High performance, to me, has always been a gnarly expression.
That’s because it takes me back to my university days when I worked in a call-center. It was often shouted across the floor, usually in my direction. “More calls, Morby”. Or you’d find it written on every surface, “Make it count”, so many times that it could never be entirely erased, slowly becoming a haunting presence in every corner of the office.
It was a motivational mantra that became the stuff of nightmares.
I was paid to find and read business directory listings to callers. Yes, I was a human search engine.
Anyway, here I am some twenty years later talking about high performance in the context of creativity.
Anathema, you say. Oxymoron, you think. No.
The commercial reality of creative strategy
We’re not in the business of art; our services are procured to positively impact brands, businesses and organisations. And whether that’s protecting margins or fixing reputations, the outcome that ultimately determines our effectiveness is commercial.
And it’s getting harder to do that.
Barriers to entry are low, parity between brands is high, and price sensitivity is on the increase. What’s more, almost 90 per cent of ads are ignored, which means earning audience attention is harder than attempting to platinum Elden Ring. That’s why the pressure on agencies to deliver has never been greater.
Creativity is the second biggest multiplier of return on marketing investment (ROMI), and is one of the most effective ways to drive brand growth. But creativity without strategic direction is a beautiful mess, and it’s rare that a beautiful mess will lead to spectacular impact.
This is why understanding, framing and establishing high performance in a strategy department is so important. You need to surround yourself with strategists who can consistently unlock creativity under intense pressure and scrutiny, quicker than ever before. Pitches bring out the best in everyone; a high performing strategist enables this on every brief.
That’s why they are to bonds, what creatives are to equities in a portfolio. Client and agency returns are heavily diminished if this mix isn’t right.
Strategy is the process
So, what do I think makes for a highly effective strategist?
Assuming they have all those foundational characteristics that we know make for a great strategist, they will be the folks who recognise that strategy is not a thing in and of itself. When strategy is seen as one part of the process and not the process, it fails.
Everything is strategy, so strategists should make themselves available everywhere.
Data isn’t used as a crutch, but something to be questioned and challenged in the pursuit of unlocking creativity.
Their superpower is empathy, so when the agency feels like a chaotic WWE Royal Rumble, they possess the ability to understand individual motivations, anxieties and agendas, and can help navigate strategy towards a coherent and coordinated performance. It also enables them, in a world of prompt engineering, to keep humanity close to the strategy.
But signing Watkins is one thing, keeping him there and banging in worldies is another.
Creating the playing field for strategists
So how do we build the space for high performing strategists to thrive?
Too often we treat strategists like characters in a sandbox game, assuming that simply giving them freedom will lead to brilliant results. That serendipity will save the day. And yes, there are amazing creative discoveries to be found by wandering aimlessly through research debriefs, shopping malls and last year’s Cannes winners, but impactful strategy requires more than just freedom, it requires structure.
There’s a big difference between obliquity and being adrift.
I’m not advocating for an on-rails approach, but without guidance, headless and chicken spring to mind. So there needs to be structure and culture baked into the department which enables goals, direction, meaningful choices, and positive consequences to be discovered in every project.
The framework for success
It starts with expectations; a strategist needs to know they’re responsible for helping to create a future where the brand must experience disproportionate impact to the competition. In other words, expect a lot.
They then need the protection and autonomy to do their thing, their way. They must be encouraged to be vocal, to subvert, to be opinionated and challenging. Their instincts must be nurtured rather suppressed; they need the license to circumnavigate conventional wisdom if their gut tells them so.
And lastly, you can’t consistently deliver highly effective strategies if strategists aren’t able to coalesce around a single purpose.
That’s why I believe there must be a system or methodology in place that governs the strategic output, something that speaks to the purpose of your agency, be that truth, disruption, integration or impact. Not only does it focus the mind, but as a universal framework within the agency, it provides a common language and goal that can drive integration and collaboration.
My parting thought is this: in today’s challenging market, where agencies are having to work harder to prove their worth, only by embracing rigor, empowering your strategists, and fostering a culture of shared purpose, can we unlock the returns that we are uniquely placed to deliver.
By Mario Morby, Chief Strategy Officer – MENA at Memac Ogilvy.
