A sound strategy that drives business growth

Article by Dan Bailin

A Sound Strategy that Drives Business Growth

Without a solid strategy orchestrated to drive business growth, creative is just a bunch of really nice guitar riffs without a song structure. Don’t get me wrong, the ideas in these riffs may melt your face, but do they also drive the desired action? Are the ideas based on real insight?  

When in sync, an insightful positioning and a cool idea can build on each other to become a veritable Hall & Oates of brand communication…catchy, clever, easy on the eyes, tingly for the mind and what it takes to get the target audience moving. 

My belief is that if you have an account lead who is not on the tour bus with the creative team, it is time to find another bandmate. Strategy should not just inform creative ideation but harmonize with it. The two should groove and improvise with each other, have their fair share of tension, but ultimately remain the best of friends.  

A great strategic brief is like a great playlist

A good place to start is making a solid playlist in the form of a creative brief that inspires instead of just informs. It might look something like this:

• Love and Understanding: the target isn’t a datapoint, it is a real person so get to know what makes them tick.
• The Competition Blues: Being outspent by a big bully or out-innovated by a challenger? This is the place where you treat the brief like a bartender and tell them exactly why the target is thinking about leaving you.
• We Need a Single: the brief boils down to this question: what is the single most persuasive thing we can say. Like any good earworm, the single message is the hit that the rest of the album, or in this case the brief, should be built around.
• I’m a Believer: what are the proof points in the pudding for why we have what the target really needs and supports the single message.
• I Can’t Get No Call To Action: when the “learn more” button just isn’t enough and you want to really motivate people to change behavior.

So the next time you get ready to put on a creative show or you buy a ticket to one as a client, don’t skip over the strategy slide. It is the opening track that sets the tone for the concept album.

Or better yet, come jam with us at p3 and hear more about what a collaborative approach to strategic and creative partnership sounds like. Let’s produce a hit together.