Planner Parley

Web3. What is it? Why does it matter? How do you navigate it? And how is it changing the way brands and planners work? The internet is evolving, which has us asking these questions and so many more. Good thing we were joined in this episode by Brian Piper, director of content strategy and assessment at University of Rochester, Allison Chen, independent consultant and visual designer, Josh Coon, director of experience at Truth Collective, and of course, John Roberts, chief strategy officer at Truth Collective to help guide us through the next frontier of digital space and what it means for small agencies. Key Takeaways: What Web3 has to offer brands and vice versa The critical difference between audience and community How to get clients into Web3 — and the real questions they should be asking themselves Why utility value and generosity will succeed How long-term solutions and impact on a larger scale are the future for brands in Web3

Today, we’re deepening our investigation into diversity in advertising with the recent release of the Feeling Seen USA report. To provide insight and unpack what learnings came out of this stateside study, Jon Evans, chief customer officer at System1, returns with invaluable insight from Thomas Kurdy, executive creative director at ConCreates, and of course John Roberts, chief strategy officer at Truth Collective. Join them to find out why genuine inclusivity is the new industry barometer and what it means for small agencies. Key Takeaways: Why emotion, not diversity, is the key to successful advertising and how to apply it How to bring real human truth to the creative and keep the bravery of the idea throughout the process Getting clients to see the light instead of waiting to feel the heat How to embrace the “I don’t knows” and bring reaching out into your process Diversity is not one action, but a series of actions

In this episode, we’re getting lucky! Despite it being mentioned in only 2% of management books and theories, luck can play a big role in your work and it’s within your powers to make it happen. Sure, you can stumble into luck, but wouldn’t’you rather create your own chances that get you where you want to go?  To find out how, join Andy Nairn, Campaign UK award-winning strategist 3 years in a row, founding partner of Lucky Generals, and author of Go Luck Yourself: 40 ways to stack the odds in your brand's favor, Lynette Xanders, director of brand strategy at Truth Collective, and, of course, John Roberts, chief strategy officer at Truth Collective, as they share how to get luck under your control, or not, and what it means for small agencies. Key Takeaways: How to take your luck in life from private to public 4 ways to stack the odds in your favor Setting the table so the fairies show up How to sell luck to your clients Why “the harder you work, the luckier you get" mindset is not all it’s cracked up to be, and can also be damaging

We’re back with Season 4 of Planner Parley and we are kicking it off, as always, with StratFest! This year, purposeful work took center stage. So did the debate over how strategists can help shepherd brands and clients to making a difference – and whether or not they should. Join Steve Kozel, senior vice president of strategy, media, and marketing technology at OBP, Sara Macfarlane, principal at Sara Macfarlane Consulting, and of course, John Roberts, chief strategy officer at Truth Collective, as they unpack two days of strat-mazing material and break down what it means for small agencies. Key Takeaways: Why strategists want to do meaningful work and the challenges they face Are principles a luxury in our business? Should we be catering to unique audiences when everyone is unique? The ways in which we can be like Ryan Reynolds without needing to be Ryan Reynolds Bystander, accomplice or  steward – the honest choices we help our clients make

Enjoy this episode from our vaults. Season 4 starts mid-September. In today’s episode, we’re taking a long hard look at diversity in advertising and how translating the emotional response it evokes can bring advertising impact for good. In his new report, Feeling Seen, Jon Evans, chief marketing officer at System1 shared insights from a significant study on how people feel when they see themselves in advertising, and his findings just might surprise you. Listen in as he and John Roberts, chief strategy officer at Truth Collective, reveal the power of Feeling Seen. Key Takeaways: Diversity done right is celebrated by all The power of telling one story and telling it well Walking the fine line of stereotypes How being overly inclusive ends up shutting us all out

