APG Sideways
About our guest: Nikole Patterson-Hurst
Hi, I'm Nikole Patterson-Hurst (but everyone calls me NPH). I'm a Strategy Director at Sid Lee, with a past life at LG2. When I started in advertising, I didn't even know my role existed but turns out it's exactly where I’m meant to be! I got my start in social, formally moved into strategy in 2024, and somewhere in between developed a fixation on things people underestimate. Challenger brands, underdog categories, the causes no one's paying enough attention to – the kind of work where you can't coast on the obvious answer. I'm a culture nerd and a chronic question-asker, always most interested in whatever everyone else is ignoring, that's usually where the good stuff is.
Brilliant Weird Best
Planners are curious folks so we asked Nikole to tell us the most brilliant, weirdest and best things she’s come across recently.
BRILLIANT: KOKO London’s 125th Anniversary
Have I ever been to the KOKO London? No, but as someone who lives for live music, I know how iconic it is. Anniversary campaigns are usually just brands celebrating themselves, but this isn't that. Whether or not Camden Best Kebab is real, centering the surrounding businesses and the people who fill those streets tells you what the creatives understood about the brief. It honours the venue, the performers, the crowds, and the local shops that absorb all of it, willingly or not. Stink made this feel like a neighbourhood celebrating itself, not a brand throwing its own birthday party. Execution: 10/10.
WEIRD: Eyebrows by Cadbury
What this has to do with selling chocolate, I have no idea, but it’s an ad that’s really stuck with me ever since I first saw it. It doesn’t matter that it’s not really related to the product (or the brand), because it’s a spot that makes you stop, watch, laugh and is memorable. If this was released now, I could see the eyebrow challenge becoming the next big social trend or AR filter. This should be an example of how sometimes, you don’t need to talk about the product or its features or benefits, just do something that makes people stop and stare.
BEST: Lucky Yatra, by Indian Railways
This particular strategy works because it’s rooted in a real business problem (so much lost fare revenue) and it collides with a very real cultural insight with a simple solution. There was no need for a complete overhaul of operations. You’re able to get it right away. It also leans into a little insight we all already know: gamification gets people to do what we want them to do. The outcome is win-win, more people pay their fare, riders are rewarded with cash prizes, and the system gets the funding it needs to make the updates that actually improve the commute.
Top Guilty Pleasures
Not all of our consumption habits can be academic. That's why we asked Nikole to give us the sources to her creativity.
Night People by Mark Ronson
This is a love letter to analogue culture, and Ronson recognizes his privilege in the industry but also talks honestly about the grind it takes to be a DJ. The way he describes driving the mood of a room, learning to read people without anyone saying a word, is a really interesting look into what makes a good (or bad) DJ. He's reflective about modern day too, understanding how special his heydays were. Hearing him talk about Tommy Hilfiger mall tours with Aaliyah is so iconic, and it was cool to discover so many references I wasn't familiar with.
Going Out To Eat (And Ranking Everywhere on Beli)
I set a goal to try and rank 120 new restaurants this year on Beli, and I'm so close I can taste it. Ordering for the table I'm with is genuinely my love language. Delicious food, stories swapped over shared plates, swirling the last of the wine – what else can you ask for? Toronto has every cuisine you could want, so I just keep on exploring. Beli replaced my colour-coded spreadsheet, and now I can see how my friends rank spots and compare their taste to mine – rankings, photos, recommendations on a whim.
This month on Slack
Over on our Slack, strategists are supporting, debating, and shitposting. Click on a link to see the full convo.
You Don't Need a Great Insight to Make Great Work. You Need an Interesting Observation.
Spencer MacEachern shared the K18 Tumblehair Spencer shared the K18 Tumblehair story alongside a provocation worth sitting with: most of what passes for insight in strategy is really just an interesting way of looking at a product benefit. K18 rolled a 150-pound ball of 161 billion real human hairs through New York City, a number that comes directly from multiplying their product's hair-retention claim by NYC's population. It's not a deep human truth. It's a stat that becomes impossible to ignore once you make it physical. So what are we actually looking for when we say we need an insight?
The Mall Was Never Really About Shopping.
PK Lawton shared this essay from Zona Motel's Mallcore column, and there's something in it worth thinking about beyond the nostalgia. The mall was essentially a physical algorithm, curating your exposure to culture, taste, and identity based on what was placed in front of you. The difference is it left room for longing. The stores you weren't allowed into, or weren't brave enough to enter, did more work on your identity than the ones you actually shopped in. A feed optimised for engagement can't replicate that gap, and it might be worth asking what we lose when desire gets replaced by instant access.