Alastair Campbell

Though his background is in politics, Alastair Campbell has brought his campaigning skills to bear in a number of fields. After losing his best friend to leukaemia, he has fronted charity efforts to raise funds and research into cures and better treatments. He has won awards and plaudits home and abroad for his work on mental illness. He has taken his campaign skills to different issues. British radio presenter Nick Ferrari said: “When Alastair Campbell picks a fight, the chances are he is going to win that fight.” But how do you campaign? What Are the essential elements needed to separate a great campaign from a good one? From Experience and analysis, he has those answers, and they can help any cause, charity, business, party or government trying to make change for the better.

Alastair Campbell discusses the importance of strategy in achieving success, emphasizing clarity, leadership, and adaptability in both personal and professional contexts.

Alastair Campbell knows all about mental illness. At 29, the youngest national news editor in Britain, he had a drink- and pressure-induced nervous breakdown, was arrested and hospitalized and diagnosed with depression and addiction issues. He rebuilt himself and his career and went on to take on one of the toughest jobs going—running the media operation for Tony Blair in Britain’s highly aggressive media and political environment. He is now a global campaigner on mental illness, fighting to break down stigma and taboo and also to urge business to better understand mental health and mental illness, and to see the advantages of doing so. Campbell’s latest book, Winners, has a chapter on ‘the extreme mind,’ setting out the great figures of history, from Lincoln to Churchill, Florence Nightingale to Charles Darwin—and great winners of today—who have had what doctors define as mental illness. He argues not just for better understanding but better appreciation of what people living on the edge have to offer.

Alastair Campbell is a proven winner, obsessed with others who win. His latest book is called simply Winners, and looks at winners in sport, business and politics—in that order—to see what makes them stand out from others, and crucially, what all of us can learn from those who win. He sets out all the things needed of a winner—strategy, leadership, teamship, boldness, innovation, the ability to handle setback and failure. In looking at the best of the best—from Clinton to Merkel, from Brady to Beckham, from Lincoln to Churchill, from Anna Wintour to Arianna Huffington, from Branson to Buffett—he explains how mere mortals can learn something from all of them.

Alastair Campbell made his name as a tough, no-nonsense media operator that earned him the title “the world’s best spin doctor,” and a job offer from Bill Clinton. But spin, he says, is doomed to fail unless underpinned by real principles of strategic communications. As the media world becomes more atomized, as old certainties die, how does a modern brand—human or organizational—communicate a message? How Has technology changed the way that leaders communicate, and the led listen? And Given how much change there has been in the last decade, how much more is to come, and what are the threats and opportunities presented? Campbell Has ridden the waves of these changes by adhering to certain principles of strategic communications, which can be applied by any organization or individual who understands that in a world where the pressures are to be more tactical, strategy and strategic communications are the answer.