Enjoy this episode from our vaults. Season 4 starts mid-September. Why do you get up in the morning? Why do we exist? What do we promise people and how is that relevant to daily life? Believe it or not, we’re not talking about existentialism. We’re talking about purposeful brands and marketing. In today’s branding landscape, authenticity and connectivity to your audience are the name of the game, even for B2B. So how can brands make sure they’re living their purpose and sticking to their North Star? Find out as Maggie Lower, CMO at Hootsuite, and Preeti Philip, managing director and partner at Sterling-Rice Group, join John Roberts, chief strategy officer at Truth Collective, as they reveal the ways brands can mine their spiritual health to ensure their values and relevance are long-lasting, and what it means for small agencies. Key Takeaways: Finding your brand’s North Star and how to stick to it Activating clients and the wiring inside You can’t outsource your soul Why everyone needs a listening strategy and a talking strategy Your brand doesn’t need to be world-changing; it needs to be world-helping

Enjoy this episode from our vaults. Season 4 starts mid-September. In today’s episode, we’re getting ugly – and it’s a thing of beauty! With social channels driving audience engagement and client budgets, how do brands learn to let go of perfection without losing creative authenticity? Find out as Tim Leake, chief marketing & innovation officer at RPA, joins Jeremy Schwartz, chief creative officer at Truth Collective, and John Roberts, chief strategy officer at Truth Collective, to get into the whys and hows of selling ugly in 2021 and how being less precious can be the answer for small agencies. Key Takeaways: Ugly content is more relevant than its origin in 2019 Being less precious about how to create content can improve business Ugly content can provide more creative opportunity, we just have to be OK with it Content marketing: Think creators, NOT influencers Redefining success for you and your clients

In today’s episode, we’re taking a long hard look at diversity in advertising and how translating the emotional response it evokes can bring advertising impact for good. In his new report, Feeling Seen, Jon Evans, chief marketing officer at System1 shared insights from a significant study on how people feel when they see themselves in advertising, and his findings just might surprise you. Listen in as he and John Roberts, chief strategy officer at Truth Collective, reveal the power of Feeling Seen. Key Takeaways: Diversity done right is celebrated by all The power of telling one story and telling it well Walking the fine line of stereotypes How being overly inclusive ends up shutting us all out

The client brief is inarguably the most important document in marketing, as it begins our work and should measure our success. So why is it often so neglected? Today’s guests, Matt Davies and Pieter-Paul von Weiler, had that same nagging question. So they co-founded BetterBriefs and ran the first significant global study in over 10 years to understand exactly what is at play, where the problems lie, and how marketers and agencies can close the gap to make briefs the workhorses they are intended to be. Join them and John Roberts, chief strategy officer at Truth Collective, to reveal how we can help the client create better briefs, and what it means for small agencies. Key Takeaways: The lack of quality briefs is crippling our success and our industry Why marketers and agencies are on different planets At the heart of a good brief is an honest, supportive relationship between marketer and agency The Objectives section is the #1 thing to look at Broken briefs has a massive, and now measured, financial cost

Why do you get up in the morning? Why do we exist? What do we promise people and how is that relevant to daily life? Believe it or not, we’re not talking about existentialism. We’re talking about purposeful brands and marketing. In today’s branding landscape, authenticity and connectivity to your audience are the name of the game, even for B2B. So how can brands make sure they’re living their purpose and sticking to their North Star? Find out as Maggie Lower, CMO at Hootsuite, and Preeti Philip, managing director and partner at Sterling-Rice Group, join John Roberts, chief strategy officer at Truth Collective, as they reveal the ways brands can mine their spiritual health to ensure their values and relevance are long-lasting, and what it means for small agencies. Key Takeaways: Finding your brand’s North Star and how to stick to it Activating clients and the wiring inside You can’t outsource your soul Why everyone needs a listening strategy and a talking strategy Your brand doesn’t need to be world-changing; it needs to be world-helping

