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- [00:00]
A
Welcome to OnStrategy Showcase. I'm Fergus O' Carroll in Chicago. If you're here in the US you should know that the 2026 FE Awards are now open for entries. If your marketing effort ran anytime between June 1, 2024 and September 30, 2025, it is eligible to be entered into the 2026 US Effies. There are a couple of deadlines between now and the final deadline. The final deadline is third. You can find out a lot more information about this@fe.org or you can do what worked better for me, which is just to Google 2026 US FE Awards, and it'll bring you straight to the page where you can download the kit and the case study templates, et cetera. So good luck to everybody who gives that a shot. We always love having FE winners here on the show. I also want to let you know that we are recording live Thursday evening, October 23, at Deutsch in Los Angeles. I'm really excited about this one. Our theme is gonna be Moments of Magic. And moments of magic, we've all experienced them. They can come to you in the shower, when you're walking the dog, when you're talking to somebody in a focus group, when you're reading a book that's completely unrelated to what we do, a spark happens and you know that you've unlocked the strategy or you've unlocked the creative idea. We're gonna be talking about examples of these, how they came about, and most importantly, the great work that resulted from them. And we've got a phenomenal panel. We've got Ryan Lehrer is chief creative officer of Deutsch. We've got Jill Bergensen is chief strategy officer at TBWA Chiatay Los Angeles. We've got John Deschner, who's head of brand at Ryan Reynolds Agency, which we've heard a ton about. Maximum effort. Amanda Shapiro is EVP strategy at Deutsch, and Jason Carley is executive creative director at Matt Damon and Ben Affleck's agency, Artist Equity. So come along and you can get tickets@onstrategyshowcase.com under the Live Tour tab on our website. We hope to see you there. It's 6 to 8pm on Thursday evening, October 23, which is pretty much next week. So I'd encourage you to go out and get your tickets. So hope to see you there. We're gonna be talking today with Joe Burns. Joe Burns is a strategy lead at Quality Meats. They're an agency out of Chicago, but Joe is actually out of Brooklyn. We have a conversation about strategy, his point of view on strategy, the way he approaches it. And I really enjoyed this a lot. He's a prolific writer. If you're not following him on LinkedIn, I'd strongly encourage you, Joe Burns, best place to connect with him is on LinkedIn. Enjoy. So I've recently come across Joe Burns. He's strategy lead at Quality Meats, which is wonderfully a Chicago based agency that is really everywhere, I suppose. Right, Joe? That's the way to think about it.
- [03:12]
B
Yes. It's all people who kind of got a little bit sick and tired of the big agency world and wanted to do something a little bit more, you know, trimming the fat, more efficient, get to good ideas quicker, less layers, that kind of thing.
- [03:25]
A
Yeah. So it's, it's out of Chicago. It's gotten a ton of accolades. Ad Age, Ad Week, Small Agency of the Year. Small Agency A lists and has grown phenomenally since in the last three to four years. You guys started in 2020, so it's all new. And of course again, agency with a really unusual name, which seems to be the thing to do these days, right?
- [03:48]
B
Indeed, indeed. Quality meets Brian and Gordy. The founders talk about this. It's like it all comes back to trimming the fat. You know anyone, I think, who spent any time in a, in a big agency, it's hard to not look at it and be like, my God, there is a lot of hierarchy and layers and, you know, up and down the chain of information and just time and resource that's I would argue, wasted on coordination cost and the transactional costs of communication internally and with clients. So we cut all of that out, which allows us to get to a better product quicker for less money, I think.
- [04:26]
A
I love that. So if anybody just missed that, Quality Meats is when you trim away the fat and you get the best quality meat.
- [04:34]
B
Exactly.
- [04:35]
A
I love it. I was wondering what it was. I saw some reference to a butcher when I was reading up something recently. So now that all makes sense. Anyway, we had a conversation a couple of weeks ago. Really good conversation. And you're a prolific writer and you write really goddamn well.
- [04:54]
B
Thank you.
- [04:55]
A
There's very few people who do it really, really well. I think Rob Campbell does it, I think Martin Weigel does it. I think you do it. You just. And not only do you, I mean, Rob Campbell writes every day. You write very, very frequently. What does the writing do for you as a strategist or as a human being?
