If you’re searching for or hiring a strategist, you’ll come across lots of different terms and skills. Unhelpfully, these aren’t always clearly defined and many strategists, especially as they progress in their careers, will begin to stretch across different specialisms and offerings – I know I do. The guide below aims to help you understand the different types of problems a strategist can solve and what terms might be used to describe them.
1.) Brand Strategy
What problem do they solve: How do I find long term success and growth in a market across campaigns and activity?
How do I identify myself and what will I be known for? How do I talk about the value I provide and why I’m different from competitors? What’s my tone of voice and criteria for how I behave? Do I need to rethink elements of my brand?
What other names would they go by: Brand strategist, brand planner, brand consultant, brand director, marketing strategist.
What they do and what they don’t: They do define the positioning, purpose, brand assets, tone, values, personality, architecture and competitive view. They don’t make a specific ad, run media or manage social channels. A brand strategist will give you the framework and foundation to make all of these things work together in the long term.
What does their output look like: A positioning or strategy document, a brand platform, a messaging hierarchy and if needed, a name or visual guidelines. It should be a system, not just a document or a logo.
Watch out for: Confusion on the title of ‘brand strategist’. In the US this may also mean creative strategy (see below). Clarify if you’re looking for strategy that’s bigger than one campaign vs. a specific campaign. A brand strategist can also do creative strategy (Brand + Campaign Creation), but defining where you start is important.
What to ask about: An understanding of why and how brands grow and succeed. Examples of brands they’ve created or admire and why.
Example Projects: Reebok’s global challenger repositioning, the Mettle and RTGS.Global fintech brand creations, and Vanguart’s luxury brand strategy. More on the brand strategy page.
2.) Creative Strategy
What problem do they solve: How do I help achieve a specific objective within wider strategy through communications? How do I communicate a specific message? Why should my audience care? What will change their behavior or make them feel something?
What other names would they go by: Creative strategist, account planner, creative planner, ad planner or even just strategist in creative focused organizations.
What they do and what they don’t: They interrogate a brief, find an insight, think about the message and sharpen your ask into a clear direction for creative development. They don’t art-direct or write the final work, or change your wider brand.
What does their output look like: A creative strategy and brief. A campaign platform or a set or strategic / idea territories. An insight and thinking that proposes why a campaign will be effective.
Watch out for: Confusion on the title of ‘brand strategist’. In the US it can be used interchangeably with ‘brand strategy’ see above. A strategist can often do both brand and creative strategy, but defining the focus is key before you start.
Creative strategy has also begun to expand in recent years to include concepting and other creative development. Hybrid creative / strategists can help write and answer a brief, but the scope needs to be clear from the start and strategy should be as important as the output to ensure effectiveness.
What to ask about: An understanding of human behavior and culture. Why does your audience do what they do? What are they excited about in culture for your brand or organization? What examples of work stand out to them and why?
Example Projects: UNICEF’s Make It Happen and See the Potential, Listerine, Lebara and Wolf Blass. More on the creative strategy page.
3.) Communications Strategy
What problem do they solve: Where should my campaign or idea live? How do people experience it? How can we demonstrate our message through placement and experience? How do we change behavior?
What other names would they go by: Communications strategist, comms strategist, comms planner, connections planner, media strategist, channel planner or experience planner.
What they do and what they don’t: They do design the architecture of a campaign: audience, roles for channels, phasing, touchpoints, the interplay between different paid, owned, earned or borrowed type channels and media ‘behavior’. They don’t buy the media or usually originate the creative idea – but a good comms strategist builds on it to make it come to life.
What does their output look like: A comms or channel plan, an ecosystem or journey map, an audience and touchpoint strategy or role of channels in a framework. These serve as the connective tissue between brand, creative and media.
Watch out for: Comms strategy doesn’t normally involve media buying, but an understanding of what’s possible for certain budgets and brands is helpful.
What to ask about: An understanding of how channels are used or are changing. Thoughts on where attention is shifting and how to leverage it.
Example Projects: UPS – Business Trips, Shell Rimula – Real Destinations, LG – Tickethunter and the Penfolds Royal Opera House partnership. More on the communications planning page.
4.) Data Strategy
What problem do they solve: How do I turn my data into insights? How can I get an understanding of what’s working or has worked? How can we measure performance and optimize? How can I understand audiences and segments?
What other names would they go by: Data strategist, analyst, analytics, effectiveness strategist, quant or marketing scientist.
