Vivienne Westwood and a German general: creative nudges with Kev Chesters

Kevin Chesters is a Strategic Consultant, and former Strategy Head at Ogilvy and W+K London.Kev started his career in account handling at Ogilvy in the mid-90s, making the transition into strategy in 1999. Since then, he has progressed through the ranks in a number of different strategy roles – client and agency, domestic and international, across every type of creative and media output through a diverse range of networks, micro-networks and independents.After working as Head of Marketing Strategy at BT from 2001 to 2004, Kev made the jump back to agency life as Planning Director at Saatchi & Saatchi. He joined W+K in 2007 and was appointed Head of Strategy in 2009. He was the lead strategist on Honda for a number of years and led the successful pitch for Three.Kev left Wieden in 2013 to become the Executive Planning Director at McGarryBowen, seeing the agency enjoy its most successful period ever, winning two Cannes Gold Lions and 16 out of 19 pitches.In 2017, Kevin joined Ogilvy & Mather as Chief Strategy Officer as part of a new management team, along with Harbour Collective Creative Partner, Mick Mahoney. The team was tasked with putting the London agency back on the map and succeeded by topping the New Business Performance League for 12 months and being named runner-up in Campaign’s Agency of the Year 2017.Kevin was then promoted to be head of strategy across all its disciplines at Ogilvy, before joining Harbour with Mick in May 2019.Kev is a regular commentator on industry issues, writing for publications including Adweek, The Drum and Campaign. He is a blogger for the Marketing Society, a member of the APG Committee, and has been a judge for both the APG and Effie Awards.Along with Mick, Kev is the co-author of the recently published book, The Creative Nudge.

Mike specialises in creating content in the media space: in entertainment (film, TV, gaming, streaming, platforms), internet culture, technology, and the creator economy. He previously spent three years (2021-2024) as MediaCat Magazine's Executive Editor, growing the publication's readership and following, largely from scratch; during which time he launched their podcast and monthly newsletter. Prior to that he was Editor at The Marketing Society (2013-2021), where he launched a bi-monthly publication which ran for 14 issues, as well as a successful podcast. Mike is also a street photographer and film and TV blogger, and once came second in a Creative Review competition to rewrite Trainspotting's 'choose life' speech. He's proud of that one.