The Home for Planners & Strategists
Planning Fundamentals: How to Apply Them
Planning Fundamentals is a training course designed by Charlie Snow and Sarah Newman, to take you through the most important principles of planning and show you how to apply them.
Next Course: 3rd, 4th, 5th & 6th March 2025
Who is it for?
Anyone who uses or needs to use planning and strategy in their role but could do with a rigorous guide to best practice, with lots of examples and tools. You could be new to planning or working for an agency or a client and have responsibility for communications or brand strategy. You might be involved with design, social media, PR, experiential; advertising or a commercial or media partnership or a brand communications plan. This course will help with all of those and will be as practical and applied as possible.
How long is it?
The course runs over 4 half days.
What will it cover?
-
Setting Objectives including the difference between business/marketing and comms objectives. Making sure they are measurable and realistic.
-
Defining the problem and the key questions to ask to get you there.
-
Strategic models. Different approaches to cracking strategic problems.
-
Insights and getting to an idea.
-
Creating a communications plan.
-
Creating a persuasive narrative to sell your strategy and idea.
-
Presentation skills: Tips and tricks.
-
Evaluation and effectiveness.
As well as being interactive with plenty of exercises for you to practise what you are learning, there will be guest appearances from current brilliant strategy practitioners with particular expertise. These will include Vicki Holgate, former APG Chair and James Caig, previous Head of Comms Strategy at Droga5.
Course Enquiries
If you are interested in attending a Training Course, please e-mail Alison Trotter at alison@apg.org.uk
Course Tutors
The course will be convened by Charlie Snow. Charlie will be supported throughout the four afternoons by some top planners and strategists from the Planning community. People who have learnt the hard way and want to pass on some of the practical skills that have been invaluable to them in their successful careers.
Charlie Snow
Charlie was the Head of Planning at DLKW, which grew to be the UK’s biggest independent advertising agency; he then became CSO at DLKW Lowe and MullenLowe London. Two years ago, he got out of the big agency world to become a strategic consultant working across multiple agencies and clients on brand, advertising, media, experiential and PR. He has won numerous awards for his work, including two Gold IPA awards, three Gold APG Awards and the APG Grand Prix. Charlie also sits on the Independent Advisory Panel to the ASA; he also mentors many Planning Directors.
James Caig
James Caig is a planner, trainer and facilitator who has led strategy teams in media, creative, digital and CRM agencies. He has won IPA Excellence Awards, started APG West and has been a judge for the APG Creative Strategy Awards and IPA Excellence Diploma. Recently he's devised and run Persuasive Presentations training for more than 70 people.
Vicki Holgate
Former APG Chair & Strategy Partner at AMV BBDO
Testimonials
Hands down the best marketing training I have EVER been a part of. You actually taught me, and I learned! This is exactly what I’ve been missing for 15 years... being taught! The tools, structures, frameworks providing and the tying it all together with a plan for when to actually use them is the secret sauce I need to feel totally confident to take a job in Strategy and own it! Charlie was really engaging, personable and a fantastic instructor. The guests added a ton of value as well.
- Senior Marketing Specialist, Client-side USA
Really useful – and also very inspiring. I feel like it's motivated me to read lots around strategy and get stuck in
- Content Manager, Global Content Agency
Highly recommend it! Charlie was incredibly attentive and always made sure to keep us involved and engaged. It was also very seamlessly conducted - from the presentations to going into break out rooms. Thank you!
- Junior Strategist, Creative Agency
I think this is by far the best training course I have been on. Everything is presented clearly and logically, you get an enormous amount of information but it is so digestible. The practical exercises help you really get a feel for the models and ways of thinking.
- Creative Strategist, Digital Agency
Course Information
Cost
£1,085+VAT (APG Membership required).
Dates & Times
3rd, 4th, 5th & 6th March 2025, 9am - 1:30pm GMT/London Time.
Platform - Zoom
This course will run online.
Please note, the sessions will not be recorded/filmed and we can’t offer catch-up sessions on future courses, if for any reason you can’t attend.
APG Training Course Cancellation Policy
-
Should you cancel your booking for an APG training course, the following cancellation policy will apply: For a cancellation made more than 30 calendar days in advance of the training course, a full rebate will be applied. For a cancellation more than ten calendar days in advance of the training course, a rebate of 50% will be applied. For a cancellation less than ten days in advance of the training course no rebate will be applied.
-
Training sessions will not be recorded/filmed and we can’t offer catch-up sessions on future courses, if for any reason you can’t attend.
-
On occasion we may need to re-schedule training sessions - we reserve the right to do this at any time although we will aim to give you as much notice as possible.
-
Attendance on Training Courses is entirely at the discretion of APG. There is no automatic right to attendance.