Marketing strategists from around the globe have shared what they feel are the top challenges and key opportunities that need to be addressed, as budget cuts and generative AI continue to disrupt the discipline.
They are now looking for opportunities to demonstrate their value, according to The Future of Strategy 2024 report released by the global authority on marketing effectiveness WARC, which surveyed more than 1,148 marketing strategists worldwide – a majority of which are agency-side.
Lena Roland, Content Director, WARC Strategy, said, “Our annual Future of Strategy report acts as a temperature check for how strategists are feeling about the state of the discipline. The report looks at how strategy careers are evolving, the biggest forces impacting the function, and the core values strategists can bring to help marketers get a more realistic understanding of people and cultural trends.”
The annual WARC study highlights key challenges facing agency strategists and outlines three ways to reignite the discipline, pivotal to the marketing ecosystem.
Top challenges facing agency strategists
Lack of ‘whole’ strategy thinking
Specialists roles are important but the ‘splintering’ of strategy can be problematic, especially if teams are not connected to clients’ broader brand and business goals.
Suzanne Powers, Founder, Powers Creativity, said, “Specialism is incredibly important, but perhaps all the tiny cuts and/or slivers of the strategic skill set, while well intentioned to bring in needed expertise, have eroded the power and magic of ‘whole’ strategy thinking a.k.a. diagnosing, designing and activating the plan for the total system.”
Strategy is undervalued
Only one in four strategists (24 per cent) agree that clients pay sufficiently for the value of their work. Great strategy can have a profoundly positive impact on clients’ business, yet the impact of strategy can be hard to measure and prove.
Half of all strategists (48 per cent) disagree that clients pay sufficiently for the value of their work, and only one in four agree (24 per cent). This is consistent across all markets.
Geraldine Gaillemin, Managing Partner, The Blue Print, said, “(Strategists) are often essential to winning the client over during the pitch and longer term a key holder of the senior client relationship. Yet it’s hard for them to prove their value and their worth during a time when more and more is being asked of them.”
According to the survey, the dominant agency time based business model needs a rethink: 44 per cent of strategists prefer a fixed/project based fee.
Core skills are under threat
Only 43 per cent of strategists agree that their company invests in training to support their professional development.
Reduced training budgets, tight deadlines, hybrid working, and senior talent leaving agencies mean a skills gap is emerging. Strategists must hone their critical thinking or risk becoming mere transmitters of information.
Only 43 per cent of strategists agree that their company invests in training to support their professional development, with 31 per cent disagreeing.
Three opportunities to reignite strategy and address the client-strategists disconnect
Adopt ‘whole’ strategy thinking
Strategy is bigger than an ad or digital idea. This means knowing the big picture and ensuring different ‘flavours’ of strategy are working in service of the broader brand and business goals.
Leaders should ensure the whole team knows and understands the ‘big ambition’. Knowledge of the commercial side of a client’s business is important.
Strategists must understand the customer
Marketers have lost sight of the customer, and this is evident in client briefs, the WARC report reveals. Just 24 per cent of strategists say detailed information about the target audience features in the majority of client briefs, while 13 per cent say this information does not feature in any briefs.
Strategists can close the client disconnect by showing clients they understand their customers and can help clients get to a better understanding of market dynamics, and the diagnosis of their brand.
Burst the ‘strategy bubble’
Marketers can operate in a ‘bubble’ far removed from the reality of their customers’ lives, according to the WARC report. Strategists must retain the link to ‘real life’, and can do so by using a variety of research tools, including in-person research.
Half of all strategists (48 per cent) say they are spending less time conducting in-person research compared to last year.
Impact of AI on strategists – ‘cautiously progressive’
More than half of strategists (59 per cent) say they are integrating AI into their strategy development process in a “cautiously progressive” way.
One in every five (20 per cent) strategists are taking an aggressive approach, and looking to adopt AI whenever they can. Speedy access to research and insight (74 per cent) and streamlining repetitive tasks (74 per cent) are the top opportunities strategists see in leveraging AI in the strategy process.
The most significant limitations for the use of AI remain the same as in 2023: skewed outputs (71 per cent), lack of creativity and originality (63 per cent) and ethical / legal considerations (48 per cent).
Proving the value of strategy is even more important in the age of AI. Strategists must identify the skills that AI cannot replace, such as getting buy-in for a strategy and double down on them.
Liston Pitman, Strategy Director, eatbigfish, said, “AI can spit out an idea, but it can’t get a group of people aligned around or invested in it. It can’t see your culture or truly understand the humans who make it up. And it can’t go meeting-to-meeting, layer-by-layer advocating for the strategy.”
A lack of progress in DEI and climate
DEI and climate are largely absent from client briefs worldwide, highlighting the tension of balancing commercial priorities with better outcomes for people and planet.
Globally, 68 per cent of strategists agree that it is important for brands to take a stand on environmental issues (7 percentage point drop from 2023).
