Leslie Butterfield

Leslie Butterfield is a British brand and communications expert.

Early career
Butterfield joined the advertising agency, Boase Massimi Pollitt in October 1975. He joined the agency Abbott Mead Vickers as Planning Director in April 1980.

Butterfield started Butterfield Day DeVito Hockney in March 1987 with three partners. Initially, he was the planning director and later chairman. The company grew to become a Top 20 UK advertising agency by 2002. In 1998, the agency was sold to Snyder Communications.

Political involvement and work
Butterfield became involved in work for the UK Labour Party in 1985. He also conducted qualitative research to evaluate the impact of Margaret Thatcher's policies on voting intentions, and how Labour might respond to this. In his book, 'The Unfinished Revolution', Philip Gould (later Baron Gould of Brookwood) described this as "the single most influential piece of research ever conducted for Labour". Butterfield conducted another piece of research after the 1992 election, concluding that more re-assessment of Labour's offer to the electorate was necessary. He undertook further research and advised on Labour's communications with the voters for each of the following three elections, all won by Tony Blair.

Early Brand Consultancy roles
Butterfield left BDDH at the beginning of 2001 to pursue a career focusing on brand and communications consultancy. His first venture, Butterfield8, was a consultancy company that included himself plus seven partners. Butterfield8 was sold to The Ingram Partnership in 2003 and Butterfield joined TIP as a partner. Then, Butterfield briefly ran a new consultancy, Butterfield Partners, from 2007 to 2008, before joining Interbrand in November 2008. In recognition of his services to the Advertising Industry, Butterfield was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the Queen's 2007 Birthday Honours list.

Recent career
Butterfield joined Interbrand in 2008 as Global Chief Strategy Officer and was later promoted to the Executive Leadership team of the company. Based in London from 2008 to 2012, he moved to Shanghai with his family from 2013 to 2015. On returning to the UK in 2015, Butterfield and his partner left their corporate roles to start a new brand consultancy business - Butterfield Harris.

Butterfield also acted as a Non-exec Director in the recipe box business Mindful Chef from 2015 until its majority sale to Nestlé in 2020. He was also Non-exec Chairman of the research company Join the Dots Ltd. from 2017 until 2019.

In 2022, Butterfield became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Books

 * Excellence in Advertising. The IPA Guide to Best Practice.; First edition 1997. Second Edition 1999; Butterworth Heinemann
 * AdValue. Twenty ways Advertising works for Business.; 2003; Butterworth Heinemann
 * Enduring Passion. The Story of the Mercedes-Benz Brand; 2005; Wiley'