- [05:18]
B
Oh man, that's A great question. You put me in some very esteemed company there, so I'm slightly flattered. But, yeah, the reason I just like making stuff. I think if you're a strategist in an advertising agency, what I would say is two big problems that will get you down if you don't do something about them. I think the first is the pace of it. Now I'm going to sound perhaps heretical here, and people might be jumping in the comments like you're not allowed to say that. I think it's very slow. The journey from getting to a brief set of objectives or whatever to actually making something that you put out into the world is incredibly slow. It's like months, right, you know, between the brief and the finished ad. And that's just not fast enough for me to keep interested in something. You know what I mean? I like to be interested in something. Maybe a couple of weeks, tops, 48 hours, ideally. And I think the other thing that is a deep source of frustration for planners and advertising agents is the lack of agency. It can be quite alienating because you have such little direct control over the outputs of the work. You don't exist to. You might make some decks or reports or run some research or write a brief, but the thing that goes out into the world, you don't really get to put your fingerprints on it directly. It's all done by proxy of the creatives who make it and then the producers who put it out there. So the writing and the production of these little PDF documents, that's my way of solving those two things. It allows me to do things quickly and to do things where I have complete autonomy and agency over the output and say what I want to say and the reason I do that and what writing brings to me. Ultimately, it's about stepping into things that I don't really know how well it's going to do, you know, and maybe I should make this a magical three, because there's a third issue with being a strategist in an agency that I think you have to do something about. If your brain works like mine, at least, which is you're always kind of doing something where the. The parameters of how well it's going to do are sort of known. You know, you've minimized the risk throughout the process. You kind of know how well something's going to do. Whereas I think when you write for yourself and put it out into the world, you're able to create things where you're completely uncertain whether or not it's going to Succeed or fail, you know, and that's. I think you can generate far more learnings and personal development if you do things that are highly uncertain as to the. The response and the results of them. So it hits all those three things for me.
- [07:58]
A
So are you. Are you a person who. Who finds it hard to turn off?
- [08:02]
B
Oh, God, yeah. Yeah. My wife had confirmed this. You know, I was having. I had a friend over who is another strategist for dinner the other day. He's like, do you ever just not thinking about stuff or having opinions on stuff? And I'm like, no, to be honest with you, I'm not.
- [08:22]
A
Because you don't just write, you write and you, you gather those thoughts into documents. This is what is interesting to me about you. You. You produce a bunch of PDFs. If you, if you follow, if you follow JOE on, on LinkedIn, you'll see this. And it's like a carousel document that you can just see. You don't just post. Is there a reason you create these PDFs that are almost subtly designed?
- [08:48]
B
Yeah, yeah. There's two big reasons for that. One is, and this is probably the most weird and idiosyncratic of the two. I think as a species, we overrate, like, logical, rational communication. And I think, like, you know, you mentioned Martin Weigel as an. I think he'd probably disagree with me on this. I think he's probably inclined in the other direction. You know, his writing's very formal and structured. You wouldn't. No one, no one on earth would accuse him of being style over substance. You know what I mean?
- [09:24]
A
Yes, absolutely.
- [09:26]
B
Whereas my opinion is style's better than substance. Substance is easy in my opinion. Like, it's easy to have substance. Having style is magic. That's hard. And I think it stems. And to the second point, style as.
- [09:41]
A
In a graphic style or how you write as a everything.
- [09:45]
B
I am of the school of Oscar Wilde, GK Chesterton, through to Glamrock. That's what I like. I think if you could like David Bowie, there's substance, but the style is what elevates it. And like, that's the second thing to me. I think my dad was a huge fan of Roxy Music, right?
- [10:04]
A
Yes, yes.
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B
And the thing that's so great about Roxy Music is the style was the substance. You know, you've got Brian Eno and Brian Ferry together. One of them is this kind of like sci fi wizard character twiddling knobs and producing this whole thing. And then you've got Brian Ferry who kind of like is like A kind of lounge lizard, sleazy snake. He kind of croons his way in and it's like that was just playing in the car when I was a kid, non stop. And like, and the album covers and the artwork that was on these LPs which is kind of probably a bit saucily politically incorrect by today's standards. But like I could just remember being captivated by this universe that they would create. And like, obviously mine is much more pathetic because it's on LinkedIn and it's about the advertising industry. But it's like in my head it's that same thing. It's not just about putting an idea out there and the substance of the idea. Like I just love, I love things that start, you know, like I said, it's, it comes from, I think it's a very British kind of dandyish thing almost of just like the style matters a lot, you know.
- [11:14]
A
So what does that mean for you when you're working with creative as a strategist? Are you a more visual creator strategist? I mean, do you, do you believe your recognition recommendation should come in the form of an idea or how do you think about or how does that influence the way that you deliver for a creative team?
- [11:31]
B
That's because, you know, creatives like to work in different ways. I struggle with some creatives. The ones I struggle with are the ones who want to be handed a very single minded proposition of like, say this now your job is to go away and say it in a clever way. Creatives, do you know what I mean? Like say this totally. This is specifically the message you now go and roll it in some glitter. And like, I don't work and I think I'm gonna lean into music again. Here I was in a band from the age of like 15 to 19, 20 and that's really shaped my idea of what creativity is, you know. And I wrote all the music, you know, in, in the band that we're in, but I'd come with some riffs and some ideas and some things I can't write lyrics to save my life. So it's weird that I can write but I can't write lyrics for songs for love or money. But like I'd come with these fragments and then together we'd start of like, you know, we'd be sitting around drinking tea and smoking roll ups and like just, oh, the bassist to be like, oh, what if I did this with it? And it's all very collaborative in a way where for me the whole process of creativity and this is gonna really, I think, maybe rub people up the wrong way again, because I think it's all about kind of killing your ego to a certain extent and just being like, separating the art from the artist. And like, that's. The creatives I like to work with are the ones who can riff, you know, and just like throw ideas back and forth with them. Oh, what if we tried this, what if we tried that? And then you kind of like go down the mountain, as I call it, and like, it feels at first like you're moving away from sensible answers.
