Katie Rigg-Smith (Mindshare) // Mel Mullins (UM) //
Sophie Price (The Hallway) // Simon Lee (The Hallway)

Unexpected media thinking: media, planning and creative perspectives on the collaborative experience. What does real collaboration look like? What are the challenges and which campaigns have really maximised their hybrid planning potential?

The Details
6.30pm – 8.00pm, Tuesday 28 May 2013
at The East Village, cnr Liverpool & Palmer Sts Darlinghurst
Tickets: Free for APG Members – email tanja@communicationscouncil.org.au  //  Non Members $35

In this Ideas Exchange we feature some of the stellar new committee sharing their thoughts on the hotly debated and hard won topic of collaboration. A bit more about our panellists:

Mel Mullins, UM

Melissa’s 10 year career spans a wide range of marketing communications including media strategy, sponsorships, brand content, social and events. She began in the UK’s largest children’s charity, delivering brand partnerships for organisations such as Microsoft, before heading to Australia and joining OMD’s brand content division, Fuse. There she worked on the McDonald’s business including their Olympics and World Cup sponsorships, as well as major local TV sponsorships. Her work with Australian Idol was awarded a Silver Cannes Lion for Best Use of Sponsorship in 2009. Melissa’s passion for strategic thinking was quickly recognised and she made the move to the agency’s strategy team in 2011. Before joining UM, Melissa was most recently OMD Sydney Strategy Group Head, delivering global media strategy for Tourism Australia. As Strategy Director at UM, she is now the strategic lead on News Limited.

Sophie Price, The Hallway

Sophie is the Head of Planning at The Hallway – an experienced and acclaimed brand and channel planner. Sophie started her career in media agencies and quickly rose through the ranks to become the National Planning Director of UM. From there she moved into creative agencies as Planning Partner at The Campaign Palace and Happy Soldiers where she was responsible for the highly awarded Tontine Date Stamp campaign. Following a stint as Planning Director at The Monkeys, Sophie joined The Hallway. As a true ‘hybrid planner’, Sophie’s brand and channel planning capabilities combined with an emphasis on strong planning/creative relationships has resulted in her work been awarded two MFA Grand Prix’s, an Effie Grand Prix and a handful of Cannes Media Lions.

Simon Lee, The Hallway

Simon is Creative Partner at The Hallway. Prior to joining The Hallway, Simon held the position of Creative Director with leading independent agency Lavender. In 5 stellar years with the agency, Simon created successful campaigns for Westpac, The Australian Financial Review, the RTA, Roche and Qantas Frequent Flyer.

Simon joined Jules Hall at The Hallway in 2010. As the architect and leader of The Hallway’s creative offering he fuses his direct and mainstream experience with a passion for storytelling. This passion fuelled the creation of Simon’s debut feature film – Dream Racer, a 93 minute documentary that he wrote, produced and directed. Dream Racer has subsequently won awards at film festivals in Los Angeles and Barcelona.

You’ve been here before. It’s 2am, your mind is asleep but your PowerPoint is awake. You’ve spent the last 15 hours working on your five slides for today’s pitch, hoping your strategy can find the balance between client brief and creative ideas. You’re exhausted, from the word wrestling and the diagram shaping, but you plan on. Do you know that feeling?

Yes, being a Planner can be a lonely journey. Especially at times of personal confusion and crisis, like not winning that big pitch, or having your ‘position’ made redundant, or not getting the recognition you feel your words and diagrams deserve. Loneliness can come in many forms.

During these dark turns we Planners can trap ourselves in silence or deny ourselves with overconfidence, leading to that big fork in the road. To the left, leave the job, to the right, fake it until someone calls the bluff. This doesn’t happen everyday, but it can happen, and what will you do if it happens to you?

The truth is, the only people who know this journey like you do are your peers. But we hesitate talking to them, because reaching out for help exposes your weaknesses in a world where today’s allies are tomorrow’s competitors. 
Perhaps it’s time we created a new way to connect to each other. An option where Planners who feel the sting of being a stranger can share their support with others, who by chance may find comfort in knowing they are not alone, and not so strange after all. Something positive for Planners in dark places.

To do this free of fear, we need is an insurance policy. Anonymity we believe is the way to go. So, we would like to build Planners Anonymous, a digital space for us to congregate and share, safe in the knowledge that our identities are protected. Where we can be comfortable in sharing companionship.

But before we can make this anonymous, we need a small public display of support from the community. So we’re reaching out to you, Planners the world over, to let us know that we are not actually alone in this situation. If we get 200 backers, the space will be built and we can have another way to catch some light when we get to dark places. So please say ‘hello’ somewhere below.