In today’s episode, we’re getting ugly – and it’s a thing of beauty! With social channels driving audience engagement and client budgets, how do brands learn to let go of perfection without losing creative authenticity? Find out as Tim Leake, chief marketing & innovation officer at RPA, joins Jeremy Schwartz, chief creative officer at Truth Collective, and John Roberts, chief strategy officer at Truth Collective, to get into the whys and hows of selling ugly in 2021 and how being less precious can be the answer for small agencies. Key Takeaways: Ugly content is more relevant than its origin in 2019 Being less precious about how to create content can improve business Ugly content can provide more creative opportunity, we just have to be OK with it Content marketing: Think creators, NOT influencers Redefining success for you and your clients

It’s Season 3 of Planner Parley and you know what that means: StratFest! Our team was there in full force to look at strategy from every angle, be it our humanity, our plurality, or our place in moving society forward. Join Steve Kozel, VP and director of strategy at OBP, Stefanie Zawack, senior strategic planner at Marcus Thomas, LLC, and John Roberts, chief strategy officer at Truth Collective as they recap what this year’s festival brought, taught, and challenged, and what it means for small agencies. Key takeaways: Data + creativity – how expansive we can be as strategists Fostering cross-skill expectations – the act of asking “What If?” The Great Resignation – branding the broken agency legacy models The strategist’s overlooked role – how to bring your client along

Enjoy this episode from our vaults. Season 4 starts mid-September. In a year of reckoning that truly opened our eyes to the gross inequalities and racism in our country, we wanted to take a long, hard look at the reality of it in our industry, and learn what we can do about it. Alexis Agosto, director of the 4As Foundation MAIP Program, and Jineen Carcamo, data strategy director at Translation and MAIP alum, in New York City join John Roberts, CSO at Truth Collective in Rochester, NY to discuss this important and pressing issue, what we need to be doing differently, and what it means for small agencies. Key Takeaways: MAIP’s unique and all-encompassing services and programs are an industry game-changer How to be of the culture, not just in the culture Strategists are fundamental to moving our agencies from conversation to action Building a culture that engages fully in the individual; It starts with leadership Being comfortable with being uncomfortable so that we can grow and learn

Enjoy this episode from our vaults. Season 4 starts mid-September. This week, we’re delving into a repair manual for the creativity crisis by author Orlando Wood, chief innovation officer at System1 Group in London, England. He joins John Roberts, CSO at Truth Collective in Rochester, New York, to share his revolutionary new book, “Lemon. How the advertising brain turned sour” – and what we can do about it. Join them as they dig into why fame, feeling and fluency are at the heart of what brands need to be doing, why they aren’t, and what it means for agencies. Key takeaways: Why advertising sours and how we can sweeten our work through character, incident and place Connecting with the real world through the right brain Why left-brain dominance is driving more than it should and what to do about it Emotion doesn’t just mean sentimentality Why the brief is broken and how to remedy it

Welcome to Planner Parley, a show where we come together under a flag of truce to talk about small agency planning. Planner Parley is brought to you by the 4A's (The American Association of Advertising Agencies). Well, another season is in the books, and what a year it was! From StratFest 2020 to the view from the client’s side, from the relationship of tech and ideas to understanding Big-T strategists, from ingesting “Lemon. How the advertising brain turned sour” to unpacking content as strategy, and, of course, learning how to be comfortable with being uncomfortable when talking about agency diversity, all the while living The New Strange! Join Josh Coon, Truth Collective’s director of experience, and John Roberts, Truth Collective’s CSO, as they look back over a packed Season 2 and what strategy really means for small agencies. Key Takeaways: If you haven’t listened to Season 2 yet, you need to rethink your life choices! 2020 was a year we became forged in fire 2021 and the superpowers of the strategist Generosity is fuel for inspiration

