The best fictional detectives never follow the establishment rules.  

Crime and detective fiction is one of the most popular genres that there is.  Fans demand a strict adherence to a story arc, which for most of them runs as follows:

• Crime committed (how bloodthirsty depending on personal taste of author and reader).
• Rules based investigation gets nowhere
• Detective goes rogue, maybe even has to hand back his badge and gun if he or she is employed by the official police, or if he or she is private then they’ll get warned off by the cops.  
• Rule breaking gets the detective to the bad guy
• Ends with bad guy getting their just desserts and the detective striding off broodingly into the sunset.
• Detective reluctantly carries on solving crimes, driven by delivering justice, never one of the pack, rarely rewarded beyond the great outcomes of justice being done.

Vera Stanhope, always arrests the criminal, never gets promoted because she won’t follow directives and always walks alone.  Columbo, scruffy genius of LAPD, never rises above Lieutenant.   James Bond is suspended from duty.  Cormoran Strike (JK Rowling writing as Robert Galbraith, the grumpy detective never plays by the book). Jack Logan, or Robert Hoon (for fans of Scottish Noir) operating even though they were suspended. Philip Marlowe, Jim Rockford, Sam Spade, John McClane, Adrian Monk.  I could go on.   Let’s face it, Batman wouldn’t have got anywhere if he’d followed the NYPD rules instead of being a caped crusader.  

There are plenty of rules in our industry.  The rules of growth, rules of branding, rules of short term and long term outcomes.  And most of the time it is the right thing to follow them in order to deliver the objective.  The role of the strategist however is to consider how and when those rules should be broken, stretched, even ignored.

At a time when media is changing faster than ever, Catherine Kehoe, CCO at Nationwide, this year’s chair of the IPA Effectiveness Awards called in her speech for an acknowledgment that the business of effectiveness needs new scrutiny, saying: “much of our thinking has been honed from the age of “air power’ that saw carpet bombing and surgical strikes managed from a central command post… this is going into reverse… we are increasingly entering in a world of brands being build on the ground, by armies of influencers, by brand partnerships and collaborations, and by in-feed and in-game activations.  Hand-to-hand marketing is replacing fire-and-forget.”  It is because of this truth that it is incumbent on every strategist to consider breaking the rules set in a time when advertising was perhaps simpler and norms were more homogeneous.  

The winner of the Glass Lion Grand Prix in Cannes this year did just that.  First, as the entry acknowledged, the agency answered the brief with a suggestion for new product development.  Then the product itself, the Vaseline Transition Body Lotion, was co-created with the community for which it was intended over a period of years.  And finally promoted not only with advertising, but with the influencers in that community.  This wasn’t a stunt, it wasn’t intended just to surf an immediate trend, and it was distributed in a major chain in Thailand and for its impact both on the trans community and the image of the brand, it was impossible to overlook for the judges (of whom I was one).

I’ve never really warmed to the pirates versus navy analogy.  No-one in our industry wears a uniform (unless you count beards, jeans and trainers sported by a number of UK CSOs!), and however much you seek to paint pirates in a positive light, they’re pretty irredeemable in real life.  

Rogue detectives though, troubled, solitary but truth seekers.  Often with a real trusted team around them (the solitary bit is more social than professional).  Truth seekers even if it means breaking the rules of the game.  You don’t have to be more pirate (though their innate acceptance of diversity and dedication to a collective outcome is worth consideration see our new book A Year of Creativity which references Adam Morgan’s Pirate Inside). Go rogue.  In pursuit of the truth.  Just like the best detectives.  Just like the best strategists.  

Do this.  Stop that. 

In a world where there are so many new things to do and to consider it is absolutely crucial to transform what we do. In order to do new things well people need to know what they should stop doing.  

