The industry has changed – strategists need to change with it
It’s time to evolve, argues Havas Media Group head of integrated strategy and planning Nick Kavanagh.
From speaking less and listening more (Mike Wilson), to remembering that you’re paid for your opinion, “so speak-up” (Joe Lunn), there are certain pieces of wisdom, passed on by bosses and mentors over my career, that have really stuck. But there’s one morsel that’s proving particularly resonant at the moment.
While at Naked Communications, my then head of planning Karla Pritchard warned me of the dangers of the “muffin-top strategy”: work that’s all high-level insight, perfectly honed platform idea and comms architecture, but very little in terms of explicit implementational direction or creative stimulus.
Now I reckon this was given to me ten years ago, but two things about it have stuck with me. The first is that Karla must have been a big Seinfeld fan, the other is that never has this pearl of wisdom been more important than right now.
