Our today’s interviewee is Hugh Robertson, Founding Partner and CEO of the London-based marketing agency RPM , Board Director at the MAA, successful businessmen, and simply a very bright and optimistic person. Hugh told Popsop about what a young person needed to start a business, how the role of ATL vs BTL marketing had changed over years, and what had kept him busy and inspired through his entire 19-year career in marketing.

Today’s Popsop guest and speaker is a very bright personality with a multicultural background and broad variety of interests and skills. French-born from Serbian parents, he speaks 5 languages including French, English, Mandarin, Russian and Serbian, holds degree in Applied Maths from prestigious Ecole Centrale de Paris and Management Science degree from Shanghai Jiaotong University. This is the man who dared to take a dive into the China world back in 2001 and launched a successful brand and research ‘laboratory balancing between rationality and creativity’ there. Now Shanghai-based Labbrand, founded and headed by Vladimir Djurovic, is an internationally recognized brand expert with clients such as ClubMed, L’Oréal, P&G, Disney, Volkswagen, IKEA, Gucci Group, Häagen-Dazs, ING, Nestle, TESCO and many others.

American packaging design industry veteran, Ted Mininni of Design Force, considers how the design providers became more ‘left-brained’ and analytical over years, shares the firm’s ‘survival strategy’ for the recessionary times and recommends some good and inspiring read for the U.S. peers.

A world-renowned brand and design expert with the 35-year history, with dozen of international design awards, which has repositioned Glenfiddich three times and Campari and Chivas Regal twice, — this is all about Claessens International. Company’s creative director, James Boulton, shares his vision on some latest trends in packaging design for alcoholic drinks, talks about their experience with Russia and discusses how globalisation influences the drinking culture around the world.

One of the top-rated UK packaging design consultancies, jkr, published last December its third book about design — an observation on 25 great brands, which give us all a good lesson. This brilliant mix of thoughts, trivia, beautiful images and juicy copy titled ‘Champions of Design’ is being given away in electronic form — you can either read it onscreen or download the PDF to your desktop.

Today’s Popsop interview (the last one this year) is with Darren Foley, Managing Director of Pearlfisher studio in London, a packaging design specialist with fresh approach, unique culture and a long list of happy international clients. We asked Darren about how the UK design industry came through the post-recessionary 2011 year, about overseas opportunities and his vision on what’s to come in 2012.

This week Popsop has interviewed Coley Porter Bell CEO Vicky Bullen, who has led the team to the international recognition amongst clients far beyond the UK, including Russia. She tells about the projects with Pernod Ricard Rouss and Krupskaya Confectionery, discusses overseas opportunities for the UK design businesses and spots how to prevent Creative Britain from going in reverse.