If you have ever encountered change programmes that don’t work that well, this is one of reasons why.  It isn’t that people are necessarily averse to doing things differently.  It isn’t that they reject the new ways.  It is that they are given a whole new set of stuff to do as well as the old stuff and there are still only 8 hours in the (official) working day.  You may have gone on dozens of training programmes that are designed to teach you how to do things differently.  Very few of them will spend time telling you what to stop doing.  

The result of this, particularly for junior and mid level people, is that there is a continuing accumulation of stuff to do.  All the stuff you used to do, plus all the new things that the new process demands of you.  

So however much you buy into the new ways of doing things, you can’t really work out how to have time to do it all.  For example, when it comes to audience insight there are more and more data points to understand and to leverage. There is more to ingest and process to create advantage for an advertiser. How can you free up time for this?  In a world of addition it is necessary to subtract to make room for real change.

What legacy insight practices would you stop doing to be able to look at things in a new way?  There is a danger that if you don’t do this, your business is stuck with rules from a previous era, when things were perhaps moving more slowly than they are today.

There’s a great example for us in the Alexander technique, a method of improving posture often recommended for people with chronic back problems.  

Frederick Matthias Alexander was an aspiring actor, who frequently lost his voice.  Medicines in the late nineteenth century offered little help outside of snake oil (and indeed the standard recommendation for laryngitis today is simply to take paracetamol and not talk).  Alexander, the eldest of ten children descended from convicts who had been shipped to Australia, was keen to find a way to improve his acting prospects and ultimately invented a system of breathing and posture known as the Alexander Technique, which is still in popular use.

Wikipedia explains: “As described forty years later in the first chapter of his book The Use of the Self, advice from doctors and voice trainers did not have the necessary results, so he began a process of self-examination with mirrors into his speaking habits to see if he could determine the cause. With time, he found that by using “conscious control” of actions, by inhibiting wrong movements rather than trying to “do” correct ones, and by focusing on the “means whereby” rather than “the end to be gained”, his vocal problems and longstanding respiratory problems disappeared.”

Here’s the interesting thing.  Alexander did not solely focus on what to do.  He equally and specifically instructed patients on what not to do as well.

For example, to stand well, and few people reach adulthood with good posture outside of dancers and athletes, consider your current natural stance.  Most people need to stop leaning on their hip on one side, and instead start consciously balancing centrally and evenly between the front and back of their feet. The first time you try this it feels kind of weird.  But if you persist it will give you a sense of dynamism and positivity beyond just your stance.  

Eliminate unhelpful practices, and replace them with positive ones.  This is what makes the difference.

Very little of this goes on in real life at work.  

The world of advertising is awash with legacy practices that need replacing with better approaches to the current era. 

Advertising strategies based on 25 years of best practices are interesting.  Advertising strategies that are based on received wisdom plus insight from current audience behaviour are going to be more effective.  

There are tasks that can be automated to release time, and doing this fast and effectively will create an edge.  There are processes and hand-overs that can be cut to free up time to iterate and improve a minimal viable solution, rather than spend time waterfall planning for a fictional future which can’t be predicted.  

To deliver high performance results, don’t just start doing better things, find some things to stop doing. 

On my new journey to work I keep seeing an ad for a drink that proclaims “don’t act your age; defy it”.  I wonder if it is aimed at me, (though it might be that I am not in the desired target market.)  I am certainly not defying my age.  I am revelling in it, and the new opportunities that I am facing.  A fresh start, with the experience I have accumulated one way or another over my years in this business, gives me energy and a platform for the future.

I’m travelling into London now on the Underground Northern Line from the same tube station that I travelled from on my way home from school.  Many many things have changed.  The Northern line, with all its quirks, has not changed at all.  And the tube stop is so identical that I keep having a sense that if I look hard I will see my teenage self jump on the train, loaded with books and latin homework.

So much is different.  This is true for all of us of course, as the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus put it: “No man can step in the same river twice”, both because the river moves on, and because we all change too.  

