BBH

An ode to comfy chairs and the emotional sell, by Frankie Everson (Senior Strategist) and Nick O’Donnell (Account Director)[...]

“Moving it on without moving it off” is one of our favourites, coined by Sir Nigel Bogle himself. Senior Strategist Frankie Everson dissects the mantra and explores the urgent importance of building enduring brand ideas.[...]

Can the truth be two things at the same time? Can it be right and wrong? Head of Strategy Ben Shaw lays bare the possible paradoxes for 2020… [...]

Fresh from the recent BBH-hosted APG event on “How to speak to Creatives”, Dalonie Graham lays down ten lessons to help deliver the perfect creative briefing. [...]

Snubbed within marketing circles, gaming is an ignored giant. There’s a goldmine of creative & marketing opportunities but few are paying attention, writes BBH Data Strategist Ronan Patrick. [...]

Tom Roach, BBH London’s Head of Effectiveness, discusses the importance of difference in business, marketing and creativity and shares some key data to help you avoid drowning in the ‘sea of sameness’.[...]

In a fragmented media world, we’re experimenting with a new model – creating an agency owned Entertainment IP that can be monetised through brand partnerships, is this the new frontier? Asks Jet Wong, Strategy Director at BBH Shanghai [...]

Gender parity in the workplace may not be a new idea, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a radical one, write Sofia Bodger and Clémence Lépinard, Strategists at BBH London. [...]

Hype creates inordinate value. If a brick can have a resale value of $1,000, why don’t we apply the principles of hype culture to more products? asks Mara Dettmann, Editor at BBH London [...]

A spoiler-free look at what Bandersnatch, Fortnite and the new era of interactive storytelling in film teaches us about the lost art of CRM, writes Charlotte Tullett, Senior Strategist at BBH London. [...]

With only 16 percent of adults with autism in full-time employment, is it time for agencies to open up their doors to the neurodiverse? asks Alice Franklin, Strategy Intern at BBH. [...]

As we endeavour to encourage more women to enter and succeed in our industry, are some of our efforts actually in danger of having the opposite effect? asks Saskia Jones, Data Strategy Director and Partner at BBH. [...]

In an industry obsessed with human truth, surrounded by a world in love with fiction, does advertising need to leave the facts behind? Asks Mel Arrow, Strategy Director and Partner at BBH. [...]

Earlier this month I went to the APG Strategy Conference: On the Contrary which sought to bring together speakers on ‘the power of contrarian thinking to challenge convention’.

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. [...]

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. [...]

‘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. [...]

Our industry’s effectiveness bible, The Long and the Short of It, is a huge compilation of lessons from winners, yet it is in the losers that we can best understand success, writes Harry Guild, strategist at BBH London[...]

I like to think that once you’ve managed strategists, you can manage anything, writes AG Head of Strategy at BBH LA.

Jim Carroll, former Chairman of BBH, returns to Labs for this sharply observed guest post about ‘Hope to Nope: Graphics and Politics 2008-18’ at the Design Museum. We highly recommend that you also visit Jim’s blog where he writes once a week. [...]

Ben Shaw calls for a more diverse, more questioning, more antagonising and above all – louder department, as he takes over as Head of Strategy at BBH London. [...]

A brand can be a company’s most valuable commercial asset, but persuading CEOs to invest in theirs has never been harder. In an open letter to all CMOs, everywhere, Tom Roach, Managing Partner at BBH, shares key data-points to help them in that task.[...]

Justice4Grenfell call for change to a system that let 71 people die; this was avoidable – if only they had been listened to earlier.

For some time brands have broadcast lengthy ‘manifestos’ to differentiate themselves from the competition when perhaps less is more, writes Lucian Trestler, Strategy Director at BBH and Editor of BBH Labs. [...]

So many brand/comms ideas feel so similar nowadays and it’s not just because everyone reads the same reports and does the same research. It’s because we, as a profession, have lost confidence in our ability to make what we make interesting, writes Shai Idelson, Strategy Director and Creative, BBH. [...]

Despite data being one of marketing’s current obsessions, most brands aren’t extracting value from 11 of the most basic data-points available to everyone, writes Tom Roach, Managing Partner, Effectiveness, BBH [...]

The industry’s continued lack of cognitive diversity – people who think differently to each other – hurts the work, makes you less effective and could ultimately threaten your agency’s survival

Many brands try to cut-through the cacophony of communication by deliberately asking as little as possible from their intended recipient. John Harrison, Managing Partner at BBH London, argues that the most effective communications are those that force people to make a mental leap.

As media continues to evolve, grow and fragment, our attention has become more discerning and harder to hold. Advertising, however, continues to behave as if reach alone equals influence, and in doing so is in danger of being tuned out entirely, writes Hamish Cameron, Strategy Director at BBH LA. [...]

This is definitely a rant but it’s also a bit of a plea, so just go with it. I’ll probably get a bit angry and I’ll probably get quite a lot of people disagreeing with me, especially with all the media lot in the room.

Brands are so afraid of turning any potential buyers off, they are increasingly making work that fails to turn anyone on. [...]

Media is slowly suffocating social media. The relentless optimisation towards media efficiency and mass reach is resulting in shorter, less effective social banner adverts. [...]

Brand love is dead. Right? [...]

Can you feel it? [...]

It’s a rainy Tuesday afternoon in Soho... [...]

Grime x Gaming x KFC? Yes. [...]

A BBH LA POV on the post-truth media world. [...]

What is ‘adaptive brand marketing’? [...]