Hot Tub Crime Machine

Gareth Kay’s 10 Little Tips.

Over the last few weeks Gareth Kay, the Director of Brand Strategy at Goodby, Silverstein and Partners and strategy/planning rock star, has been posting his “10 Little Tips” to help advertising (and advertisers) get their mojo back.

Here they are, all in one place (along with my Twitterized versions of them):

1. Two Heads are Better Than One – Don’t separate brand and media strategies – or strategists
2. More Generalist, Fewer Specialists – Be interested in, and able to be interesting about, a broader set of skills, interests and things
3. Be Recombinent – Combine technology with stories to create new types of narrative
4. Be People Powered – Planners need to think about creating strategies that have an enthusiasm bigger than the brand or their category
5. Turn Data into Meaning – Turn data into interesting bits of communication
6. Get Out of the Messaging Business – Design ideas, not ads
7. Break the Tyranny of The Big Idea – Don’t bet it all on one idea
8. Be a Magazine Editor – Create stories that people want to read – and repeat.
9. Get Obsessed By Games – Games are the dominent cultural narrative of today.
10. Be Interesting, Not Right – The Planner’s job isn’t to be right. It’s to be interesting.

Words to live by. Thanks Gareth!