Yours Truly,
Planners Anonymous
(an initiative of Aussie planners in the UK) 

Please show your support by liking on Facebook – www.facebook/apgaustralia or tweeting @APGAustralia

AWARD WINNING INSIGHTS

Two great campaigns, two compelling stories.

Telstra Legacy
An Honourable Charity with a Looming Funding Problem

Legacy provides a much-needed service that few Australians are fully aware of: financial and associated support for injured veterans and the families of deceased soldiers. How Legacy is funded, however, is challenging as a significant portion of the funds come from the sale of Legacy badges during one week of the year: Badge Week.

By 2011, the long-term trends for Badge Week were not healthy. Like the opera, ballet and lawn bowls, Legacy had a demographic problem: its core audience was aging without enough young people being brought into the fold to ensure long-term viability.

Buy why were the young not getting involved?

Which led us to innovating through the oldest connectivity known to humans: music.

Cadbury Boost
To survive in an increasingly competitive market, Boost needed to reconnect with the nation’s choc-bar buying youth. It needed to find a way into their already cluttered lives, and then prove that it had something meaningful to offer.

That’s no mean feat when you realise that 14-25 year old men are the hardest market to reach and also happen to be the most cynical demographic of all time.

In order to really connect with this audience, we had to become one of them. Literally. So we got under the skin of Gen Y and we got to like them a lot.

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Who should attend:
Planners, strategists and agency professionals interested in account planning skills development.

Details:
Date: Thursday 2 May 2013
Time: 9am – 11am
Venue: The Meadow – Level 1, 111 Queensbridge Street Southbank, Melbourne 3006

Tickets:
APG Members: rsvp to kate@communicationscouncil.org.au
Non-Members: $25

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Justin Graham

After completing a business degree majoring in finance and marketing, Justin was ready to do some real work and joined Arthur Andersen as a Strategy Consultant. There he worked across News Limited, Oracle Software and Telstra.

Following Arthur Andersen, Justin decided to get some experience client side under his belt and joined the Commonwealth Bank in a Marketing Strategy role.

Justin eventually turned his attention to seeing the world. Armed with only a backpack (and the occasional surfboard) for a year, he soaked up the best of five continents before returning to Australia with an uncontrollable passion for people, culture and solving problems – this ultimately led him to the world of advertising…

He soon found himself at Leo Burnett Sydney drinking with the Bundy Bear, working out how to keep Johnnie Walking in Australia, taking photos with Canon cameras, driving Subaru around the bend, keeping Heineken green and investigating all things online with Fairfax Digital. During this time Justin racked up numerous AFA Effectiveness Awards and was involved in campaigns recognised at Cannes, One Show, D&AD and the ADDYs. Justin also became a regular commentator in the press in relation to his work and insight on male-focused brands and how they have continued to evolve (or not) with changes in the broader social landscape.

With the promise of bad coffee, long work hours and no option for regular surfing, Justin jumped at the chance to head to BBDO New York in the role of Global Planning Director for Gillette/P&G. For three years Justin led the thinking for one of the world’s largest brands, culminating in the most successful product launch in the brand’s history. His work on Gillette reached well over half a billion men daily. In his time at BBDO, Justin also worked across Red Stripe Beer, TAOS, Zirh and new business.

In addition to his responsibilities at Droga5, Justin lectures Advanced Strategic Planning at AdSchool, facilitates workshops for the Communications Council of Australia and serves at Vice-Chair for the APG.

Battle of Big Thinking yielded yet another swag of big ideas. We were lucky  to have 15 exceptional speakers from the broad areas of Retail, Entertainment, Social, Communications and People. The pace was quick thanks to star of the show, MC Eddie Perfect who kicked off with a brief synopsis of what he knows about advertising – which of course would be incomplete without a sprinkling of quotes from Godfather, Bill Bernbach.

With five categories came five deserving winners:

Social – Ben Peacock, Founder of Garage Sale Trail & Grow it Local (and for the record, scored the highest number of votes for a category, well done Ben!)

Entertainment – Charles Firth, Comedian/Director/Producer (and special mention to contestant Clare Bowditch who had us singing and shared a new song with us…a special treat)

Retail – Sven Baker, CEO Designworks and all the way from New Zealand

Communications – Jonathan Pease (a tough category going head to head with legendary Jane Caro and our marketing expert and all round excellent guy, Joe Talcott)

People – Farrah Bostic – a big finish from this category, special mentions to both Suzy Green who had us feeling positive and Jonathan Nicholas who repositioned some old school ideas about parenting.

