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APG | Planning & Strategy | LondonAPG, Account Planning Group, Planning, Strategy, Noisy Thinking, APG Training, Agile Strategy, Strategic Thinking, Creative Strategy Awards, Essential Planning Skills, Transformational thinking, Brand Planning, Become a Planner, AdvertisingAPG is the home for Planners and Strategists. We believe in the power of strategy to solve business problems and transform brands and the importance of equipping planners and strategists with the training and inspiration they need to be bold and rigorous thinkers.APG | Planning & Strategy | London top of pageThe Home for Planners & StrategistsTrainingUpcoming TrainingTraining CalendarWorkshopsCore SkillsExtended SkillsLeadership SkillsEventsUpcoming Talks & EventsNoisy Thinking 2024Get the Best Out of AI'How To' EventsOther EventsPast Noisy ThinkingConferencesThinking Around CornersThink like a CSOMembershipBecome an APG MemberOverseas APG MembershipCommunityArrive & ThriveTime to ThinkThe Right to DisconnectPR PlanningYoung PlannersAwards 2023APG Award Winners 2023Rules & InformationEthics & SpiritPast AwardsThink TankWhat is Think Tank?Awards PapersTalks & VideosTop Models & Super ModelsKnowledgeArticlesGuest EditorPlanning & StrategyLibraryTools and ModelsAdviceAPG PodcastAboutAPG TeamAPG CommitteeAPG WorldwideContact UsBook StoreAPG CalendarPrivacy PolicyMoreUse tab to navigate through the menu items.APG NewsUpcoming'How To' do a New Product Launch (with Michael Hines) 14th October | 5pm-6pm BST | OnlineIn this session Michael will share some practical principles about how to handle new product launches, distilled from his own experience and from other strategists who have launched things for Ford, McDonald's, Samsung, Nike, Old Spice and Clash of Clans. He’ll take us through a series of cases highlighting what works well and what doesn’t, how launches can be a path to the upper echelons of client organisations, and how working on launches can bring in truly imaginative thinking and ground-breaking marketing practice.Get your ticket here Things You Need to Know Taught by those who know by: Sarah NewmanThere is a whole industry of ‘experts’ on LinkedIn peddling their services. Some of them haven’t worked on a client for years. Some have developed a gig that pretends one aspect of strategy trumps all others, and they double down on that at the expense of nuance. A few are brilliant and inspiring. Quite a lot don’t seem to have much clue about what planners and strategists actually do (and want to do better) in the real world...Read on > APG Old But Gold Redefining the Value of a VoteAPG are delighted to be partnering with Fergus O’Carroll in a new, occasional series of podcasts featuring winners of the APG awards from back in the day. It’s astonishing how interesting, relevant and enlightening these cases are still today. So much to learn from them and so much to enjoy. ​ Listen in on this episode about how Nikki Crumpton shocked us back in 1997 and won an APG Gold for 'Ministry of Sound'. But the question is, given the everyday nature of corrosive and extreme political behaviour, are we now immune to it? You be the judge.Listen here > Tom Roach on Creative StrategistsThe great Mark Ritson recently wrote a brief but provocative post about hating the title ‘creative strategist’.   On behalf of the APG, the home of planners and strategists, this is an invitation for Mark to come and judge the APG’s Creative Strategy Awards 2025.   His post posed tough questions for anyone whose job is or includes creative strategy. It received 1000+ likes and a huge amount of agreement.   The essence of it was that the title is an oxymoron - that you can’t be both an expert strategist and an expert creative. Mark is rightly a purist when it comes to strategy. To him the title wrongly blurs the lines between two things which should be distinct.Read more > Inclusivity – a chance for planners to take the leadChannel 4’s annual Diversity in Advertising award is now open and this year it’s especially relevant to planners. The idea is ‘inclusivity by design’ which means writing inclusivity into the thinking from the brief. It’s easy to think of accessibility as an add-on, at the final stages of execution. But this is a chance to shape your communication around the objective of being inclusive to more audiences. Have a read. I think this is the most fascinating and worthwhile of challengesRead more > Strategic Management Masterclasses with Craig+Bridget Starting 24th September🙇‍♂️ I find it baffling how ready some agencies are to promote really excellent planners into senior positions and serious departmental or management responsibility, with little or no preparation. Account people at least have a management structure implicit in the way they organised. It trains them on the job how to lead people and foster team culture. But strategists get a shiny new title and just have to busk it till they work out how to do it. 🦉 So a couple of years I got together with Bridget Angear and Craig Mawdsley to work out how this gap could be filled with practical, actionable and strategy-centric teaching. We wanted to create a course on how to make it in strategy management (by-passing the 'busking it' bit). 👨‍🏫 Craig and Bridget (c+b) led strategy at AMVBBDO over many years and managed one of the most successful ever planning functions as Heads of Department and Joint CSOs. So we tried to bottle all their experience and everything they learned about how to (and how not to) do it, and created a series of Strategy Management Masterclasses. 👩‍🎓 We just ran the 4th iteration of these classes with guest tutors Andy Nairn, Raquel Chicourel, Cat Wiles, Emily Harlock, Raj Nathwani, and Will Whalley. We covered the all important topics of managing other planners, creating culture, leading on new business, leading in the agency and managing yourself. 