BBH – Labs

September 5, 2018

WE ARE IN AN EFFICIENCY BUBBLE

Following on from Thomas Wagner’s piece on the race to efficiently average 15 seconds ads, it seems marketing as a whole is in an efficiency bubble, writes Will Lion, BBH London’s Head of Strategy 2015-2018 and now Head of New Products. Be careful in the funnel where you focus Modern marketing is defined by perfection of means and confusion of...

Business/Marketing Comments: 5

August 20, 2018

THE FUTURE OF STRATEGY: BE LESS COMPLICATED

WARC’s 2018 Future of Strategy report, based on a global survey of senior strategists, reveals a discipline in need of direction and interpretation as competition for strategic services is growing, writes Ben Shaw, Head of Strategy at BBH London. N.C. Wyeth The Discoverer, 1926 When Europeans set sail for the New World, there were two key tasks explorers needed to plan for:...

strategy Comments: 3

August 13, 2018

SOMETHING IN THE AIR: WILL LION & LILLI ENGLISH ON CONTEXT AND LEADERSHIP

Writing the last instalment in this series of leadership advice for a Head of Strategy is not unlike the feeling we had taking on the department a few years ago. We were keenly aware that we were standing on the shoulders of giants. And that’s a nice feeling. We felt we could see much further for talking to and learning...

Leadership/strategy Comments: 0

August 7, 2018

99 REASONS WHY SXSW IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN CANNES

There’s chatter around the industry that the allure of SXSW has disminished over the years, that there aren’t the same product launches and the real tech chat has gone elsewhere. At the same time Publicis Groupe ignited a backlash against Cannes as a money grabbing escapade on the French riveriera. So in a fight to the death, why should we...

sxsw Comment: 1

July 12, 2018

THE WORLD CUP OF ADVERTISING BOOKS

There are so many must-read advertising books. The subjects range from creativity to behavioural economics, strategy, divergent thinking, problem solving, social anthropology, marketing science, customer insight… the list goes on and on. In fact there are even so many lists of must-read advertising books that the lists go on and on. Exhausted from these never-ending reading lists, Lucian, Harry and Tom decided...

advertising/Books Comments: 15

July 9, 2018

THE BRAVE NEW WORLD OF WELL BRANDED, RATIONAL, FORGETTABLE, 15 SECOND PRODUCT ADVERTISING.

Short formats are a brilliant addition to our creative arsenal, but the discussion around them is promoting a race to average, writes Thomas Wagner, Planning Director at BBH Singapore. There is a convincing body of research showing that on average 15 second TV ads are as effective as 30 second TV ads on a number of metrics, such as advertising...

creativity/media/research Comment: 1

July 2, 2018

THE JEAN BRODIE SCHOOL OF PLANNING LEADERSHIP

Jim Carroll, former Chairman & Head of Strat at BBH London, returns to Labs once more, this time to offer Ben Shaw leadership advice in this ongoing series. We highly recommend that you also visit Jim’s blog where he writes once a week. I am in the business of putting old heads on young shoulders, and all my pupils are the crème de la crème....

Leadership Comments: 0

June 27, 2018

GARETH LIKES TO PARTY

This world cup has had everything so far. Goals, upsets, VAR, last minute winners, diving and obscenities from Maradonna. But we all know that every world cup needs a World Cup Anthem. Step in Fred Rodwell, creative at BBH, with an absolute CHOON.

creativity Comments: 0

June 25, 2018

SELLING TO MACHINES, OUR NEXT CUSTOMER.

Will Artificial Intelligence take all the jobs in advertising? Not if we get better at what we do. We must use our creativity and open our hearts to understand the Machines, writes Pelle Sjoenell, Worldwide Chief Creative Officer of BBH. Image from Blade Runner 2049 Today, if you need toilet paper quickly you can say, “Alexa I really need toilet...

advertising/AI Comments: 2

June 18, 2018

PEOPLE PEOPLE PEOPLE. NICK KENDALL ON HOW TO LEAD.

‘As I get older, the more old cliches reveal their old truths. Sorry Ben, but my one piece of advice to you therefore, is a cliché – people, people, people’, writes Nick Kendall, former Head of Strategy at BBH, in our ongoing series where Ben Shaw asks for leadership advice. As the robots take over, as data becomes the new...

advertising/Leadership/Nick Kendall/strategy Comment: 1

June 4, 2018

THE LONG AND THE SHORT OF IT needs THE WRONG AND THE SHIT OF IT

We’ve built a marketing culture that’s obsessed with aping winners and sweeps failure under the carpet. Our industry’s effectiveness bible, The Long And The Short Of It, is a huge compilation of lessons from winners, yet it’s in the losers that we can best understand success, writes Harry Guild, data strategist at BBH London If you judge life by longevity, Dorothy...

advertising/data Comments: 12

May 22, 2018

MAKING GREAT ADVERTISING IS REALLY SIMPLE. IT’S ALSO REALLY HARD.

by Lucian Trestler Before I worked in advertising I thought it’d be the easiest job in the world. I thought that because 99% of ads are shit, all you need to do to be successful is be like the not-shit 1%. That is to say be emotional, be punchy, be provocative, be…. anything, just be different to the boring boring...

advertising/BBH Labs/creativity/data/strategy/UX Comments: 8