If you are wondering whether to make a change, my answer is go with your gut instinct.  Plans and lists of pros and cons get you so far.  Following your gut is crucial.  The important questions to know about are not to do with status or even the role.  The ambition of the business, and the culture of the leadership team are the things that matter.  With the help of LinkedIn you can get a sense of both.  Don’t be fooled of course by posts written by a team of virtual or real assistants.  Look for statements from the heart, about business preferably as that is where you will be, rather than about family, pets or charity walks. 

After 34 years at one organisation, albeit where the agency changed and my role grew and evolved, I have gone through sensory overload in the first few weeks.  The sense of Belonging in a new agency however could not be stronger – I have been made very welcome, helped certainly by knowing some key people already (great to be back working with Steve Allan), but equally due to the warmth and acceptance from my new colleagues.

I have a lot to learn in my new job.  As I am endlessly curious this is not a chore, but exciting and a stretch outside of my previous comfort zone.  But what are we here for at all if not to learn, grow and develop.  

In media, in advertising, the old certainties are being dismantled daily.  Not by opinion formers (although there is some of that), not by new platforms with an ambitious growth budget (although that is true too).  By people, by audiences, by new truths, new heuristics and new provable data and evidence fast overtaking the old and familiar.  People are defying stereotypes.  Brands will thrive that do the same.  Not by throwing out the old trusted playbooks, but by adapting, experimenting and updating them. 

The chief economist at Allianz, and president of Queens College, Cambridge, Mohamed Abdullah El-Erian said recently: “Rules built for yesterday can inadvertently get in the way of growth”.  

Norms of yesterday are the shifting sands of today.  I might have changed jobs for a fresh start, but we are all facing a time of change.

In a high performance business, whatever your team is called, it is also the team that helps clients’ business growth.

In a discussion about the parlous state of the National Health Service in the UK, one commentator remarked recently that nothing would change until every government department understood that it was also the department for health.

The department for education: also the health department because nurturing children to better physical and mental health would ultimately benefit us all.

The treasury department: also the health department because in eradicating child poverty everyone’s ultimate outcomes are better.

The department for levelling up: well obviously.

And so on.

Similarly whatever team you work in at an agency you are there to help the client’s business achieve its objectives.

The influencer team: also not only there to create influencer campaigns, but there to help make the product or brand grow.

The search team: also not only there to navigate the intricacies of the new search economy but there to grow the product or brand.

The creative team: also not only there to win Lions but there to make sure that people buy the product or brand.

And so on.

It of course helps if team leaders focus on this, and on how they can work together across departments to deliver the best outcomes.  It requires putting the customer or client first, over and above department needs.  

The UK Government Digital Service (GDS) was set up to do just this for government services like applying for a passport, or driving licence.  Before the GDS each government department ran their own websites and tended to fill them with content that was rich in colour and slow to load.  Rather than be utilitarian to what the customer (ie British citizens) needed, the websites tended to be designed to drive the reputation and interests of the particular department.  The GDS’s priorities changed this radically.  They revolve exclusively around making digital government simpler, clearer and faster for everyone.  Anyone who had the experience of queuing up at a post office in the old regime only to be told that you hadn’t filled in your form properly (I was once rejected because my signature went inadvertently over a line), or waiting for impossibly long load times for the website, will appreciate the revolution that GDS created.

Fostering a good culture within a particular department or team is important, and making this inclusive and diverse delivers best outcomes.  Making sure that this team spirit is not at the expense of other teams in the agency is vital to overall success. Putting the needs of the customer above the immediate kpis or ambitions of the department leader is paramount. 

Guy Kawasaki has written that there are two types of businesses.  The pie eaters and the pie bakers.   The pie eaters take the view that there is a limit to resources, and that if someone else eats some of their pie, that they will suffer.  The pie bakers are happier to share the pie, and take the view that they can always bake another bigger pie.  

There is only one way to deliver growth in this scenario.  Be a pie baker, and understand that whatever your team is called, and whatever your title is, you are there to help bake bigger pies, and grow the clients’ business, not simply deliver your immediate objective.  This requires looking up from the department you find yourself in and taking a view of the wider world.  Every team needs focussed time to work on immediate objectives and actions, but it is never too soon to look over the box you are in and think about your impact on the whole.

