The great Mark Ritson recently wrote a brief but provocative post about hating the title ‘creative strategist’.
On behalf of the APG, the home of planners and strategists, this is an invitation for Mark to come and judge the APG’s Creative Strategy Awards 2025.
His post posed tough questions for anyone whose job is or includes creative strategy. It received 1000+ likes and a huge amount of agreement.
The essence of it was that the title is an oxymoron - that you can’t be both an expert strategist and an expert creative. Mark is rightly a purist when it comes to strategy. To him the title wrongly blurs the lines between two things which should be distinct.
APG members are a broad church and whilst most aren’t creative strategists by job title, many will see creative strategy as part of their role, and naturally the APG feels some responsibility to stand up for the value creative strategy has, especially the discipline and the process, perhaps more than the title.
Over the years I’ve been an account planner, brand planner, strategist, brand strategist. This job has a proud history going back to when two 70s legends, JWT’s Stephen King and BMP’s Stanley Pollitt, jointly invented account planning. The changing nature of the role, including its recent sub-variant creative strategy, tells a story of the evolution of advertising. All these titles are flawed.
And whilst I’m not a creative strategist by title, his post hit a nerve for me for three reasons.
First, many people who are planners or strategists like me, wear a ‘creative strategy’ hat part of the time. This part of the job is about working closely with creative people to help make impactful creative work that executes a brand’s marketing communications strategy. Is this strategy? Or creativity? It’s true the label doesn’t fit the proper delineation between strategy and execution.
Second, I work closely with some brilliant people called creative strategists at Jellyfish, strategically-minded creative thinkers who are experts in getting the best out of social platforms. I see the value they bring to our clients every day.
Third, because of the fantastic non-profit organisation the APG, whose committee I sit on, and whose Creative Strategy Awards I’m hugely proud to have been asked to chair in 2025.
We’re not going to try to persuade Mark it’s a perfect job title, but we would like him to see, read and discuss with us the very best of this thing called ‘creative strategy’ being done by people with all sorts of job titles across the world today.
All the APG asks is that you consider our invitation, Mark. Final round judging takes two days in London in July '25. We'll put aside any differences on the name, but would love to debate the merits of the work.
For a look at the winners from 2023, including the phenomenal Grand Prix winning ‘Raise your arches’ by Leo Burnett London for McDonald’s, go here.
VP Brand Strategy at Jellyfish
(You can read Tom's original post on LinkedIn here)
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