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A
Yeah.
- [13:12]
B
And then you start feel like, oh, no, now we're on an incline again. We're going uphill, we're going to find something great up here. And maybe that's what you do. So.
- [13:19]
A
And then what are you doing in that conversation? Because you can be thinking imaginatively and creatively, but you also have to have a level of logic that you keep things between the rails. Right? I mean, as a strategist, absolutely.
- [13:34]
B
I do think there's something really important in the convergent part of strategic thinking, but that should always be applied to defining the problem, you know, reframing thinking about the problem in a creative way that you do kind of have to go away and lock yourself in a cupboard and just think alone. Do you know what I mean? As a strategist? But then when you've got that, reframe, and I can give you an example of one of those if you want, which might help illustrate. It's like we were working on a pitch for Benecol and Benicol is like a cholesterol lower in yogurt and spread and food, functional food stuff in the uk. And they briefed us and they were like, okay, we really want to talk about the efficacy of this in lowering cholesterol. And we were like, well, hold on minute. Because you can get statins for free on the NHS in the uk, so it's cheaper to use something that's more effective. And we. Let's not talk about efficacy because you're not as good and you cost more. So we went out and chatted to some people with cholesterol issues and we got this fantastic insight where one of the guys we were interviewing, we were like, so why is it you use this product rather than just take the statins? Is like, I don't want to take pills every day. That's something old people do.
- [14:52]
A
Interesting.
- [14:53]
B
And then we reframe that. Okay, so the problem is, the problem this product solves is that it stops you from feeling Old because you don't have to take medication every single day. Like, you can just spread it on your toast. That's. Everyone spreads butter on their toast. Just my butter. And like, you know, we. It's quality meats. We recently did the GoDaddy Super bowl spot with Walton Goggins. And I think the reframe of the problem there was just like, business owners, even when they're nailing it, feel like they're faking it. So let's play into that. We help business owners get over imposter syndrome. So I think that part of the equation, the strategist really does need to go and kind of isolate themselves and just work out what the problem is. But then once you've got that problem, you then need to bring everyone in, like, Helena, let's solve it together. And like, really, I think your job as a strategist in those moments is just to keep the big picture, the big thing. It's very interesting if you watch people in general, how quickly they'll lose sight of what the objective is. Do you know what I mean? Because people are totally inclined to get excited about either executional things or small details or the biggest tyranny is a checklist. And I always feel like Most of the 90% of the arguments that are planner gets into is the planner wants to focus on the big objective. And then there'll be someone who's got a checklist and be like, okay, well, I made a bullet point after the last client meeting, and there's these 10 bullet points that we need to hit. I'm like, I don't think anything good's ever happened from having a checklist of 10 bullet points.
- [16:24]
A
So, like, you mean that who would have that checklist?
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B
I think it's more the account managers, usually, you know, but there'll be someone who's like, I've written this checklist.
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A
Oh, like, so in other words, like, but what about what the client said?
- [16:38]
B
Yes, exactly. And often times, I think as a planner, you're like, if they knew what they wanted, if the clients knew what they wanted, we wouldn't have a job.
- [16:49]
A
So, you know, one of the things that I. That I tended to struggle with in my years inside some agencies was the fact that to what you were saying earlier, you would come in with a brief, you would come in with a reframe, you would begin conversation, what might typically be called the briefing conversation with creatives. And then the wheels would start turning. And I would find that the wheels began to turn in a completely different direction than the direction I wanted it to go in. And I think in retrospect, I reacted too quickly to that to try and course correct it. And I think what I hear you saying is you've got to just let that bullshit fall away and then come in later and course correct it, rather than course correcting it in the moment. Because I think you have to have a strategy as a strategist on how you deal with creatives, because, I mean, every creative is different. But is that what I'm hearing from you, that you have to allow the team to go through the motion in order for you to get where you want them to ultimately go?