And congratulations to our big winner of the day, Farrah Bostic! Thank you for joining us from New York, you threw some much needed light on a contentious issue – ‘women are half the everything so let’s treat them that way.’

Footage from the day will be available soon.

Our resident blogger Tim Buesing shares his thoughts with us here

and check out the photos on Facebook

Meet you at The Sydney Town Hall, Wednesday 20 March for a full day. For full details and tickets visit www.circusfestival.com.au

Some of the speakers that will be presenting:

• Ruslan Kogan, Founder of Kogan Electronics
• Jane Caro, Author and Commentator
• Clare Bowditch, Musician
• Sven Baker, CEO Designworks
• Gareth Kay, Director Brand Strategy, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners
• Jodie Fox, Founder of Shoes of Prey
• Ben Peacock, Founder Grow it Local & Republic of Everyone
• Jonathan Pease, Executive Ideas Director, Tongue
• Joe Talcott, Marketer
• Charles Firth, The Chaser
• Tim Duggan
• Anthony Bell, Accountant

Hosted by MC, Eddie Perfect – Actor and Musician.

View some of the highlights from 2012 Battle of Big Thinking

Marcus Westbury – Director, RenewAustralia on ‘The value of thinking small’

Battle of Big Thinking Winner 2012 – Reverend Graham Long, The Wayside Chapel

Tim Costello, CEO World Vision

The Steal Banksy campaign for Australian hotel group, Art Series Hotel, was one of the most awarded campaigns of 2012.

Based on the creative idea ‘Steal Banksy: Stay the night. Steal the art’, visitors were invited to stay the night and steal the Banksy work without being caught. Generating PR here and overseas and increasing website visitation significantly, the campaign exceeded hotel occupancy targets.

Hear more from Adam about the success behind this and other campaigns at this APG event in Perth.

The details

When: 5.30pm, Tuesday 19 February 2013
Where: The Good Shepherd, alley entry off 663 Newcastle St, Leederville
Tickets: go to Comms Council site for all ticket options or contact danielle@communicationscouncil.org.au

Adam Ferrier

Adam Ferrier is Global Head of Behavioural Science (B.S.) and Founding Partner of Naked Communications. He graduated university with degrees in Commerce and Psychology and by a strange twist of fate began his career in forensic psychology. Adam worked in maximum-security prisons and private practice, before making the natural move to marketing consultancy, working for Added Value. Here Adam switched his interest from understanding criminal behaviour to consumer behaviour.
He completed his Clinical Psychology Thesis in ‘Identifying the underlying constructs of cool people’. Continuing the slide from the moral high-ground Adam joined ad agency, Saatchi & Saatchi, before starting Naked Communications Asia Pacific in 2004.
Naked Communications

Naked harnesses a behavioural change model in all communications, focusing on building brands whilst changing behaviour for clients such as Coke, Sony, Weight Watchers, TAC, Renault, and Unilever. Naked has been consistently voted as one of Australia’s top agencies, regularly winning Agency awards across multiple categories, such as The Effies, Cannes, Clio, ADMA, AIMIA, LIA, and others.

Adam is a regular on ABC radio and TV (Gruen and Channel 10 (News and Breakfast). He writes at The Punch, The Australian, and AdNews, and blogs at www.theconsumerpsych.com Adam was West Australian State Under 12 Chess Champion, and inventor of ‘The Analyst’ a board game selling well in the Benelux countries.

APG Creative Strategy Awards 2012

Authors: Meredith Simpson & Tom Ward
Agency: George Patterson Y&R Melbourne
Client: Cadbury
Category: Established Product Brands, Gold Award & Special Prize, Best Insight

Every now and then you stumble upon an insight so simple and powerful that it doesn’t just inspire the creative idea, it becomes the creative idea. This is a story about how persistently thinking outside the chocolate box uncovered such an insight and carved a new place for an old Australian ‘favourite’ at social get-togethers across the country.

An occasional purchase…

Everyone knew Favourites, and most people were fond of the brand. The problem was they weren’t buying it that often, and it was mostly bought at Christmas.

…but not right for special occasions

This is because of what people associated a box of chocolates with: special occasions. And Favourites no longer felt special enough. A number of ‘premium’ brands with European heritage had entered the market that felt more upmarket than Favourites, which had a casual, fun feel. People were therefore increasingly reaching for a competitor when buying a box of chocolates for that ‘special’ celebration.

And not special enough to cost more

Alongside this, value was being driven out of the category through price competitiveness. In the face of increasing competition, the category had become reliant on discounting to fuel growth, driving down the average price-per-kilo of the category. In order to maintain share, Favourites had to respond. This continual rise in discounting was undermining value from the brand.

