Work

What I do, and how it runs

A strategy is only useful if someone can act on it, with the budget and the deadline they actually have. Everything below is built backwards from that.

Services

01

Positioning & narrative

What the brand is for, written so someone can repeat it without the deck open.

Deliverables
  • An audience and category read: who is actually buying, and what they already believe
  • Positioning statement, message hierarchy, proof points
  • Tone of voice, with examples of how it sounds when it goes wrong
  • A stop-saying list, for the claims that cost more credibility than they buy

02

Campaign strategy

One idea, the audience it is really aimed at, and a route from launch to whatever you wanted to happen.

Deliverables
  • A proper look at the brief, and the business problem sitting under the marketing one
  • The campaign idea, and the argument for it, written for a sceptical room
  • Channel plan, phasing and what each phase is allowed to be judged on
  • Measurement that matches the ambition, instead of whatever the dashboard reports by default

03

Content & platform

What travels in a feed behaves nothing like what travels on air, and a newsletter is different again.

Deliverables
  • Content pillars and formats, made per platform instead of resized for it
  • Hooks and cuts for short video, where the first two seconds decide everything
  • A publishing calendar a small team can actually keep up with
  • Creator and partnership fit, including who is worth the money and who is only worth the follower count

04

Narrative & decks

The pitch, the proposal, the sponsor deck. Usually the last thing anyone plans, and often the only thing the decision-maker reads.

Deliverables
  • A story spine, so the ask arrives when the reader is ready for it
  • Editing for one reader: the person who has to defend saying yes internally
  • Sponsor and partnership decks with a value exchange that survives scrutiny
  • Rehearsal notes, including which slide to skip when the time gets cut

Process

How the work runs

Three moves, in this order. Skipping the first one gets expensive later.

  1. Step one

    Find the brief behind the brief

    Briefs usually arrive pre-solved. “We need a campaign.” “We need to be on Instagram.” So I go back a step and ask what has to be true for the business by the end of the quarter, and what is genuinely in the way. Half the time that changes the scope, which is much cheaper to discover in week one.

  2. Step two

    Find what is already true

    The strategies that work are usually things somebody noticed, not things somebody invented. Something the audience already does, or believes, or complains about, that the brand has some right to talk about. Desk research, the words the category uses about itself, the comments section. Boring sources, specific findings.

  3. Step three

    Make it specific enough to act on

    One page a team can work from. The position, the idea, what gets made, in what order, and how you will know it worked. Then the deck that sells it internally, because a strategy nobody can defend in a meeting quietly never happens.

Fit

Where I am most useful

  • Brands whose audience moves faster than their marketing currently does
  • Publishers, platforms and networks selling to advertisers who have heard every pitch before
  • Founders who can describe the product perfectly and the reason to care not at all
  • Teams sitting on a deck that keeps not getting a yes

Formats

How we can work

  • One piece of work: a positioning sprint, a campaign strategy, or a deck rebuilt properly
  • A retained day or two a month, for teams who need a second brain more than another pair of hands
  • A second opinion on a plan you already have, marking what is load-bearing and what is decoration

Questions

Before you write

The questions that come up in every first email, answered here so the first email can be about the work.

  • Do you need a finished brief?

    No. A paragraph about what isn’t working is a better starting point than a brief that has already picked the answer. If there is a brief, send it anyway and I’ll ask what it is really for.

  • Do you write the copy and make the deck, or just the thinking?

    Both, and they don’t really come apart. If it can’t be written as slides someone else could present, it isn’t finished.

  • Can you work alongside our agency?

    Yes, and it usually works better that way. The agency makes the work. I make sure everyone agrees what the work is for before it gets made.

  • We are small. Is this overkill?

    Usually the opposite. A small team can’t afford to spend a quarter on the wrong idea, which is what the awkward questions are for.

  • What do you need from us?

    Whatever already exists. Old decks, the objections your sales team hears most, the comments under your posts, and one honest conversation about what is actually being measured internally.

  • What if we disagree with the strategy?

    Then we have found something out early, which is the point. I would much rather be argued with in week two than agreed with politely until launch.

Selected work

What the work looks like

Eight years of decks and campaign work, on the platform side, the network side and the agency side. Written up by what each one needed, not by whose logo was on it.

Sponsorship · a media IP and its lead partner

Selling a sponsorship that runs for a year

A national business platform, and the brand co-presenting it. The money is easy to describe and hard to justify, so the deck has to show what the partner is actually buying.

  • The partner’s own story first. What the business is, who it serves, what it can fairly claim. Only then the integrations
  • Integrations built around moments. A speaking slot with a real argument in it, a curtain-raiser film, a joint whitepaper, a space on the ground. Branding comes after those, not before
  • Amplification mapped channel by channel, with what each one is for and who it reaches
  • A sustenance plan for the months after, so the partnership does not end when the event does. Columns, interviews, explainer series, cutdowns

A partner who can only picture the evening will judge it on the evening. So the deck has to make the whole year visible from slide one.

Building the property itself

Starting a summit from nothing

Before any of it can be sold, somebody has to decide what the thing is for, who is in the room, and what they will argue about all day. That document is the property.

  • The premise. What has changed that makes this conversation worth having this year
  • An audience profile specific enough to work as a guest list. Titles, sectors, and why any of them would clear a day for it
  • The agenda: keynote, panels, spotlight sessions, showcase, with the discussion themes written out properly. This is the part that decides whether anyone turns up
  • An amplification plan designed in from the start. What exists before the day, on the day, and in the month after

Every unconfirmed name gets marked unconfirmed, every time. A deck that implies a booking it doesn’t have will cost you more than the booking was worth.

Platform solutions · brand-specific

Turning platform inventory into one brand’s idea

Any big platform can hand every advertiser the same reach deck. The actual work is reading one brand’s category problem, then proposing the formats that solve it and the order to run them in.

  • A category read built on sourced, attributed evidence. Adoption, behaviour, and who the non-user actually is
  • Audience proof that goes past the headline number. Which India, in which languages, and what they already do in this category
  • Formats picked against objectives. Creator-led advocacy for trust, boosted creator posts for targeted reach, interactive units for a one-tap response, studio video when something needs demonstrating
  • Comparable work attached as evidence, with the results stated plainly

If the format is chosen before the objective, what you have is a media plan with an idea stapled to the front.

After the campaign

The campaign report nobody wants to write

Campaign reports usually get written to be survived. Done honestly and quickly, they are the most useful document in the whole cycle, because they are where the next brief gets better.

  • What actually ran, against what was promised, with no retrospective editing
  • What it delivered, measured on what everyone agreed at the start
  • What worked and why, format by format, so it can be reused
  • What didn’t work, and what to do differently, while there is still time to apply it

Write it while it is still true. And put the failures in. Nobody believes a report where everything went well.

What is deliberately not on this page. Property names, clients, sponsors, commercial terms, audience figures, anything not yet announced. That work belongs to the businesses that paid for it. Happy to talk through specifics in a conversation, under an NDA if one is needed.

Ask about specifics

Start with the awkward question

What has to be true for this to work? Bring the brief and we can find out.

Get in touch