🤔 We had a group of lovely, serious, excellent planners who over the course of 5 weeks re-thought their role at work and learned a host of new ways of being a strategy leader with management responsibility. And no busking. 👩‍🏫 It's one of the most pleasurable and enlightening parts of my APG year. And I would like to pay tribute to all the delegates for giving so much to the programme, but mostly to Craig and Bridget who donate their time to share their wisdom and experience, in a spirit of complete openness and generosity. It's a massive boost to the APG and the planning community at large, and lets us off all that busking! A great, big Thank you. 🧠 We'll be running it again in the Autumn. If you want to sign up to learn how to do it just email sarahnewman@apg.org.uk or molly@apg.org.uk and we'll put you down for it. ​ Sarah Newman APG DirectorGet in touch > A word from the APG's new Co-ChairsThink of a planner. What image comes to mind? Ironic notebook? Quiet demeanour? Statement glasses? You probably conjured one of these, right?    There’s a lingering stereotype that planners are introverted intellectuals who prefer to work solo. Of course it’s a cliché for a reason. Many strategic thinkers would choose time and space to mull over a problem or an idea....Read more > Let Channel 4 know what you think about accessible advertising & subtitle enabled adsChannel 4 featured subtitle-enabled advertising during their Paralympic Games coverage, increasing the number of subtitle-enabled ads on screen by 140%.    They want to understand any experience you‘ve had with subtitle-enabled ads to help them understand what works well and where they can improve, and what needs to change to make accessible advertising more present on our screens in the future.  ​ Your responses will be confidential, and as a token of our appreciation Channel 4 will be donating £5 to RNID for each survey response they receive, up to a total value of £1000Click here to start the survey > Get the Best Out of AI: Future Proofing Your Career 15th October | 5pm-6pm BST | OnlineThe next event in our series 'Get the best out of AI' is happening online on Tuesday 15th October from 5pm-6pm BST.    Oli Feldwick will be discussing how AI might change the way we work (for better and for worse). And what we should all be doing to make sure we’re ready for it. ​ This series of talks and discussions is designed to go deeper into specific AI topics that have a direct relevance to the practice of Planning and Strategy. Get your ticket here > Is AI leading advertising to a better place?AI is transforming advertising and marketing, and it’s just the beginning. So, it’s important to understand the industry’s attitudes to these developments. The APG has created a short, 13-question survey and invites you to share your insights. The findings will be shared with the community.​Go here to fill out the questionnaire > WARC Future of Strategy SurveyHere is the annual survey, organised by Warc, looking at the future of strategy globally. Do please fill it in with your thoughts.Read more and take the survey > The APG A-Z:  Creative Strategy in 26 VideosThe APG A-Z is a series of 26 short and inspiring videos that are designed to give you all the basics for a proper understanding of the practice of planning and strategy. Whether you’re just starting out in an agency - be it in advertising, media, social, design, whatever - and have planner or strategist in your title, or you work for a client or research company and have a professional interest in strategy, this course is for you to do in your own time.Sign up today > What is the APG Think Tank?The clue is in the name. It’s the place on the APG site where we bring together all the precious bits of strategic learning that can help you navigate a tricky problem, give you fresh inspiration or just wake up your jaded planning brain when you need help but don’t know where else to go. ​ To get a taster of how excellent these resources are for members, we’re giving you the chance to download one example of each for free.Have a look here > EVENTSGet the Best Out of AI Series (Online):​​​ Session 6: Future Proofing Your Career 15th Oct | 5pm-6pm BST ​ Noisy Thinking:​ More dates coming soon​ ​​ 'How To' Events (Online):​​ How to do a New Product Launch 14th Oct | 5pm-6pm BST ​ How Not to be Afraid of Numbers 4th Nov | 5pm-6pm GMTTRAINING COURSESThe APG A-Z​ Sign up any time​​​ ​ Strategic Management Masterclasses with Craig+Bridget Starting 24th September ​​ Essential Planning Skills 9th, 16th, 23rd October, 6th, 13th & 20th November ​ Planning Fundamentals 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th November ​ Agile Strategy 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th DecemberWORKSHOPSMore coming soon...Latest ArticlesSarah Newman2 days ago2 minThings You Need to Know - Taught by those who knowThere is a whole industry of ‘experts’ on LinkedIn peddling their services. Some of them haven’t worked on a client for years. Some have...Tom RoachAug 152 minTom Roach on Creative StrategistsThe great Mark Ritson recently wrote a brief but provocative post about hating the title ‘creative strategist’. On behalf of the APG...Sarah NewmanJul 291 minIs AI leading advertising to a better place?AI is transforming advertising and marketing, and it’s just the beginning. So, it’s important to understand the industry’s attitudes to...Sarah NewmanJul 112 minFictional Worlds. And the death of the insight.I’ve always been a slave to fiction and fictional worlds, from ‘The Cat in the Hat’ via Iris Murdoch’s bizarre and eccentric slices of...Sarah NewmanJun 271 minThe future's bright‘The future’s bright. The future’s Orange’ is one of my all-time favourite lines...Sarah NewmanMay 24 minPlanners can be wonderfulI like planners. In fact I like them a lot. My job means I mostly hang out with other planners of all ages and stages...12345STAY IN THE KNOWCALL US ON +44(0)7900 176 194CONTACT USMEMBERSHIPBOOK STOREPRIVACY POLICYbottom of pageenen1728492481https://apg.org.uk

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