Starting an advertising firm means building a service business where your inventory walks out the door every evening. The fundamentals are straightforward: register the business, define your offer, land your first client. What takes longer to learn is everything underneath that, the commercial structure, the positioning decisions, the operational habits that determine whether you’re still…
An AI CMO is a system, platform, or AI-powered function that takes on some or all of the strategic and operational responsibilities traditionally held by a Chief Marketing Officer. The concept ranges from narrow automation tools that handle campaign decisions to broader claims about AI replacing marketing leadership entirely. Neither extreme is accurate, and the…
Marketing agency management is the discipline of running an agency as a business, not just as a collection of client projects. That means managing people, process, profitability, and growth simultaneously, often with fewer resources than the work demands and more complexity than the org chart reflects. Most agencies are good at winning work and delivering…
A thought leadership framework is a structured approach to positioning a person or organisation as a credible, authoritative voice in a specific domain. It defines what you stand for, what you will say, who you are saying it to, and how you will consistently prove that your perspective is worth following. Without that structure, thought…
Cost leadership and differentiation are the two fundamental competitive strategies available to any business. Cost leadership means winning on price by operating more efficiently than anyone else. Differentiation means winning on value by offering something competitors cannot easily replicate. Choosing between them is not a branding decision, it is a business model decision, and getting…
Publicis Groupe is one of four global advertising holding companies that collectively control the majority of the world’s major marketing budgets. Headquartered in Paris, it operates a network of agencies spanning creative, media, data, and technology services, structured around a model it calls the “Power of One.” Understanding how Publicis is organised, what it owns,…
Agency pitching is the process of presenting your agency’s capabilities, thinking, and proposed approach to a prospective client in a competitive selection process. Done well, it is one of the most effective ways to win significant new business. Done poorly, it is an expensive, demoralising exercise that burns your best people and produces nothing. Most…
Marketing strategy for a consulting business is not the same as marketing strategy for a product company, a retailer, or even a traditional agency. The buyer is different, the sales cycle is longer, and the thing being sold is intangible. Most generic marketing advice ignores this entirely, which is why so many consultants end up…
Cost management strategy is the discipline of deciding where money stays and where it goes, based on what actually drives commercial outcomes rather than what feels safe to protect. Done well, it is one of the most powerful levers in a marketer’s toolkit. Done badly, it is how brands quietly hollow themselves out while hitting…
Consultant strategic planning is the process of building a structured, commercially grounded roadmap that tells a consulting practice where it is going, how it will get there, and what success actually looks like. Done well, it is the difference between a practice that grows with intention and one that drifts between client projects hoping the…
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