- [17:59]
B
Yeah, that's exactly. And I think that's why the most important thing is defining the problem, you know, because, like, that's the thing then that you set in stone. And usually a brief from me will probably be like, okay, here's the shift we need to make. This is the problem. We need to move people from this to this, or we need to change the way they think from this to this. Here's three different ways you could try it. And essentially what you're doing is giving this creative 3, 4 start points to have a go at. Now, that'll either go one of two ways. Either they'll grab onto one of those things and love it, and then all the work will just be really close to it, or they'll just ignore all three and they'll go off in different directions. But I think that's why it's really important that you really. You have nailed the. The shift that you're looking to make down and the problem that you're solving down. Because then you can always come back to that and be like, I know you guys got really excited about this thing that's over here, but does that actually do the thing that we've promised the clients and we've said that the work is going to achieve? So, yeah, I do. I like. And the other thing is, like, you don't know what you don't know. You know what I mean? And I think a big. A big part of being good as a planner is understanding the difference between uncertainty and other different things that we often confuse with it. Like, I think it's easy to mistake heading out into the unknown as heading in the wrong direction. Because if you've got. You know what I mean? Like, if. If you know that there's a 6 out of 10 quality score answer east. If the creatives start heading west, you go, I know this is 6 out of 10, so let's just go that way. And I think sometimes it's just good to let them go east because maybe they're gonna find a 8 out of 10 and maybe from there they're gonna jump to another one. So like, you do have to maybe switch on bastard mode three days before the pitch sometimes and just be like, guys, enough. In fact, I've got, speaking about my writing, I've got a half finished piece on this because there's a mathematical solution, it turns out for this. It's very sexist title, but it's called the Secretary Problem. And I don't know if you're familiar with this research, but no, it's from the 60s when everyone doing social sciences, I guess, was hugely sexist when they decided what they were going to target things. But I think the more modern name for it is called the optimal stopping problem. And the optimal stopping problem. Yes, the optimal stopping problem. And essentially what it says is if you want to, if you've got a fixed amount of, sorry, if you've got a elastic amount of time you can spend as long as you want doing something, then obviously you just keep going until you find something that's perfect. But if you say, got two weeks to crack a pitch, let's say, and you want to get to the best idea in that two weeks, at what point do you say, right, we're going to stop now because we should stop looking and start polishing. You know when you start polishing the ones you've got, and the mathematical answer to that, that wins in like Monte Carlo simulations is you should spend 36% of the time that you've got that two weeks. So let's say a third, for simplicity's sake, spend a third of your time just completely openly exploring. Do not try and pick a winner, just spend a third of the time looking at, oh, we could try this, we could try that. Then after a third of your time, use that as the benchmark and say, okay, we spent a third of our time explor, this is the best idea. And then keep exploring and the next thing you get to that beats that benchmark is statistically speaking, likely to be the best idea you'll have in that two week period and it will probably come around halfway through the process. And I think if you just keep that in mind, it's just a really useful thing, which is like, as long as you've still got a third of the time left, you're probably not, not in the shit with a process, you know what I mean? Like the thing that you coalesce around and say, right, this is the idea now let's polish this up and turn it into a presentation that doesn't need to come until 60% of the way through a process. Really if you want to get to the best idea, you'll do it that way. You'll spend a third of your time just open mindedly exploring. Set a benchmark. The next thing that comes along that beats that benchmark is going to be your best answer that you get in the time. So like, that's a great comfort to me as I'm, you know, brief the creatives and I'll be like, okay, we've got a week and a half of creative development here. As long as we make a call around 60% of the way through that time. I think let's just give them freedom.
- [22:38]
A
So what do you do to your point earlier, when you've given three scenarios off of your reframe and the creative comes back and says, we have a fourth scenario and you say, well, but does it work against our goal? And they say yes and you say no.
- [23:00]
B
Well, that's when you, I don't know, man, that is tough. I think the first thing you have to do is take that out of a group scenario, right? Because like if you're making decisions in a consensus environment, you will lose as a planner 90% of the time.
- [23:19]
A
As if you're in a group.
- [23:21]
B
If you're in a, if you are in a group situation inside an advertising agency, you're always going to be outnumbered. There's never more than, there's never more strategists than there are creatives and you've got to just go, okay, let's take this. Me, you, me, Mr. ECD or Mrs. CCO or whatever it is, let's me and you go and chat about this. Because I don't think doing it in the room is going to help. So I just take that out of that environment. I think it does sound a little bit dark artsy, but I think internally managing those relationships with the creative leads on the thing and they'll be much more receptive to having the discussion is, you know what I mean? I think, yeah. In the crucible, the coliseum of a creative review, no one like, you know what I mean, like it's not a, it's not the best environment.
- [24:11]
A
It's a tough thing because I, I think, you know, I think the way we talk about it here is, is in an ide where you're not actually going to be presenting the work in three hours to the client or the next morning. And you can actually, you might have to struggle to get a meeting with somebody, you know, and it might take two days to get it for that one on one sidebar conversation. It can be enormously destructive to the role of the strategist when there isn't that sort of either. There isn't that, there isn't that perfect fit with the creative team, put it that way culturally or in terms of a relationship. And I think that happens to more strategists than we're willing to say in terms of the role that we have to play. And the fact that the reality is not the reality of it is very different than what you think it's going to be.
- [25:05]
B
Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think strategy is just a funny job because it's the only job in the world of advertising that subscribes to a just world fallacy. You know what I mean? It's like that, it's like it seems kind of nuts when you think about it. But like strategy makes an awful lot of sense if free market liberal capitalism is about maximizing profits and good for the consumers. Right. Like, okay, that's what we want to do. You know, no one's going to pretend that that is not what we're doing. But in a weird way, planning is the only one that kind of has to buy into it really and doesn't just use it as a game to further themselves. You know what I mean? Like if you're a young creative, do you give a shit about your clients profits going up or do you want to win an award so you get a better job at a cooler agency in six months time?
