The AQR’s Eyes Wide Open series brings together speakers from adjacent disciplines to examine a common theme. The most recent, on the evening of June 7th was on the subject of Human Packaging, asking the question what do we reveal by the way we present ourselves?

In January Facebook announced they were taking a new direction to strive towards more meaningful interactions on the platform.  It was a move to strengthen relationships between users and business pages.  Since then, however, we’ve seen controversy over data privacy and a growing lack of trust in the protection of personal data with such scandals including Facebook themselves.

The voluntary sector is thriving in Leeds because of the passion and tenacity of leaders and local people. But they have gaps in specific skills. They also have services we can use for our business purposes. Here are our top five ways we feel businesses, including ours, can support local voluntary and charity organisations:

Every once in a while, you have those rare days where you experience a magical moment that leaves you feeling supercharged, grateful, humbled, awe-inspired even.  Today was one of those days for me personally.  And as I often find, it involved getting out of the office. Myself and my colleague Becki spent the morning seeing with our very own eyes how our company investment in the Leeds Community Foundation is helping to support several communities and charities in Leeds – the city in which our Head Office is proud to be based. 

Trinity McQueen London has appointed Mich Preston as Research Director to expand its qualitative consultancy.  Preston joins during an unprecedented period of growth for agency, as it adds a string of new clients, including Debenhams, John Lewis and the IGD.  A retail specialist, Mich has 15 years’ experience and arrives from ABA Research, where she worked with some of UK’s leading brands. 

Even before a ball had been kicked, we knew the World Cup might be a nice boost for the economy – reports suggest that sales of 55” or bigger TVs increased by 140% at John Lewis on the first day of the tournament and overall TV sales are double this time last year. Then it happened. Kane’s last-minute winner vs. Tunisia. The thumping of Panama and England’s first penalty shoot out win at a major tournament for 22 years and first ever in a World Cup. Cue World Cup Fever.

It was a drizzly day in Greater Manchester when I decided that I was going to pursue a degree in History (I’m pretty sure the late 90s classic film Anastasia had a lot to answer for). I loved my degree, and I took the opportunity to learn as many things as I physically could. Everything linked together, in quite a delicious fashion, but after writing two dissertations about Soviet film and 1980s American media, I was ready to apply my skills to something more practical. But where to go?

Achieving trust is the holy grail for brands. Kantar Millward Brown’s BrandZ study  showed that over 10 years, brands with above average trust grew by 170%, whilst those with below average trust shrunk by 13%.  Despite the clear benefits of brands driving trust, it seems that trusting a brand or company is becoming the exception rather than the norm as consumers have an increased sense of ‘us against them’.

We’ve all been there when a retailer or a brand appears to do something left field. Eye brows raise, we all chip in with our initial opinions with our desk buddies. Others see the potential. Throughout history some brands have got this right. General Electric started out selling lamps then diversified to electricity. Disney didn’t always do theme parks. 3M didn’t start off selling ‘post its’ that just happened by accident whilst developing a super strong adhesive.

When you think of the word ‘intern’, an image of somebody frantically running around the office making cups of tea is probably the first thing that comes to mind. My two week paid internship at Trinity McQueen was far from this.

If you’ve spoken to me for longer than fifteen minutes, there’s a good chance you’ve been the recipient of my enthusiastic Monzo elevator pitch. A true millennial cliché, I was once so engrossed in demonstrating the app that I walked into a lamppost. Monzo is one of the new(ish) challenger banks: a branchless, smartphone-only bank that is everything traditional banks aren’t. Others include Starling, Revolut and Atom, and their numbers are growing.

There have been a couple of interesting announcements in the world of on demand TV recently. Amazon are on the offensive and have finally secured some Premier League rights which they have been threatening to do for some time. And Freeview Play is being positioned as a bulwark for the UKs traditional retailers having received £125m of investment.

Finding a suitable research agency or marketing agency partner has no doubt become trickier as the research and marketing industry has fragmented further and further over the past decade.  Weeding out insight consultancies from technology platform providers and fieldwork agencies is far harder nowadays and knowing who to trust can be fraught.  It also helps if you know exactly what service you are looking to buy and how the agency can help. 

Every year, the Leeds Community Foundation help thousands of charities and voluntary groups across the city by distributing grants and providing advice.  They do this through the support of local businesses and individuals, connecting people who want to make a difference to the city. Last year alone, the foundation gave out over £6 million to nearly 500 groups across Leeds and Bradford.

It’s my first time at Nudgestock, Ogilvy’s behavioural science conference. I’m in a room with 450 people, a lucky dip of marketers, academics, researchers, students, brand and operations peeps from the private, public and third sectors. We’ve all travelled to Folkestone, which is sleepy, welcoming. It’s a 10 minute amble through the faded Victorian grandeur to Leas Cliff Hall. Beyond the stage and I can see the sea, which is unexpectedly turquoise.