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Leslie Butterfield, is a British brand and communications expert.

Early Life
Leslie Paul Butterfield lived in Newbury, Berkshire until aged 18, attending St. Bartholomew’s Grammar School. He graduated from North East London Polytechnic (now University of East London) in 1974 with BA (Hons) 1st class in Business Studies. Graduated from Lancaster University in 1975 with MA Marketing (with Distinction).

Early career
Butterfield joined the fledgling advertising agency, Boase Massimi Pollitt in October 1975 as a trainee Account Planner. He joined start-up agency Abbott Mead Vickers as Planning Director in April 1980.

Chair of the UK’s Account Planning Group in 1984-5. Chair of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising’s Education and Training Committee from 1986 to 1989. Made a Fellow of the IPA in 1989.

Butterfield Day Devito Hockney
Butterfield started this agency in March 1987 with three partners. Initially he was Planning Director, later Chairman. The company grew to become a Top 20 UK advertising agency by 2002, securing clients such as Honda, BT, The Cooperative Bank, Harley Davidson, the Labour Party and Mercedes-Benz. In 1998 the agency was sold to Snyder Communications, who in turn were acquired by Havas Groupe in 2000. BDDH was ultimately folded into Havas’ Euro RSCG network in 2003.

Political involvement and work
Butterfield became involved in work for the UK Labour Party in 1985, when he was introduced by BMP’s CEO, Sir Chris Powell, to Labour’s ‘Breakfast Group’ (chaired by Peter Mandelson). For that group, he conducted a major piece of qualitative research (titled ‘Society and Self’) 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 major piece of research after the 1992 election, concluding that a much deeper re-assessment of Labour’s offer to the electorate was necessary. He undertook further research, and advised on Labour’s communications with the electorate, for each of the next three elections, all won by Tony Blair.

Early Brand Consultancy roles
Butterfield left BDDH at the beginning of 2001 to pursue a career. His first venture, Butterfield8, was a new consultancy concept that included himself plus seven partners from brand-related disciplines. Butterfield8 was sold to The Ingram Partnership in 2003 and Butterfield joined TIP as a partner. in 2006, Ingram decided to close the business and release all partners from their contracts.

Butterfield briefly ran a new consultancy, Butterfield Partners, in 2007-8 – working with Alliance & Leicester (Santander), Bupa, the Cabinet Office and the Liberal Democrats – 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 2008-12, he moved to Shanghai with his family from 2013-15.

On returning to the UK in 2015, Butterfield and his partner, Penny Harris, left their corporate roles in London to start their own new brand consultancy business - Butterfield Harris – based in the Cotswolds.

In parallel, Butterfield became involved as an investor and Non-exec Director in the recipe box brand Mindful Chef from 2015 until its majority sale to Nestlé in 2020 and, from 2021, in the baby clothing rental brand Bundlee. He also acted as Non-exec Chairman of the Manchester-based research company, Join the Dots Ltd., from 2017 until its sale to InSites Consulting in 2019.

In January 2022, Leslie was invited to become 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'