- [26:04]
A
Or do you want to do what you think is the better idea? Maybe not your goal isn't to win an award, but you definitely want to be creating great work because that's what your role is. And if you think you have a brilliant idea, you want that to come to life even though it may not meet the goal.
- [26:24]
B
Exactly, exactly. So the incentives.
- [26:26]
A
So we're supposed to be the conscience of the industry.
- [26:30]
B
Yeah. And the account people are always going to want to have, have clients that are happy. And you might argue that clients that produce successful marketing are going to be happier, but that's way down the list on their objectives versus like climbing the pole internally, you know what I mean? Like getting a promotion or getting a better job and getting a face.
- [26:53]
A
That's human nature. I mean you can't deny that. Yeah.
- [26:55]
B
So in a way I think maybe I've never said articulated, but maybe we're getting to the point that the problem with strategy is that it goes against human nature because human beings are selfish and will pretend that they've got the. Do you know what I mean? And like, strategy is the one department that's like, oh, no, we are all here to make effective, great advertising work. And it's kind of quaintly naive in a way.
- [27:20]
A
It's worth reflecting on. And I've done this a number of times on the show where I think that it is very rarely done, but when it is done, the magic in this industry happens. And what I'm talking about is when you meet your sort of soul mate on the creative side of the equation and you just connect. And I think you see that happen in so many places that are doing the best work. It's the result of people who connect and click. The rest are fighting to find that. It's like finding your life partner. You've got to find your creative partner. If you're a strategist, you've got to find the type of person that you connect with. I don't think most of us have the ability to be able to connect with any creative. It's impossible to do and it's tough. It's the same for creatives to find their spirit, their partner in a strategist. Otherwise it's like an uphill battle.
- [28:18]
B
Yeah. And I think, like, as you go through your career, that relationship's going to look slightly differently, you know. So I think about some of the, my favorite ECDs and CCOs and senior creatives that I've worked with and had that relationship. They've all been kind of different. I a guy called Martin Rose, Mother in London. We do creative reviews, just me and him sometimes whilst playing like apex Legends on PlayStation, like with the headsets on and we're like running around shooting guns on a computer game as we're chatting around the world.
- [28:55]
A
Perfect.
- [28:56]
B
And then like Eric, who was ECD at Mother New York, we had a good relationship because we'd have our call, he was based in Sweden for a lot of the time and we'd do our calls because I've got two young at the time, one young kid and he'd wake me up at like 5am so me and Eric and my kid Henry would have these calls at like 5am New York time and Eric would be like holding dolls up on the cameras, doing little puppet shows. And then here at Quality Meets, I think like Brian and Gordy is still a creative team, which makes it it a little bit more difficult to kind of find your foot in as a strategist.
- [29:35]
A
What do you mean by that?
- [29:36]
B
Well, when you've got a really close creative team who are already friends, it's a bit third wheel. Three's a crowd, you know.
- [29:42]
A
Okay. It's a different role. You have to find different fit.
- [29:45]
B
So like, I'd say I'd probably orientate. Probably a bit close to Gordy. I don't know if you know Gordy, but they don't. Yeah, I think it helps that I'm English. I think in his head he's like a king, like dressed in the kingly robes on a throne. And then there's this kind of English jester.
- [30:01]
A
Do you think he's gonna like that?
- [30:02]
B
No, I think he will. I think he's like sitting there and then he's this kind of like English court jester type character. Is there? Do you know what I mean? Jonathan the farter. You know what I mean? Like to entertain the king in the thing.
- [30:18]
A
Not a monarch, but a jester.
- [30:20]
B
Yes, exactly, exactly. So I think I kind of be a kind of court jester role there. So, like, I think there's different ways you can find that groove. Sometimes it's like, because they. And like I said, I'm a little bit under the weather, so I can be a bit unvarnished on the, on this thing. But it's just like, I think the one that I resent is when creatives treat you like a researcher, you know what I mean? Like, have you seen the movie the outlawed Josie Wales?
- [30:49]
A
God, if I have, it's years ago. That's decades old, right?
- [30:52]
B
Yeah, it's Clint Eastwood movie. And there's a line in that which has just stuck with me. And I think I probably saw this as like a 10 year old kid on the TV on a Sunday afternoon or something. And Josie Wales, this cowboy, just says, don't piss behind my back and tell me it's raining. And I think that it's the creative, creative directors who are like, you'll say, hey, I think we should do this. And they'll be like, no, we should do this thing that I want to do. Now go and find me some stats that prove that you're wrong and I'm right. And I'm just like, go fuck yourself if you think you're right. Like, like I'm, I'm willing to kind of go at it with you. Let's go. You go find your proof, I'll find mine, you know what I mean? And we can have an argument, but like I think you don't get that so much back in the uk, but I think here, because of the genealogy of planning and the way that research was kind of already a thing over in the States and then planning departments kind of grew out of the research and testing function.
- [31:50]
A
Yeah, you're right.
