Planning's greatest Holiday Ads Party returned live to the Merchandise Mart in Chicago. A packed house watched and debated some of the best holiday ads from the US and UK. On stage were Nimisha Jain, CSO at Highdive, Pedr Howard, Head of Creative Excellence at Ipsos, Samantha Cescau, CSO at Leo Burnett and Mark Gross, Co-Founder and Co-CCO at Highdive. Love to hear what your favorite Holiday spot was this year. Thanks to Ipsos, The Effies and Tracksuit for supporting our 2025 live tour. Happy Holidays everyone.

We talk with some of London's top strategic and creative talent about the year that was 2025. Martin Beverley of Ace of Hearts, Paula Bloodworth of Alien Baby, Mel Arrow of McCann, Chris Gallery of Mother and Alex Grieve of BBH join me. Next live tour stop is Boston in late January. Thanks to The Effies, Tracksuit and Ipsos for supporting our Live Tour. 

The odds were stacked against Indeed in India. Late to market and up against behemoths whose combined market share crossed 90%, they had a fight on their hands. We hear the backstory of how they build a B2B beachhead as a way into the broader B2C market. Thanks to the Effies for making this international episode possible.

We're joined by Helene Dick, Head of Strategy at Special LA and Tom Kenny, CSO at Courage in Toronto. We discuss new work from The Ordinary and Mother's campaign for Claude AI. Thanks to Tracksuit and System1 for supporting this series.

Our interviews with UK winners as their amazingly effective work gets recognized on Effie night in London. Xbox, Uber, Smarty Mobile, Irish Tourism, Walkers, CALM, and the Grand Prix winning Nurofen from McCann London. What a night for McCann. They also won Agency of the Year and took home a total of seven awards. You can see all of the creative work from these interviews on our website at onstrategyshowcase.com.

We brought together planners and creatives to talk about epiphany moments - those times when you know you've just unlocked the idea. We talk about what they ultimately led to in the work. Joining me are Ryan Lehr, Co-CCO at Deutsch, John Deschner, Head of Brand at Maximum Effort, Jill Burgeson, CSO at TBWA/Chiat/Day/LA, Amanda Shapiro, EVP Strategy at Deutsch and Jason Karley, ECD at Artist's Equity. Thanks to Tracksuit, The Effies and Ipsos for supporting our live tour.

An encore airing of this multiple Gold Effie winner. Chris Beresford-Hill, Worldwide Chief Creative Officer at BBDO shares the real story behind the Michael Cera campaign, one he led while at Ogilvy. Frustrated by how it was being told, he shares the reality. 

Unilever CMO, Tati Lindenberg and MullenLowe's Rachel Stets join me to share how Unilever's detergent brand in the UK, in an effort to reclaim its product performance strengths, partnered with Arsenal women's soccer for the "Every Stain Should Be Part of the Game" initiative. Thanks to Tracksuit (the affordable brand tracking solution) for supporting this episode.

Five NY strategy leaders reflect on our topic and share their points of view on where we are today and how strong the future looks for what we do. Joining us are Jeff McCrory of Mischief, Tass Tsitsopoulos of W+K, Anibal Casso of Ogilvy, Emily Portnoy and BBDO, and Tom Morton of Narratory Capital. Thanks to our live tour sponsors: The Effies, Tracksuit and Ipsos. 

It's planners talking brands they've never worked on. This month, guest panelists Dan Ng, CSO at Johannes Leonardo, NYC and Steve Walls, CSO at Moon Rabbit join our regular panel of misfits. Thanks to System1 and Tracksuit for making this series possible.