The Home for Planners & Strategists
Introduction
This is a two-day course aimed at helping planners and strategists sharpen their strategic skills when faced with thorny client problems that have no obvious answer (in other words, nearly all of them). It is focused directly on how to respond to client briefs and turn them into viable applied strategies. In preparing for the course, the tutor interviewed over twenty senior clients, planners and creative directors to help understand where planners and strategists are able to add most value, and where the common gaps in their strategic arsenals lie.
The course will equip you with the tools to see beyond the client brief and get to the ‘question behind the question’. You will develop more powerful and robust strategies as a result that demonstrate to clients the value creative strategy can bring to their business.
Who is it for?
​​Planners and Strategists with five years+ of experience in the industry across a variety of disciplines – be it brand planning, digital planning, channel planning or engagement planning or working directly for client companies. It has relevance to everyone with responsibility for helping solve business problems, and is particularly suited to those who work in environments where planning is less well established.
What will you learn?
The course is designed to give you a deeper understanding of what should lie at the heart of good applied strategy. How to build one when it’s not immediately obvious from the client brief, and convert your conclusions into more effective creative strategies that answer genuine business and marketing problems.
How is the course structured?
This two-day course consists of long interactive sessions that are a mixture of theory, tasks, practical tools and cheat sheets that help you put everything into practice. There will be a wrap up session at the end where participants will have the opportunity to pull together the various themes explored in the course by working on a genuine client task. There will be plenty of opportunities for co-working during each session. There will also be some short pre-reads so we can get the most out of our time spent together.
​
-
Understanding brands and markets
-
Getting to a clear marketing objective
-
Exploring different components of the marketing mix
-
Overcoming the brand platform problem
-
Where to focus innovation and customer experience improvements
-
Bringing it all together
​
In Addition….
Following the two Training days, we are offering an optional one to one session with Frank to talk through course learnings and how to effectively apply them going forwards. This will be done via Zoom (date to be confirmed). Let us know when you book the course if you'd like to sign up for this.
Course Information
Cost
£1,085+vat*
*APG Membership is required
Dates
16th & 17th June 2025
​
Times
9:30am - 5pm BST/London Time.
​
Venue
Central London, Venue TBC.
Course Enquiries
If you are interested in attending a Training Course, please e-mail Alison Trotter at alison@apg.org.uk
Course Tutor
Frank Durden is a multi-talented strategist, planner, client and consultant. He has an MBA and a particular interest in, and understanding of business strategy. He was marketing director of a major company and has also won many industry awards including IPA, Effies and of course the APG. As an agency planner at WCRS and Ogilvy, he worked on many creatively lauded brands such as Orange, 118 118 and Dove, enabling his clients to add over $1bn in brand value. He now runs his own consultancy, Frank & Friends, helping clients and agencies take a more strategic and business orientated view of how they approach marketing and communications.
Brand and Marketing Consultant
Frank Durden
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.
Testimonials
I cannot sing the praises of this course enough - interesting, stimulating content, relevant to a wide range of experience levels and backgrounds. A great leg up in my Strategy career, with learnings i'll be referring back to for years to come.
- Planner, Market Research Agency
It flowed in a logical order, it gave practical tools and models to look at and anecdotes on brands along the way.
- Strategy Director, Freelance
​
It was very good and well worth doing, with a lot of strong models and ways of thinking which I'll definitely make use of in the future.
- Creative Insight Director, Freelance
​
​