- [31:51]
B
I think there's a little bit of like. Like sometimes creative directors will expect strategists to go and just find evidence for why what they want to do is correct. You know what I mean? And like, I don't. I just. I find that boring and I don't want to spend my life, you know, proving myself wrong in a way. You know what I mean?
- [32:14]
A
So why do you think it's different in the uk? Because I think there are certainly pockets in the us. I'm thinking back to the early days of planning in the us, and there were. There were people who were here, John Steele, Jane Newman, others who sort of began to try and apply the practice in the us. But I think you're right, in general that this has been a country where there was such a strong need to have planners on teams over time, that people who seem to have an aspect of that skill were pulled into it and they came out of research. Right. But they were being almost in a certain way, sort of forced into a role that wasn't fully formed. Why is it different in the uk?
- [33:04]
B
There's so many different reasons, but I think the one that's probably most interesting and entertaining for a podcast. If we're going to do a hypothetical theory, let's choose the one that's going to be the most interesting to listen to. My theory is that the UK is in. It's a nobility culture, you know what I mean? Like, if you're at the leadership level, you're borrowing from the kind of codes of nobility in a way. You're not expected to be the smartest, you're not expected to be the best at anything. You kind of know deep down that you're there through luck and happenstance, nothing to do with merit.
- [33:40]
A
It's just like, by virtue of what, your education, your background.
- [33:44]
B
Yeah, exactly.
- [33:45]
A
Meritocracy.
- [33:47]
B
There's no assumption of meritocracy whatsoever in the uk. We're deeply suspicious of authority who think that they know what's best. Like, the role of authority, I think, for the Brit is just to kind of preside over things, just like to get in the smart people and then be like, right then, chaps, that all sounds great, let's go and get a lunch. You know what I Mean, and as a result, strategy plays a really important role because those people who are making the decisions, the CMOs in client agencies or the CCOs in creative agencies, you know what I mean? The senior leaders who are making those decisions back in the day.
- [34:22]
A
Right.
- [34:22]
B
No, even now. I think culturally this is embedded even to now.
- [34:25]
A
Okay.
- [34:26]
B
And they don't wanna have to be considered the smartest person or the right person. They just wanna be like, yep, that's what we'll do. I've listened to the people and we'll go and do that now. You know, there's no embeddedness between, like, being in a senior position and being smarter than anyone else or better at anything than anyone else. You know what I mean? There's not that meritocratic assumption there. So as a result, the environment's just. Just more open and less hierarchical. I mean, there is a hierarchy, but it's got nothing to do with merit.
- [34:57]
A
See, when I listen to you, I'm thinking that it's rooted in hierarchy.
- [35:02]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [35:04]
A
But that's not the impression I get at all when I talk to CSOs. And the theory that I've heard that I kind of go, that makes sense, came from Martin Beverly when we were live in London last year. And he said the reason is because most UK agencies had planners on the board. They were founders, they had their names on the. But not here in the us we don't have that. So you're always in a secondary position trying to earn your way up to what is ultimately the voice of the agency. We don't have. We don't make strong enough contributions to the voices of the agency. For example, why wasn't John Steele. Why wasn't it Goodby, Silverstein and Steel?
- [35:50]
B
No.
- [35:50]
A
Even a guy who made such an impact in creating the practice in North America or in the US at least, didn't necessarily have that seat at the table to determine the role of planning or the critical role. And that planning isn't optional. It needs to be followed. We don't seem to have that here. It seems to be more prevalent in the uk.
- [36:11]
B
Oh, it definitely. It definitely is. And I think where I was getting around to is I just think the US is much more of a militaristic culture. You know, if the UK is based on the codes of nobility, the US is much more based on the codes of the military. If you look at what happened after the Second World War, all the guys from IBM who were like, plotting out the bombing raids and things in the Pacific theater, they would like McNamara was dropped into the CEO of Coca Cola. And I think the US business culture stems from that military way of seeing it, which is like there is a leadership team and everyone else's job is just to execute what they say, you know what I mean? Like they are the ones who determine what we're going to. Everyone else is just an operational executor of that thing. And as a result you don't really need so much strategy because most people's jobs are just execution of what someone's decided. And I think that's part of the reason that. But you don't get those senior strategists with their names above the door of agencies because agencies role is more executional here. You know what I mean? It's more about fulfilling the assets that are written down on a media plan and making those as efficiently and as impactfully as possible rather than necessarily defining what that media plan shaped like and how it is going to influence consumer behaviors and the things that I think traditionally strategy would have domain over. And that's all made worse because like, and this is changing now and I think strategy is starting to become more important even if some agencies don't realize this, which is the United States has surfed a wave of like capital inflows, you know, high skill migration, unprecedented economic growth. You don't need strategy if you can just spend more money money, you don't need it. Strategy happens when you need to outsmart people rather than outspend them. Whereas the UK is probably quite good planners because we've literally since, pardon me, since the 1950s, we've just been an empire in decline. So it's just like when everything is declining, you need to outsmart things rather than outsmart. There's no money, he bankrupted us. So I think there's like, you know, there's, it's partly down to that and I think that's changing as the material economic environment in the States maybe shifts to a world where you can't just throw money at every problem.
