Strategy is shrinking — and how to fight back

Because expansive brand strategy is the best brand strategy

In 2005, when I was a newly-minted, junior brand strategist, I honked at a client. Loudly. Like a goddamn goose. To a table of very important dudes from major, global tech company.

Our strategy was all about community. But this was before smart phones, before modern social networks and before community-based strategies were the norm. Clients weren’t there yet; it took a lot of inspiration and education to sell a strategy like this through.

So we brought in the science and psychology of goose migrations and how their vocalizations create a system of support as they make their arduous treks every year. The honking geese were a phenomenon that everyone had witnessed and a metaphor that brilliantly guided the thinking.

But God it was still a risk, God I was sweating buckets, nervous for days leading up to that presentation, knowing that for this strategy to have a chance in hell, that I had to commit to the metaphor and present it with gusto.

But it worked.
It was non-linear, it was weird, a bit bonks…
and there was definitely a moment where the clients were like WTF is going on…
but it worked.

I’m sad to say that I haven’t honked at a client recently. I’m sadder to say that the reason I haven’t honked at a client recently is because strategy is shrinking.

• We have less time to do the work.

• We’re catering to an algorithmic context where data points have become a proxy for human insight and frameworks have become stand-ins for stories.

• Strategic creativity, qualitative dives and non-linear thinking are often assumed to be time-wasters when the pressure is on.

• Strategic explorations are narrowing to the bounds of the category and client research and data.

• And now we can just AI our investigations and insights, so the journeys of intellectual and emotional magic, the raw material of rich brand worlds, are suddenly neatly and blandly served to us on a pixelated platter.

As a result, I’m increasingly seeing smart but uninspired PowerPoint drumrolls that could lull even the most tortured insomniac into a blissful slumber, exactly in the moment that the world needs divergent thinking more than ever before.

Am I surprised by this shift? Absolutely not. Because as we’ve sped up, as we’ve gotten dulled by algorithmically-driven content and creativity, as we’ve nestled into our bubbles and shied away from challenge, as we’ve been subjected to yet another sequel versus something new, as we’ve slowed up on reading and grappling with complex concepts… I fear we’ve stopped yearning for truly expansive thinking - in our companies, our clients, even in ourselves.

So yeah, this makes me sad. But more than that, it pisses me off. We’re abandoning something powerful, beautiful and effective. So instead of accepting the sad clown shrinking strategy flow, I’m re-committing to expansive brand strategy.

What is expansive brand strategy?

Expansive brand strategy is the practice of intentionally integrating thinking, currents, concepts and inspiration from beyond the immediate business context to expand and deepen the strategic outputs.

This happens in a few ways:

→ Trust that unconnected sparks electrify the work. Seemingly random inputs from art, history, nature, culture and beyond can jolt a strategy alive in ways category research on its own never will.

→ Ground strategy in deeper currents and primal truths. Human experience loops through the same themes across time and culture. When you tap into those eternal patterns, your strategy gets weight and resonance that last week’s brand tracking alone just can’t provide.

→ Root strategy in audacious visions of the future. When you anchor today’s tactics to a bold future state, the immediate work becomes more vibrant and alive.

This isn’t rocket science — expansive brand strategy used to just be what great brand strategy was. So this isn’t some mystical new thing that we need to invent; we know how to create rich, strategic, smart worlds that provide fertile territory for company, product, creative and media invention.

It’s the craft of the discipline, dammit.

I have hope. Because lately I’ve found that when I rattle the cages and point out how this richness is missing, clients want it. They miss it too. The hunger is there for inventiveness, for creative difference, for work that feels huge but also human and grounded.

And as the owners of the first deliverable in the process, brand strategists set the tone. It’s up to us to grab the responsibility of expansiveness, snap clients and colleagues out of the strangling malaise we’re all living in and remind them what’s possible. And then deliver it.

Here are a few ways to do it:

Keep your own inputs expansive, always
It’s true — we don’t have the time that we used to have to do this work. One could argue that the answer to this time deficit is merely a well-crafted AI prompt to bring in the divergent inputs. I call bullshit on that — to truly be expansive, you have to experience the source of divergence in your own bones, not read about it on a screen.

Instead, keep your input diet stellar as much as possible so you have a better inspirational reserve to draw on in those pressure moments. Read books. Watch bonkers movies. Pick up a zine. Go to a museum. When you’re waiting somewhere, put down the damn phone and watch what’s going on around you. Have a conversation with someone different from you and listen.

Get in the practice of first experience - meaning, don’t experience something that’s been filtered through an algorithm; be bullish about having the experience yourself.

Name it to claim it.
I’m explicit with myself and others: there’s going to be a period where I expand and experiment. I name it. And in naming it, I give myself permission to protect that time.

I used to get a few weeks for the initial immersion — now sometimes it’s a day or two. But if I carve those days as the expansion days, the “flipping through art and history books, going down wormholes and doodling on a white board” days, my strategies get infinitely stronger.

Get cozy with cycles, currents and primal truths
The human experience loops through the same themes, struggles, aspirations and paths across time. Once you build “the sight” into your strategy work and keep those eternal and cyclic themes as grounding elements, your work will have a solidity that momentary snapshots can’t provide.

I admire Mark Rukman as a brand strategist who fosters this greater view in his work. I also appreciate how at BBH we were taught to ground our brands in timeless truths — therefore Johnny Walker was, at its core, about Progress while Axe was about Seduction, themes that you can find throughout time and in every culture, giving more depth to the work.

Create dream spaces
One of the most important thought exercises that I do on every, single assignment is spend time with the following prompt:

If this work/brand/company is wildly successful, what change do we see in the world?

It forces horizon thinking. It makes us grapple with where the future could go and how our clients want to shape it. It orients current strategies around bolder futures, giving them deeper purpose and energy.

Katie Dreke is a strategist who has shown me that exploring future spaces is a killer mechanism to make today’s work more inspired. And she got me tuned into Octavia Butler, which I’m forever grateful for not only because Ms. Butler is a force, but because sci-fi is such an evocative practice of futuring that we all can learn from.

So back to the honking…

A funny thing happened after that presentation — the entire strategy department started honking. When one of us was heading into a big presentation or had a big win, we’d honk at them. We’d sign off emails to one another with “honk honk” to remind one another that you are supported, you are amazing, you should go for it. Twenty years later, I’ll still get a text that ends with #honk.

In championing this expansive brand strategy, I’m asking myself and anyone who is reading this to be a little different, embrace inputs and processes that are increasingly against the norm, to be brave enough to advocate for the space, both emotional and functional, to bring this expansiveness in.

We need to be a little more weird and fearless and opinionated and stick our necks out, because when we do, the work is so much more satisfying and better. We’re better as practitioners, but we’re also better as people.

Honk honk.