What is strategy?

In the communications context, strategy is about solving problems with lateral thinking. It’s about understanding the cause of a business or brand problem – not simply solving a symptom – and digging for insights about people that are relevant to what the company has to offer… and linking them in a unique way.

There are all sorts of planners and strategists in the communications world: media planners, brand planners, social media planners, digital planners, experiential creative strategists and so on. What they all have in common is a drive to find a deep understanding of people – why they behave how they behave, why they think what they think, and then working out how to affect this behaviour and perception.

That’s all good and well but it’s easy for people to get lost in this stuff, in psychology, in research decks, to focus too much on being right rather than being compelling.
In a world where being agile, responsive, planning for the long-term but acting now are all increasingly important, ‘how strategy is’ – doing rather than pontificating, for instance – is increasingly becoming as important as ‘what strategy is’.