- [38:41]
A
So do you think strategy is necessary in an agency for an agency to deliver for a client?
- [38:47]
B
I think strategy is necessary for clients, whether that lives within or outside of an agency. I'm agnostic towards to be honest with you.
- [38:59]
A
Tell me about that.
- [39:01]
B
Well, you know, I did this survey recently where it was just asking strategists and non strategists how they felt about strategy, how they felt about its role. So it was mostly strategists that responded, but there were also clients and there were also creatives and they were also so, you know, some people from tech platforms and media agencies and things like that. But I just wanted to kind of get a sense check and a pulse check on what people feel at the moment because it does feel like things are changing and things are shifting. And really I'm skipping a whole load of stuff because there's a load of interesting things that came out of that survey. But I think after reflecting on it, I kind of land in a place where I think there's three different roles that are all called strategy. Strategy. And they're all completely different and they all suit different types of person and they probably should be broken up into different roles. And maybe none of them deserve the role strategist, and maybe one of them does or one of them doesn't. But like, I think if you look at what strategy is, let's get this one out of the way first because I think it's the easiest one. One conception of what strategy is is the alignment machine. You know, it's like, okay, there's a thousand stakeholders in the client's big organization. There's all of our people, there's all this stuff. And all these people with opinions and politics go in and get them all aligned. Right now I would argue, like, I don't understand why that is not one of the core competencies of account management. That to me feels like if there is anything that client services should be delivering, it's understanding the client's internal machinations and managing to build that alignment for the work. So, like, that's one conception of strategy that I think you could just put. We should just put that into client services. And I think the reason it's been pulled out is client services is probably the department that's been juniorized the most. It's become, over time, just more and more about project management. And I think part of that is because strategy has gobbled up some of the more interesting parts of client services. Oh, well, we'll do that, we'll do that.
- [41:13]
A
But like, yeah, I agree.
- [41:14]
B
I think if you were to give more respect to client services and build that stakeholder alignment into client services. I think the second thing which really does have to live in creative agencies is this kind of like insight vendor type role. And it's not just insights, it's also platform expertise. So you'll see this a lot these days with social strategists, but you still see it with TV strategists as well. But it's like just being an expert in what does and doesn't work in Social channels or traditional media channels or whatever. Just having a kind of, you know, a scientific perspective on what makes effective creative in different channels and being able to do the testing and being able to do listening to work out what insights are there in culture and bring that in and give it to creatives a stimulus to develop creative around. And I think that should live in creative agencies. My conjecture is that that should probably sit within a creative department department rather than having a head of strategy or a CSO that commands that, that should just report into a creative director. And you're not going to have as many of those who's doing that role now. I think junior strategists, I think this is one of the things that's quite tricky. If you look at strategy is like that skill set in no way prepares you for what I would call like the big strategy of like understanding a value chain or understanding how to build a comms ecosystem around a client's problem that touches on consumer experience and it touches on their pricing and their distribution and all of the media channels that they can operate, but also the whole ecosystem of every touchpoint that that affects a consumer and being able to build strategic thinking that can set a vision for a brand that can cover off all of that and has the flexibility to work across it, that you're never going to get good at that if your education in strategy is about understanding whether or not to put the brand in the first six seconds of a TikTok video. You know what I mean?
- [43:30]
A
Like.
- [43:32]
B
Those. I think the first six seconds to all of that should just live within a creative department and help the creator it be more effective. Ultimately, I think there is a much bigger strategic job which I personally don't think does need to sit within a creative agency. It's nice if you can do it, but it doesn't need to, which is essentially defining that whole ecosystem of communications touch points and essentially orchestrating that whole thing and knowing how all of that connects, how you need to measure the effectiveness of it holistically, ensuring that you're building a creative platform that sits across the whole thing and has the flexibility. I feel like that could very well live further upstream because then you get the remit to go and talk about, well, you should change your employee training because this isn't laddering back to the brand idea. And I think that's maybe what you traditionally call brand planning.
- [44:29]
A
And it seems that the better agencies have figured this out. I mean these are not the dramas that I hear coming out of the great shops.
- [44:39]
B
No 100% and I think the reason for that is because in those really good shops the thinking is valued. That's the difference.
- [44:48]
A
Yes.
- [44:48]
B
You know what I mean? I think the death spiral is always that focus on like deliverables. I think you can tell when an agency's about to. You know what I mean? You get a pre warning that an agency's going to the dogs when all anyone cares about is deliverables, deliverables. And that might be like strategic decks and documents or it might be, you give a creative brief and the first thing the creators ask are like, well, what are the deliverables we need 15, you know what I mean? Like no, everyone stops engaging with creativity. Whether that's the ideas themselves, whether that's creativity and the strategic thinking, whether it's creativity in the processes you put around a pitch or a problem or a client or whatever and they start focusing on like nuts and bolts. Deliverables lists evidence of thinking, you know, and like, I think that's the, the great shops never get bogged down in those kind of like they never, you know what I mean? If you're in a great agency, no one's sitting there going like, oh, we need six, six second films and we need four 15s and we need a print ad. That's. Do you know what I mean?
