Meet the Digital Thought Leaders
In times of huge economic and social change, knowledge becomes a critical success factor. We created the Digital Thought Leaders interviews to bring you closer to people and brands shaping the digital networked economy. They are based on private interviews (and occasionally lectures we've participated in), and are published monthly. We also publish similar insight papers to accompany our own talks, strategy workshops and training events. The aim is to unlock the potential of your team through sharing leading edge insights from people shaping the digital networked economy.
Accessing Digital Thought Leaders
On this page you'll find a few of our interviews and you can download the associated short reports. Clients should use their passcodes to access the full service. (Clients wanting archive access should email their account manager for details)
For many firms online marketing only means search. Retailers live and die by their position in the organic search rankings, and fight ever smarter battles in the bid wars for pay-per-click position. Money pouring into search marketing has kept search in pole position, accounting for over half of all the online ad spend in the UK. But now there’s a new kid on the block. So before its official launch in the UK, we caught up with Bing’s marketing manager in London. Cedric Chambaz told Danny Meadows-Klue the story of a new brand, a new approach and the big implications for agencies and advertisers fighting on the frontline in search battles.
By day, he’s chief executive of a funky London agency called Taglab. They’re famous for a decade of building websites and online campaigns for global brands. But away from the web, Graham has been developing ideas around a new business principle – Secondomics. Drawing on psychology, biology, economics and game theory, he’s uncovered why often the real winners in the race are not the people who burn all their energy in being first to blaze a new trail, but those guys who coast in second; following the model and using half the effort. There’s certainly nothing of a coaster in Graham, but when he shared an early draft of his next book, we spotted a new Digital Thought Leader. Here’s what he told us…
We caught up with Michael at the Styria Digital Congress in Austria where he was talking about the changing nature of branding. Brandtner is a leading thinker on brand strategy (and lives in Rohrbach, Austria). He’s an Associate of Ries & Ries (www.ries.com) and a vocational lecturer at the Graz University of Applied Sciences (Campus 02). He consults with national and international companies such as Dr. Schwabe, Neuburger, Internorm, Kodak, Müller-Milch, Wagner Pizza/Nestle or Unger Steel. We also enjoyed his book “Brandtner on Branding” that applies Darwin`s theory of evolution to the world of marketing and branding. Beside his consulting work he is a frequent speaker on the topics of branding and positioning. His website: 
Stephen Haines was appointed Sales Director of Facebook in November 2007, bringing with him more than a decade of sales experience to the team. His skills in both creating and developing profitable commercial relationships are strategic in his role at Facebook.
Pete Clifton, 46, is the BBC’s Head of Editorial Development, Multi-Media Journalism - one of the longest job titles in the organisation which puts him in charge of on demand developments across News, Sport and Weather. Before this he was Head of BBC News Interactive, the department responsible for the main News site, plus news to mobile phones, text on TV, interactive TV and outdoor spaces.
From May 2005 has been general manager for consumer news at Reuters.co.uk, overseeing multimedia services for the internet, interactive TV and mobiles. His role involves product development, third party content deals and sales and marketing.
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Ben Saunders is a record-breaking polar explorer and by his own admission an "extreme blogger". From the North Pole he wrote to millions using his blog, a PDA, a matchstick and a satellite phone. While becoming the youngest person in history to walk solo to the North Pole, Ben was able to keep us up to date with the progress.
It’s been another amazing month or two for the folks at Google as it emerged in the UK they had topped ITV1 in revenues, as well as plucking the prize for world’s most recognised brand, and now one of the US top five firms by market cap. Google’s Matt Brittin is clear that the market is still changing fast and so is marketing. In this type of world why would we even talk about targeting a demographic. With search taking over 8% of all UK adspend, it’s well established as a media channel in its own right, and yet the pace of development remains daunting.
