma, Amnesty I…

For over two decades, Tracy Lovatt has helped brands build transformative insights by challenging assumptions and embracing the chaos of tectonic cultural shifts. After starting her career at BBDO, where she guided brands like HBO, GE, Bank of America, Hyatt Hotels, PepsiCo and many others, Tracy eventually stepped away from advertising to start Ba…

Great research isn’t just about collecting answers. It’s about knowing which questions to ask and how to observe with all your senses to get to the truth of a situation. Bob Morais, business anthropologist, ethnographer, and lecturer at Columbia University’s Business School, knows how to read between the lines of what people say and what they actua…

In a world obsessed with big data, robust dashboards, and faster answers, what if the real insight about insights has to do with slowing down and making real connections? That’s how Tim Wilson and Valerie Kroll approach each project, working with organizations to help them rethink their approach to data analytics and consumer insights. Over the yea…

Greg Hahn has built his career on reframing questions and seeing things just a little bit differently. Actually, that’s an understatement. Before launching Mischief, Greg spent almost 20 years at some of the biggest and most celebrated agencies in the business, including Fallon and BBDO, where he led creative for brands like Timberland, Citibank, H…

What do forensic science and marketing have in common? More than you might think. Both require an ability to analyze evidence, challenge assumptions, and uncover hidden truths that are often hiding in plain sight. Alina Burroughs, a forensic expert and star of the hit show Crime Scene Confidential, has spent years piecing together clues to solve ca…

Despite the billions of dollars spent on advertising every year, most ads go completely unnoticed. In fact, 85% of them don’t even hit the minimum threshold for attention. So how do you make it into the 15% that actually break through? John Gibson, Head of Strategy at The Martin Agency, has spent his career answering that question, helping brands f…

The best work in advertising doesn’t just stand out—it challenges the status quo. And that’s exactly what Gordy Sang and Brian Siedband do with every client and every campaign at Quality Meats. Whether they’re working on a GoDaddy spot for the Big Game or a provocative box of chocolates for U by Kotex, Gordy and Brian (and their distributed team of…

How do you take a challenger brand from number two and make it number one? And how do you do that with a relentless focus on positive behavior change? Those are the kinds of challenges that Mark DiMassimo and Lesley Bielby love to tackle at DiGo Brands, and over the past twenty years, they have elevated and re-energized numerous better-for-you bran…

What is risk? For most people, a risky situation is one where you’re exposed to danger. Put another way, it’s the possibility of something bad happening. But for Andy Pearson, VP of Creative at Liquid Death, the definition of risk takes an interesting detour. For Andy, the real danger is not that something bad will happen, but that nothing will hap…

Why should strategists do focus groups with real humans if AI-enabled synthetic focus groups can yield an equally powerful aha moment at a fraction of the cost? That’s one of several challenging questions I explore with Ed Cotton, brand consultant and former chief strategy officer from Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners (BSSP). For the past 25 years, …

Tim Malefyt has an amazing ability to make the familiar strange. He does this by doing deep, ethnographic research, helping brands uncover hidden consumer truths through a combination of carefully constructed activities and thoughtful conversation. As a business anthropologist, Tim’s research methodologies and key findings have helped re-energize a…

Dan Cohen loves a good challenge. Tell him he can’t say something in a campaign headline and he’ll find a creative way around it, to the delight of clients and customers alike. Over the past thirty years, Dan’s creative, collaborative approach has helped a wide variety of brands in commoditized categories, including Bounty (paper towels), Charmin (…

A great magic trick, like a great creative briefing, begins long before everyone gathers in a room. To the general public, Mike Jacobson may be best known for his magic show performance on America’s Got Talent in 2023, but for the past decade in the business and advertising world, Mike has brought his unique methods to strategic briefings and creat…

Sascha Mayer knows what it’s like to be invisible. Like so many new moms nursing their children, if she wanted to nurse or pump when she was away from home, her options were often limited to a bathroom stall, an unattended room, or a parked car. But it was around Labor Day weekend in 2006 that an article in the New York Times and a confluence of ot…

There are a lot of strategy documents in the world. Briefs. Decks. White papers. Books. According to Alex M H Smith, most of them are full of shit. Impenetrable, calcified, piled-high bullsh*t. That’s because, despite all their words and charts and graphs, these so-called strategies fail to inspire action. And that’s what Alex wants to change in th…

For over two decades, Shobha Sairam has worked on a wide variety of brands at a number of agencies around the world, including Leo Burnett, Mother, Deutsch, and The Community among others. Most recently, Shobha has led strategy at 22 Squared Inc, based out of New York, where she and her team have breathed new life into brands like Baskin Robbins, P…

Most ad agencies have clients. That’s not exactly the case with Bullish Inc. Started in 2015 by Michael Duda and Brent Vartan, the co-founders of Bullish asked a provocative “what if” question that re-envisioned what an agency could be to help maximize a new brand’s success. Their question: “What if we invested in early stage brands by providing ac…

Curiosity, conviction, and a desire to get out of one’s comfort zone - these are just a few of the characteristics that Seth Gaffney and Marika Wiggan look for in strategic candidates at Preacher, and it’s this non-traditional approach to finding talent and building campaigns that has led to Preacher’s continued success, winning them Small Agency o…

Introducing Any Insights Yet? with Chris Kocek.By Chris Kocek