• by Fredda Hurwitz , March 1, 2018

Somewhere along the way, while above-the-line creative and media agencies were beefing up their strategy teams with lots of great brains to mine gold nugget insights and never-before-discovered moments of truth, brand experience agencies got lost in the mix.

These agencies would often (and still sometimes do) approach a brief by going straight to tactics, bypassing human insights with a “strategy has no place here” mentality, that is, if it was even considered. But, it’s not just agencies that have been brainwashed into believing there’s no place for strategy. Rather frighteningly it’s the clients as well who don’t include these agencies at the top table because they simply don’t believe they have a strategic contribution to make. Really?

Thankfully, the times they are a-changing.

Today, the strategic and creative worlds are increasingly operating as a partnership across the

brand experience space and beyond--a shift that cannot be underestimated. Agencies and their client partners have cottoned on to the value of this double act, finally acknowledging the very real and tangible impact that strategy plus creative is having on their business. And yes, in that order.

A 2017 global survey by brand experience agency Freeman found that over one-third of all the CMOs they surveyed said they expect that brand experiences will make up between 21-50% of their marketing budget within the next five years. This is huge. Finally the conversation is going beyond pure ROI and acquisition and attracting lots of new players.  

Let’s take a look at Accenture and Deloitte’s recent giddy shopping spree, snapping up agencies to complement their traditional service set - no doubt the first of many for them as well as the other consultancies.

They didn’t just buy cute or quirky little shops, they bought highly-awarded agencies with data, insight and creative at their core. When Accenture acquired creative agency Karmarama, the headline was focused on expanding brand strategy and mobile experience capabilities in the UK.

At the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity this past June, the presence of Accenture Interactive among other consultancies certainly wasn’t subtle: “We don’t believe brands are built from advertising anymore” said Brian Whipple, senior managing director of Accenture Interactive. “They are built from an amalgamation of customer experiences, so that is what we are focused on.” 

Jason De Turris, chief strategy officer at Phenomenon, a Los Angeles digital shop, had this to say: “Strategy has become a ‘black ops’ unit tasked with acting as the voice of the consumer

while designing content and business strategies that go beyond communications to more directly drive product development and sales.” He describes Phenomenon’s approach as “consult creatively but make strategically,” and would like to see a more prominent role for experiential analytics within strategy groups.

So what does all of this mean in practical terms?

In its simplest form, it might be as banal as good old fashioned recognition that the most successful partnerships work because they’ve positively embraced their “zing” (thank you Hotel Transylvania), like Oreos and milk, Lucy and Ricky, pen and paper.

A loftier thought might be this: gone is the notion that creative acts on its own, armed with a magic cauldron and some “on a need-to-know basis” incantations. Memorable brand experiences, no matter  the size nor where a person encounters that engagement, are built on insights that lead to great strategy and creative that soars. Remove one of these pillars and the others simply topple over. Not a great start upon which to build a foundation. Even skeptical anti-strategists can accept this, right?!