“Waaaay too many years in Advertising. First half as a Creative Director, second half as a Strategist. Worked in large international corporations and been co-founder of 3 start-ups. Have launched cars, sold new drinks and celebrated cities along the way have also persuaded people to change their votes. Graduated from Sheffield Hallam with a First in Industrial Design a course that covered non of the above.”
linkedin.com/in/philipslade philip@homeslade.com
Strategist. Curious of the world. I started in this industry as an Art Director at Saatchi & Saatchi back in the day. Went on to become ECD of various agencies, before retraining as a Planner. Much later returning to Saatchi’s as Planning Director on the Diageo business. Honorary vice president of the Marketing Agencies Association and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Used the experience of lockdown for a period of self-reflection on values and past deeds. While I can’t remake my past and can make a better future for others. Typified by mentoring and investing in the next generation of creative thinkers. I am also very proud of how Tickets for Good now helps thousands of deserving people enjoy live events for minimal payment
“Philip is a force of nature. His incredible passion and energy to push communications into new and exciting places are infectious. He combines his love of technology, creativity, and insights to bring a unique point of view…”
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Head of Strategy EMEA
Stein IAS. Oct 2022 - Present
☆ ANA Agency of the Year | 2022 B2 Awards | 2022 Global ACE Awards
☆ B2B Marketing Agency of the Year | 2022 Elevation Awards | 2022 Martech Awards
☆ WARC Awards for Effectiveness (Gold) | 2022 Business-to-Business
New York | London | Manchester | Hyderabad
BRAND MARKETING STRATEGIC DIRECTOR
Twinkl. Aug 2021 - Aug 2022
Took a new direction by going client side with one of the world’s biggest education publishers. An amazing data-driven digital brand. My role covers every aspect of the brand from building stories around products to helping educators around the world navigate impacting events whether the conflict in Ukraine or celebrations like the Queen’s Jubilee and later funeral.
INVESTOR & STRATEGIC ADVISOR
Tickets for Good. Nov 2019 - Present
Proud to be part of this tech business, built in Sheffield. Connecting people in need and the people who help them with life-enriching experiences. It does this by connecting ticket providers, sponsors, charities, and the NHS to allow everyone to do good and inspire others.
STRATEGIC CONSULTANT
Über Agency. Jan 2020 - July 2021
DIRECTOR of STRATEGY.
JaywinG. 2017 - Jan 2020
Formed and executed strategies to build a team of planners that successfully integrated with all divisions of the company. From data science, performance marketing and conceptual brand marketing. Strategically planned the overhaul of the pitch process, including credentials and case studies, evaluating from the ground up. Created and onboarded new ideas to improve efficiency, productivity and performance of the team, whilst meeting wider business objectives.
¨ Generated significant improvement in the pitch process, which resulted in a high pitch win ratio of 80%.
¨ Pioneered the set-up of the Community of Planners and Strategists (COPS) to meet quarterly, integrating staff from our offices in Newbury, Leeds, London and Sheffield.
¨ Won a major pitch against renowned London agencies, including a previous employer, CP+B to on board two of the highest billing clients for the agency in 2018.
¨ Secured additional, highly notable wins with major clients, including the parcel business Hermes valued at £2m+.
¨ Collaboratively received multiple awards for team efforts, including DMAs and Drum Recommends Strategy team in 2019.
¨ Spoke at data science events in Las Vegas & UK talking about ‘AI vs Creativity in advertising’
¨ Nominated in two categories in the global ‘City Nation Place’ awards for strategic place branding for the city of Sheffield, the only UK city to make the finals. This was also a key feature in Sheffield’s place branding making the final three in ‘European City of the Year’ against Oporto and Utrecht in 2019.
Senior Strategist. Keko London. Nov 2016 - Sept 2017
Consultant role working with a German owned agency focused on the luxury sector. I led successful pitches for Forevermark diamonds and Nyetimber sparkling wine. Plus, a whole stack of stuff on core business for Bentley Motors including their centenary.