- [45:58]
A
Like people, I, I think, I think they are, I, I think, think that is part of it no matter what. But I think for me the distinction is the agency knows what it's there for, right? The agency has a passion for creativity and therefore everybody who works there needs to work through that lens. I think as too many shops, as they get larger and larger, it becomes an issue of retention rather than creativity and you begin to lose your way. So if you're a brilliant shop, like there's a number of independent brilliant shops, quality Meats I think could become one of those, you know, going in what that company stands for, it actually has a brand. It's not just a fricking agency. That's not what defines it. You know when you hear its name, what you're going to get when you walk in the door, you know if you're a client that there's going to be trade offs that you have to make in order to work with that person. You're going to wear that agency in the same way as a cmo, in the same way that you proudly drive a certain type of car and you're doing that because you appreciate what they value. So there needs to be a deeper respect for what the agency offers and everybody else in there knows it. So they're talking about 15s, they're talking about the practicalities, but they're doing it knowing that what goes into that channel needs to be freaking great.
- [47:22]
B
Yeah, absolutely. And I think the thing that's like, like, you know, the reason for that mindset of, like, focusing so much on the details is because people. People are operating under the misapprehension that, like, average is a good outcome. You know, I think, like, in the world of creativity and advertising and marketing, average is the same as. As shit. They're the same. There's best and then there's not best. Do you know what I mean? Like that. Yeah.
- [47:53]
A
Yeah, right.
- [47:54]
B
There's only a binary outcome. Either it's great or not great. And it doesn't matter if it's a 0 out of 10 or it's an 8 and a half out of 10. If there's something that's 9 out of 10, then the 8 and a half and the 1 are the same. And like, I think far too much effort is expended on trying to ameliorate small problems rather than, okay, how do we make this really, really great? Because, like, the rewards don't go to. To ameliorating small problems. You know, to your point about retention, it's like, you know, clients will put up with an awful lot if you're producing amazing work that's changing and transforming their business, you know.
- [48:33]
A
Exactly. Right. That's exactly it. They will. And I don't think. And so it comes down to you've got to have great agencies, but you've got to have great clients too. And it's amazing to see so many good CMOs coming along now that are demanding and creating, Creating great agencies because no agency gets created without a great CMO who's willing to take a chance. So there's gotta be credit given to CMOs. Everybody wants to shit on the client side marketers, but I think that they are the ones, the good ones are the ones that are keeping this industry floating in terms of the future of it. The other ones are not. They're doing the dull work.
- [49:10]
B
No, I don't disagree whatsoever. I actually think age, I think when it comes to advertising as a business, agencies, creative agencies are probably like, like the slowest in terms of evolution. You know, I look around CMOs and they're doing really interesting stuff in terms of pushing the industry forward a lot of the time. And if I look at research vendors, there's really interesting stuff happening in the way that Those guys are using new technology to better test ideas or find qualitative insights or whatever it might be. So there's interesting in, there's interesting divergent strategies being adopted by CMOs, by research vendors, by production houses now who are adopting AI ad agencies, weirdly, even media agencies. I think you look and there's breadth of different styles of media agency. What's kind of strange to me is that creative agencies apply so little creativity to how they go about doing things. You know, it's like it's not really changing and I mean whether or not this is right or wrong is irrelevant. But like if you look at the art director copyright appearance that emerged at a historical period of time when it made a lot of sense, but it really doesn't make any sense now. Do you know what I mean? Like, and like, maybe it still works, but it surprises me that we aren't seeing, you know, more innovation in terms of how agencies operate when, you know, if you pick a random 25 year old consumer off the street, 80% of their media diet takes place on their smartphone. The fact that we structure creative teams based on how magazine advertising used to work is kind of a bit weird.
- [51:06]
A
Yeah, it's interesting.
- [51:06]
B
You know what I mean? Like, and not just that, but, you know, there's a multitude of other things that kind of, you're like, it's kind of strange that we deploy so little innovative creativity to the way that we go about making stuff. It's always struck me as very strange.
- [51:23]
A
It's Joe Burns, strategy lead for quality meets. He's in New York City. You can connect with him on LinkedIn. Do you have a, do you have a substack or.
- [51:33]
B
No, I just.
- [51:35]
A
Where can people connect with you?
- [51:36]
B
Just LinkedIn is the place to find me. You know, I should do a substack stack and maybe I tried to start. It's just like, I'm not very good at like coordinating all these different things, you know what I mean? So LinkedIn, I can just throw anything.
- [51:50]
A
I'm with you. So LinkedIn check on, check, check him out on LinkedIn. You can see all of his work and download a lot of his reporting and his thinking. Great having you, Joe. Thanks for doing this, man.
- [51:59]
B
Thank you.
- [52:00]
A
Cheers. And we will see everyone on the next episode.