Welcome to Planner Parley, a show where we come together under a flag of truce to talk about small agency planning. Planner Parley is brought to you by the 4A's (The American Association of Advertising Agencies). In a year of reckoning that truly opened our eyes to the gross inequalities and racism in our country, we wanted to take a long, hard look at the reality of it in our industry, and learn what we can do about it. Alexis Agosto, director of the 4As Foundation MAIP Program, and Jineen Carcamo, data strategy director at Translation and MAIP alum, in New York City join John Roberts, CSO at Truth Collective in Rochester, NY to discuss this important and pressing issue, what we need to be doing differently, and what it means for small agencies. Key Takeaways: MAIP’s unique and all-encompassing services and programs are an industry game-changer How to be of the culture, not just in the culture Strategists are fundamental to moving our agencies from conversation to action Building a culture that engages fully in the individual; It starts with leadership Being comfortable with being uncomfortable so that we can grow and learn

Welcome to Planner Parley, a show where we come together under a flag of truce to talk about small agency planning. Planner Parley is brought to you by the 4A's (The American Association of Advertising Agencies). This week, we’re delving into a repair manual for the creativity crisis by author Orlando Wood, chief innovation officer at System1 Group in London, England. He joins John Roberts, CSO at Truth Collective in Rochester, New York, to share his revolutionary new book, “Lemon. How the advertising brain turned sour” – and what we can do about it. Join them as they dig into why fame, feeling and fluency are at the heart of what brands need to be doing, why they aren’t, and what it means for agencies. Key Takeaways: Why advertising sours and how we can sweeten our work through character, incident and place Connecting with the real world through the right brain Why left-brain dominance is driving more than it should and what to do about it Emotion doesn’t just mean sentimentality Why the brief is broken and how to remedy it

Welcome to Planner Parley, a show where we come together under a flag of truce to talk about small agency planning. Planner Parley is brought to you by the 4A's (The American Association of Advertising Agencies). Julian Cole, a strategy consultant out of Melbourne, Australia, returns to the Planner Parley podcast for a one-to-one deep dive on Big-T strategists. He and John Roberts, CSO at Truth Collective in Rochester, New York, are fully unpacking what makes great strategists, how their skills are both broad and deep, why it’s important for them to not just do but also teach, and what it means for small agencies. Key Takeaways: If you really want to learn something, you teach it The Big T-shaped strategist and the three missing skills Just enough process – the critical frameworks we all need The golden window for great work

Welcome to Planner Parley, a show where we come together under a flag of truce to talk about small agency planning. Planner Parley is brought to you by the 4A's (The American Association of Advertising Agencies). With technology seemingly taking over our lives, is it also taking over our brand strategies? To find out, we’re talking with Raig Adolfo, CSO at 360i, and Fred Gerantabee, chief experience officer at FGX International, an EssilorLuxottica company, who are both experts in applying technology for brand building. They join John Roberts, CSO at Truth Collective in Rochester, New York, to break down how tech can enable brands, but why it isn’t and never can replace the idea, and what that means for small agencies. Key Takeaways: Why technology is squandered as a bright and shiny object when it should be utilized as a workhorse for brands The pitfalls of creating around the tech rather than around the idea Problem-solving is more about the problem than the solving Curiosity is inherent, not an optional extra

Welcome to Planner Parley, a show where we come together under a flag of truce to talk about small agency planning. Planner Parley is brought to you by the 4A's (The American Association of Advertising Agencies). This week, we’re seeing if the grass is greener for strategists that have gone client-side. Carrie Riby, director of marketing at Black Button Distilling, and Inga Grote-Ebbs, brand director at FIFCO USA, join John Roberts, CSO at Truth Collective – all from Rochester, New York – to share what the view is like from the other side of the relationship. With one in four strategists considering a career move towards the client side, we’re learning what it’s all about and what it means for small agencies. Key Takeaways: Understanding the needs and behavior of the audience is still the name of the game Strategy has a different meaning for agencies and clients Agencies and clients are not on opposing sides, but come with different perspectives The best work comes when there’s a partnership The “brief” problem – navigating gaps, approaches, and the handover