‘..Philip has two of the most valuable attributes a creative agency can ask for. Firstly, an extraordinary talent to understand consumers and develop clear coherent thinking and creative ideas to engage them in a brand's stories. Secondly, an unparalleled work ethic and passion for the job that always makes sure those ideas come to life…’
Ben Whattam MD Keko London & Washington
Managing Partner. Crispin Porter + BOGUSKY 2013 - 2015 *
A rollercoaster ride at the UK office of the legendary US creative powerhouse. I was Strategic lead for Argos and Laurent-Perrier as well as for new business wins; Whyte & Mackay, Diageo, Mini Clubman and Sipsmith Gin.
Achievements
Sipsmith Gin. Strategic and comms approach for this award-winning premium gin brand’s first full eComm site. Strategic plan for the co-ordination and linking up of existing social channels to fans.
Mini Clubman 2015 global launch: co-Wrote pitch-winning strategy ‘Go with your gut’, to draw potential VW Golf purchasers back to the Mini brand.
New Balance Asia: Won this Hong Kong based account with an experiential strategy called ‘Run On’ which was a concept focused on pushing yourself further. Fun runs with two finish lines one at 5K and then another 1K further on. As well as fitness day activities we added night-time music and social for those pushing on.
Chad Valley. For Britain’s oldest toy brand I wrote a re-launch strategy based around celebrating unstructured playtime. Over 3 years this grew brand awareness in a category of continual decline all with a budget that was a fraction of Chad’s competitors.
Richard Pinder CEO UK and International CP+B commented, “Today’s multi-channel world demands increasingly innovative approaches to unlocking value in the path to purchase. In integrating Path with CP+B London we now offer clients deep shopper and activation expertise seamlessly connected with award-winning creative ideas.”
Philip Slade, co-founder of Path added, “Consumers now happily skip between digital, physical and social channels to complete a single purchase. They do this while two opposing mind-sets are re-shaping retail; shoppers who seek greater automation, versus those who desire richer experiences. It’s an incredibly exciting time that demands a new approach to insight gathering and planning of activations.”
Co-founder and Strategy Director. Path (The House Worldwide / CP+B) 2013-2014
Path was set up to offer agile shopper-focused strategy, with Laurent-Perrier and Argos Own Brands as founding clients. Path was nurtured by The House Worldwide, Richard Pinder’s group of independent creative agencies, which Crispin Porter + Bogusky brought in July 2014.
Noted moment. Path was nominated for Best Breakthrough agency in the 2014 MAA/Guardian Awards. Leaning that transferring the energy of a start-up into an established corporation while hard pays amazing dividends
“Working with Path has inspired Laurent-Perrier to look afresh at its business. Their extensive knowledge has provided clear insight of our industry’s future. This insight is now informing our marketing strategy ensuring continued and relevant engagement with trade and consumers.
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“What I loved about the ‘Hot House’ process was the speed at which creative ideas were developed, the diversity of people involved and the client having a ‘seat at the table’. What this delivered was a variety of strong creative territories and ideas which were sequentially developed in the space of just 3 days.””
“Path’s ability to draw on expert input has given our campaign a strong and credible foundation – which has stood the test of almost a year’s worth of activity (& scrutiny!). Tangibly their radio campaign has delivered our highest ever recall and persuasion tracking measures,
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Launch spot for new UK furniture and homewares brand. September 2014
Strategic Consultant. Freelance 2011 - 2013
A high-energy pitchtastic couple of years that also gave me the flexibility of time to focus on rehearsals for the London 2012 Olympic opening ceremonies. Achievements included: for Hometown London; Bupa pitch win. Ciroc pitch win. Rakuten pitch win. Virgin Water pitch win. For Fathom+Hatch in New York social media insight for Harley Davidson. For FCB Inferno, European activation campaign for Nivea for Men. For We Are Social, Danone pitch win. For Camelot International; I assisted in the successful re-launch of the combined Canadian Lottery boards.