What they do and what they don’t: They do frame questions, choose metrics, build and implement a measurement approach and translate data into direction and decisions. They don’t usually build the entire data pipeline or engineer your technical stack – but there is overlap with software development.
What does their output look like: A measurement framework, KPI and metric definitions, reporting or dashboards.
Watch out for: The quality of analysis is dependent on the quality of your data. Being upfront and clear about what data you have and its clarity is key.
What to ask about: How would you measure certain behavior or outcomes? What are the best ways to get to insight? What does a good insight look like?
Example Projects: New Classic’s Airgo data platform is an example of building data platforms and tools.
5.) Content Strategy
What problem do they solve: What can I make that people want to spend time with? What stories should we tell and how do we engage people? What is our ongoing content and messaging engine within and across campaigns?
What other names would they go by: Content strategist, brand or content lead, content designer or potentially, editorial strategist.
What they do and what they don’t: They do define a content proposition, pillars, formats, cadence and an editorial logic that ties together the different stories a brand can tell. They don’t necessarily write or produce every asset.
What does their output look like: A content strategy and editorial framework, pillars and format roles, a plan to associate with specific themes or a potential calendar. Guidance on a process to run the strategy. The output should be a repeatable system, not a series of posts.
Watch out for: Content strategy can be centered around or contained within a larger brand idea, but should push in many different directions to resonate with the audience. The difference between advertising and content is where you start. Content begins with where people naturally spend time and stretches to the brand and message, while advertising often does the opposite.
Creator / Strategists are increasing in availability, but how much a strategist plans vs. produces is a key conversation to have.
What to ask about: What people spend time with? What type of stories should my brand tell? Who is creating effective and engaging content in their eyes?
Example Projects: Heinz’s always-on organic content and TikTok Culture Engine
6.) Digital / Social Strategy
What problem do they solve: How should my brand behave online? What innovation should I consider in new platforms or channels? How do I show up in different, but correct ways across different social platforms, apps or experiences? How do I turn customers into community members?
What other names would they go by: Social strategist, digital strategist, community strategist, platform strategist.
What they do and what they don’t: They do translate a brand into platform behaviors – tone, formats, cadence, content, etc. They do guide on what to leverage from new features or functionality and how to engage and converse with customers. They don’t usually own a paid media plan or budgeting. They have a view on what types of trends and cultural moments to engage with vs. chasing all of them.
What does their output look like: A social or digital playbook or strategy. A platform approach with channel roles, a community or engagement approach.
Watch out for: Siloing ‘social’ or ‘digital’ from wider strategic development. All channels are increasingly social in some way and brands need to be inherently social beyond a feed or post. Balance specialism with holistic integration and thinking.
What to ask about: What people spend time with? What type of stories should my brand tell? Who is creating effective and engaging content in their eyes?
Example Projects: Heinz’s always-on organic social, the TikTok EMEA Culture Engine (predictive cultural mapping for social) and UNICEF – See the World Like a Gamer.
7.) Strategic Research
What problem do they solve: How can I find out more about my audience or market? How do people perceive my product or brand? Why are people doing what they’re doing? What’s really true about what I know?
What other names would they go by: Strategic researcher, researcher, insights expert, qual or quant researcher, cultural strategist, trends analyst or futures strategist.
What they do and what they don’t: They do design and run a research enquiry (either themselves or with support) across qualitative, quantitative, cultural, semiotic or desk research – turning findings into implications and insights a team can act on. They don’t often recruit samples or build a survey tool vs. using these.
What does their output look like: A research or insight report, a debrief, a cultural or category analysis, segments or audience definitions or a trends / foresight piece.
Watch out for: There are many different types of research and many different specialisms. Strategists may have different levels of experience and comfort from qualitative analysis (interviews, focus groups) vs. quantitative (surveys, testing). Talking about whats appropriate as a method and then what experience exists is key to good work.
What to ask about: How would you research a specific challenge? What are the pros and cons of different methods?
Example Projects: Cannes Rival Research Postcards, the research-led brand creation behind Mettle, and the TikTok Culture Engine. More on the research page.
Choosing one or more types of strategy often isn’t simple. Consider what elements of your brief fit within these categories and which require something else. Discussing a brief with a strategist isn’t a pass or fail exercise – instead you should see how they can solve a part or all of your challenge and who they can recommend to augment their offering. How a potential strategic collaborator thinks about labelling or dimensionalizing a problem is often a good indicator of what working with them will be like.
If you’ve got a brief and you’re trying to find the right strategist for it, get in touch and we can talk it through.
