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Mike Teasdale
Many brands appear to be working from the same crisis playbook, observes Mike Teasdale – here’s why that’s not working.
Brand purpose as a concept was already coming in for some deserved criticism as a result of companies misunderstanding or misusing it, but now we’re in the grip of COVID-19 the stakes are even higher – says Mike Teasdale.
If advertising – and its planning – is about anything at all, it’s about selling, says Mike Teasdale, and we would do well to remember this as an industry.
Advertising is in love with the new, but so often overlooks the past at its own peril, argues Mike Teasdale.
Artificial intelligence is bleeding further into our lives and work, Mike Teasdale considers the strategist in the age of AI.
Ads can’t change the world by themselves – that’s not their point – but they are far more effective if they reflect the world the audience aspires to.
Agencies’ process is out of balance, with too many avoiding the business problem, ignoring the science, needlessly reinventing the wheel and being chronically short term, argues Mike Teasdale.
Planning is still about being a catalyst for creativity but the context in which Planners operate has changed hugely – they need to adapt, and quickly, says Mike Teasdale.
Not all briefs are created equal. Mike Teasdale explores the world of the nightmare brief, and how to make them better.
Breathing new life into a brand is a complex exercise in which knowing what to change is as important as knowing what to leave alone.
There are lots of ways a brand can shoot itself in the foot. Mike Teasdale analyses the brands that did it so you don’t have to.
The 2018 IPA Effectiveness Awards illuminate much of what is changing in advertising, how questions of effectiveness are shifting.
Neuroscience teaches us that memories don’t exist whole but as little bytes of sensory impulses that need reconstruction.
During a recent workshop with young planners, a serious question occurred to Mike Teasdale, one that speaks to the massive shifts that have taken place in the discipline.
Interruption is annoying, so why does modern marketing continue to annoy people? Mike Teasdale considers the new etiquette to interrupting your audience, and the campaigns that have done so effectively.
Nowadays, it is almost unfashionable to spend time thinking, but looking sideways at seemingly non-relevant areas is potentially very fertile.
Planning cannot afford to keep repeating old mistakes, says Mike Teasdale, if it is to adapt to the rise of data, platforms and short-term response creativity and the decline of long-term brand-building ideas.
When brands come under public scrutiny for getting something wrong, how they act in the aftermath will dictate the narrative going forward.
The new EU data privacy laws, GDPR, could give brands a chance to strengthen their relationships with customers, says Mike Teasdale, as long as new-world companies realise they need to offer their customers rewards for the privilege of handling their data.
In a tough climate for brands, messages are increasingly filtered through a sceptical lens. People get their trusted information about brands from family, friends, co-workers and from the pooled wisdom of the wider population, so, as Mike Teasdale explains, getting the basics right is paramount if you want to build brand trust.
Today’s advertising environment increasingly sees long-term, equity building mass marketing being replaced by short-term, response-generating micro marketing and, says Mike Teasdale, ageism in ad agencies is contributing to the problem.
For Mike Teasdale, the notion of brand love is a flawed one, believing it to be nothing more than a habit with some emotion or nostalgia thrown in.
As 2018 marks the bicentenary of his birth, Mike Teasdale ponders what Karl Marx would make of today’s consumerism and what he would think of future consumerism driven by digital and AI.
Mike Teasdale offers up his Christmas wish list for the industry, which includes taking the management consultancy threat more seriously, using the blend of creative and data to generate transformative work, agency leaders doing more for diversity and advertising becoming an interrupter once again.
Mike Teasdale warns network ad agencies that they should focus on how to use data to help their clients achieve a consistently connected brand experience or risk being run over by the management consultancy juggernaut.
About Mike Teasdale
Mike Teasdale is a strategic problem solver. He is Director at Left-Handed Planning Ltd and provides consulting, writing, mentoring, and facilitating services. His background is in ad land, with 28 years of experience as a strategist in agencies like BBH, BBDO and Lowe.