At its simplest any strategy is a longer term view of a plan, a way of achieving a longer term objective.

Of course that isn’t enough.  Anyone can write a longer term view.  What you need, (or otherwise what’s the point?), is a winning strategy.  And a winning media strategy will contain three elements:

• A simple diagnosis of what is going on.
• A strategy or system of winning against the competition.
• A plan or set of actions that carry this out.

Let’s use an example that the writer Richard Rumelt explains in his  book Good Strategy, Bad Strategy.

At the Battle of Trafalgar the English Navy led by  Admiral Nelson was outnumbered by enemy ships.  A traditional sea battle in the 18th century meant the opposing forces lined up against each other and fired until one side won.  Nelson’s diagnosis was that this meant that his ships would be sunk if he followed this conventional approach.  His strategy in this situation was unexpected and indeed unheard of. Nelson decided to use his existing resources to surprise the enemy.  His plan was to drive his ships in a wedge shape through the opposition line up, attack from the rear and win a place in history, and in Trafalgar Square in London on top of his eponymous column.  He took out the competition by breaking the conventional rules, by using his resources available in a focussed and flexible way. 

This strategy resonated with me when I read the description for the first time, because it is similar to the very first media strategy I created.  One of my first planning accounts was Maxwell House coffee (which was big in the UK in the 1990s).  My job was essentially to plan the TV campaign, and I was taught to do this as follows:  Every month we ran about 400 television ratings, with ups and downs for seasonality, programme choices, regionality etc dependent on audience insights and growth opportunities.  I was excited when the client commissioned an econometrics project on effectiveness, it was my first experience of this. 150 slides later I was as disappointed as the client with the prognosis.  The research agency had concluded that it didn’t matter how Maxwell House spent their ad budget.  The only thing that impacted on sales was what Nescafe did with their advertising.  

The client wasn’t happy.  I however started thinking about what I could do about this.  My diagnosis of the data from the econometrics was different from that of the research company who had essentially said that there was nothing we could do to win.  We were month after month lining up against competition that had more resource.  The competition that at that time was running at 500 television ratings a month with a Nescafe ad, up against a  Maxwell House ad at 400. My diagnosis was that we needed to disrupt this face off.  So I adopted the Trafalgar strategy.  The media strategy that was developed was entirely based on beating the competition –  So the strategy became overwhelming the competition instead of following them.  Instead of a plan of 12 months of TV at 400 ratings a month, which was not cutting through, we instead ran 1200 ratings in one month each quarter.  And it worked.

 A good media strategy is not about just about efficient reach and following the rules of the category.  It is about cutting through and beating the competition.  Which might be about breaking the rules of the category. 

Just as a sea battle now is not based on sailing ships, a media strategy is not based on TV ratings. 

A media strategy must be rooted in genuine audience insight, that acknowledges the reality of how people watch, listen, interact in media.  Media is not just about reach. It’s about shopping, dating, gaming, socialising, influencing, self-affirmation, interacting, and researching. And about reaching people with brand communications in the broadest sense, and yes ads.  A good media strategy will create a framework for all the ways we can now communicate and deliver competitive advantage for the brand. 

The old rules that are based on past behaviours and average behaviours for the category will not suffice.  A winning media strategy will be directional for all aspects of the communication plan.

A media strategy should interact with, affect, and drive, feed and be fed by creative and data strategies (what do we want to communicate, what data do we need, what can we find and what will it do for the brand).  It will go beyond reach to set parameters and priorities for media planning in each available channel from retail media to CRM, from Connected TV to the Piccadilly lights, from search to social.

With my “Trafalgar” strategy I found the signals in the data from an econometric study. Today there are signals everywhere in data. Finding these, interrogating them at a granular, forensic, level and constructing a way to win is the core of a good media strategy.