We had to reposition Favourites as more than an annual purchase and get people buying the brand more often based on an appealing brand proposition, not just a compelling price, in order to increase purchase frequency and brand value.

Finding the right occasion

Until now Favourites’ strategy had revolved around the Christmas season. But in order to increase purchase frequency we had to make Favourites relevant on more occasions and we knew we would struggle to compete with the ‘premium’ competitors for the more ‘special’ occasions. So what sort of occasion was Favourites perfect for?

Favourites, consumers told us, was perfect for socialising. It had something for everyone and was low-pressure, without fancy names or unusual ingredients. So while it didn’t feel right for those events where you were trying to impress the boss’ wife, Favourites felt perfect for casual family get-togethers where no one was worried about how ‘special’ the chocolates looked.

Put simply, our consumer was telling us we had the opportunity to move from being a once-a-year purchase, to becoming synonymous with far more regular, more casual, family socialising.

A full copy of this paper will be available in early 2013 with the publication of all winning papers in the APG Case Study book, for members. 

For information on joining the APG, visit our membership page

Join us in saluting the strategists of our industry, recognise the revolutionaries, praise the prophets.

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Congratulations to the winners of the APG Creative Strategy Awards 2012

ESTABLISHED SERVICE BRANDS

• Gold - BMF, Rob Chandler for Commonwealth Bank – Investorville
• Silver - Naked Adam Ferrier, Matt Houltham & John Halpin for Art Series Hotel

NEW BRAND OR ADVERTISER

• Gold - The Monkeys Fabio Buresti for OAK – Flavoured Milk

PUBLIC SERVICE & CHARITY

• Gold - 303Lowe Derry Simpson, Bart Hodgen for Office of Road Safety, WA
• Gold - Droga5 Tom Donald, Dannika Coleman, Justin Graham for Telstra (for Legacy)

ESTABLISHED PRODUCT BRANDS

• Gold - George Patterson Y&R Meredith Simpson, Tom Ward for Cadbury Favourites
• Silver - Droga5, Toby Harrison, Simon Wassef for Cadbury Boost

GRAND PRIX

• Grand Prix - The Monkeys, Fabio Buresti for OAK – Flavoured Milk

SPECIAL PRIZES

• Best under $50k budget - Whybin\TBWA, Paul Bradbury M.J Bale – Men’s Suiting Label
• Best non traditional thinking - BMF, Rob Chandler Commonwealth bank – Investorville
• Best insight - George Patterson Y&R Meredith Simpson, Tom Ward for Cadbury Favourites
• Best approach to research - BMF, Simon McCrudden for Lion – Tooheys Extra Dry
• Best use of data - Whybin\TBWA, Hristos Varouhas for RaboDirect

STRATEGIC AGENCY OF THE YEAR – The Monkeys

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Behaviour Change

Presenting a new approach to behaviour change with renowned author and consultant on human behaviour, Mark Earls. Exploring why the Nudgers (Behavioural Economists), the Neurononsensers (Brain Obsessives) and the Evolutonary Psychologists are all looking in the wrong place to understand and unlock behaviour change.

The details:
6.30pm – 8.00pm, Wednesday 24 October
Upstairs at The Royal Saxon -
545 Church St Richmond, Melbourne

Tickets:
APG Members – $40
Non APG Members – $55
For tickets – contact kate@communicationscouncil.org.au

Mark Earls
Mark Earls is a recovering account planner, formerly leading the planning function in Ogilvy Worldwide and St Lukes, with an abiding interest in how people do what they do.

Few over the last decade have done more to popularise contemporary behavioural and cognitive science for marketers and market researchers. Together with Professor Alex Bentley, he has pioneered award-winning diagnostic tools to identify whether a behaviour is spreading socially or through independent choice.

Mark’s award-winning books HERD and I’ll Have What She’s Having (with Professors Alex Bentley and Mike O’Brien) are widely read and discussed.

Leading HERD Consulting, Mark has worked with organizations as diverse as Channel 4 TV, EA Games, The Royal Mail, Unilever, Department of Health, Converse, British Airways, The Gates Foundation, Brainjuicer and Sony. Mark is a fellow of the RSA, an Ambassador of The School of Life, a Business Leader of The Marketing Society and teaches the Behaviour module for The IPA Diploma of Excellence.

http://herd.typepad.com/

Want to know more about APG and what’s going on? Follow us on Facebook and check out this month’s Workshop with Dave Cobban, Citizen Mobilization Director at Nike US.