Browse: Home / Paul Simons
Paul Simons
Paul joined Cadbury-Schweppes in brand management and then moved to United Biscuits. He switched to advertising in his late 20s, at Cogent Elliott and then Gold Greenlees Trott. He founded Simons Palmer Denton Clemmow & Johnson in the late 80s, one of the leading creative agencies of the 90s. Simons Palmer then merged with TBWA to create a top ten agency. Paul then joined O&M as chairman & CEO of the UK group. After three years he left to create a new AIM-quoted advertising group Cagney Plc. He is now a consultant to a number of client companies.
Paul also shares his thoughts on his blog. Visit Paul Simons Blog.
By Paul Simons on May 22, 2012
Several times in the past I’ve written about the challenges of managing brands from the top of companies, in particular in a turbulent trading environment like the one we find ourselves in. According to various experts this is likely to get worse before it gets better. It would seem French Connection is another retailer having [...]
Posted in Agencies, Clients, Creative, Finance, News, Research | Tagged brand equity, brand icebergs, cadbury, club 18-30, fading stars, fashion brands, fcuk, french connection, lizard ad, next, orbiting stars, Paul Simons, retail, rising stars, Sir Adrian Cadbury
By Paul Simons on May 3, 2012
I’ve just been to vote for the next Mayor of London and, walking down the street, I was thinking about the ‘headline’ views most people will have about the candidates. That turned in to wondering to what extent people in marketing and advertising understand the deeper policy issues of the candidates or to what extent [...]
Posted in Agencies, Clients, News, Politics, PR | Tagged Boris Johnson, brand values, ddb london, elelctions, golf ads, iceland, Ken Livingstone, london mayor, Paul Simons, personal preference, policies, volkswagen, Waitrose
By Paul Simons on May 2, 2012
The latest news that Miller Coors has consolidated its $200m business in to ‘Team WPP’ throws up a number of questions that are likely to be talked about in the HQs of the global networks. The key one I would guess is: “Will more global clients follow suit?” The obvious question for me is, if [...]
Posted in Agencies, Clients, Creative, Finance, News | Tagged agency review, chicago office, coors, IBM, Lou Gerstner, ogilvy & mather, one brand one voice, Paul Simons, Sir Martin Sorrell, team wpp, turf wars, WPP
By Paul Simons on May 2, 2012
On LinkedIn there is a group for Chief Marketing Officers which I have joined to see what people talk about these days. Most of it is about all things digital for obvious reasons. One topic as a discussion was ‘what makes a great brand’ and the responses have ranged from the whacky to the intelligent. [...]
Posted in Agencies, Clients, Finance, News, Research | Tagged agency reputation, Argos, brand management, ceo, cfo, cmo, forum, french connection, intelligence, interbrand, kpi, linkedin, mothercare, ogilvy, publicis, Richard Pinder, Tesco, vision
By Paul Simons on April 17, 2012
Here in the UK one of the biggest advertising accounts is up for grabs, Tesco worth £100m+ annually. For readers outside the UK some very brief context. The global financial problems have hit the high street with a number of retailers experiencing big challenges. We have seen a number of familiar names go out of [...]
Posted in Agencies, Clients, Creative, News, Research | Tagged advertising review, Argos, Bill nighy, brand personality, celebs, fading stars, m&S, maida vale, orbiting stars, Paul Simons, Paul Weller, rising stars, Sainsburys, Tesco, tesco plus, uk retailer, virgin, Waitrose, £100m+ budget
By Paul Simons on April 9, 2012
During my teenage years my Mum had hung a piece of homespun philosophy in our hallway. It said “I complained because I had no shoes until I saw a man who had no feet” Anon. I saw it every time I arrived home and even if I didn’t read it I knew it was there. [...]
Posted in Agencies, Clients, Creative, News | Tagged account people, chiat day la, Chris Deering, Chris Palmer, creative nops route, creatives, George Bernard Shaw, gorgeous, Paul Simons, Playstation, production company, progress in the hands of unreasonable men, richard branson, simons palmer, unreasonable creatives
By Paul Simons on April 2, 2012
I was sitting in a meeting the other day with an advertising agency in London and one of the agency team said they had a really good ‘insight’. After further discussion it seemed to me it was more of an observation than a flash of inspiration. It got me thinking a bit more about that [...]
Posted in Agencies, Clients, Creative, News, Research | Tagged aa, ariston, bogus titles, cancer cures, Clients, collins english dictionary, comedians, fourth emergency service, head of insight, hhcl, insight, job descriptions, o2, Paul Simons, planners, ronseal, specsavers
By Paul Simons on March 30, 2012
I spend most of my time doing what ad folk would call planning, figuring out what are the core challenges and goals for a future campaign. Sometimes these are pretty heavy duty jobs – I’ve worked on an airline closure and relaunch for example – and they can also be lower level jobs for a [...]
Posted in Agencies, Clients, Creative, News, Research | Tagged bbh, bmp, cadbury-schweppes, distribution, due diligience, fuji, John Bartle, JWT, kodak, mad men, milk tray, more th>n, nielsen, Paul Simons, planning, professional photographers, red mountain, rifle shot answers, robert senior, sloppy thinking, the times
Recent Comments