““ Very inspiring. A lovely person who’s also good fun to work with. Philip is one of the best forward thinking planners I’ve ever worked with” ”
Planning Director, Saatchi & Saatchi X, 2010 – 2011
Led planning for the Diageo account. Focused on global travel retail channel for key brands; Smirnoff, Tanqueray, Johnnie Walker F1, Baileys, Bushmills and Guinness. Crafted robust strategies for high level client campaigns to engage consumers and sustain a high reputation in the advertising industry. Ran a key global insight project to analyse St Patrick’s Day in emerging markets and recognise promotional opportunities.
¨ Completed APG courses and received four MAA award nominations, one best and one merit won.
¨ Led planning on rebranding ‘Meals on Wheels’ for Hairy Bikers/BBC TV series appearing in various episodes representing Saatchi & Saatchi.
Creative Strategist, t7F London, 2007 - 2011
A time of learning new skills as a strategist within independent media agency Austin West. My key responsibilities were for First Drinks (Sailor Jerry) and the all-business class airline Maxjet.
Noted moment: Getting to sit in the pilot’s seat of a Boeing 767 and helping park it at Stansted airport during a night shoot. Learning to never turn done the opportunity to learn a new skill however random.
“Philip has been my mentor in understanding the relationship between creativity, planning and our industry. His influence as a whole has been vital to our work”.
Scott Knox. President and CEO. Institute of Communication Agencies
co-Founder & Executive Creative Director, Passion / Pulse Group 2005 - 2006
A start-up focused on ‘What If’ thinking. One of those brief moments in the sun that flourished with vigour before running out of money and being taken over by The Pulse Group. In the time we had for Emirates we designed an epic three-story high revolving exhibition stand, which launched in 2007 and was still winning awards 6 years later. For Diageo we created a trade advocacy programme called ‘World Class’ which still runs to this day having expanded to become the global standard of bartending excellence
Noted moment: Learning the hard way the brutal economics of poor forecasting in the creative industrie
Philip Slade
co-Founder & Executive Creative Director,
Hicklin Slade & Partners, 1998 - 2005
Starting from my front room HS&P became an iconic agency that at its height employed almost 100 and went onto sell for £9 million to Karmarama. Our first project was for Diageo, which saw me in Ibiza for a week reporting on the effects of club culture on drinking habits. We continued to work with Diageo on Johnnie Walker, Tanqueray and The Classic Malts. Our second major client was The National Lottery who we would work with for the next 8 years. Other clients included; Molson Coors. Britvic and Honda for all of whom we won awards for our work.
Noted moment: Having the BBC make a documentary about our work in the nightclubs of Ibiza, which has now dated spectacularly badly. But I did learn lifetime lessons on the importance of media training.
IMP (became Arc Creative Director 1992 – 1998
Joyous years of winning a stack of awards for our work on; Carlsberg Tetley, British Airways, Ballantine’s whisky, Laphroaig, TSB bank.
Noted moment: Convincing the leadership team to pitch an idea to Kodak which would have cost more than their then title sponsorship of the Olympic games. Two pitches to the worldwide board of Kodak in the USA later, we finally admitted defeat, but learnt no pitch is too big not to have a go at it.
SAATCHI & SAATCHI
Art Director 1987 – 1992 Worked my nuts off and had way too much fun on the British Airways account, won a bunch of awards and actually learnt what art direction is as a job.
Personality
Collaborative Optimist. Try everything. Speak up. I really enjoy mentoring. I’m also passionate about opening up access to the creative industry to all. I led the planning behind the British Arrows Doorway project that guides young people from disadvantaged backgrounds into paid employment in the advertising film industry: WeAreBad.org.uk
I have written and spoken in a variety of media channels, BBC, The Guardian, Independent etc., about the role of insight and planning in our industry over the years. Recently I did a spot on BBC radio Sheffield talking about most of the above.
Having the run of the Olympic Stadium during rehearsals was a childish joy
Summer 2012 was an unbelievable time for me as I had spent my weekends and evenings since April rehearsing for performances in both the Olympic and Paralympics. My roles varied from being one of the workers in the industrial revolution section of Danny Boyles spectacular Olympic opening to leading the Russian Team out during the Paralympics closing ceremony –given the chance I can bore for England about the experience!