Planning for the Best: Ryan O’Connell Reminds Us to KISS and Tell It Right

An award-winning strategist with nearly 20 years’ experience in the industry, Ryan O'Connell has worked on brands such as KFC, Coca-Cola, ING, Nestle, Lion and Vodafone, among others. His outstanding track record of effectiveness has led Ogilvy Sydney to first- and second-place wins for Agency of the Year at the APAC Effies for 2020, 2021 and 2022.

Heading up strategy disciplines such as brand, behavioural science, business, comms, CRM and digital, Ryan has also been recognised individually with Effie, IPA and Cannes Lions wins.

LBB> What do you think is the difference between a strategist and a planner? Is there one? 

Ryan> I don’t think there is one, to be honest! Personally, I feel they’re 100% completely interchangeable terms. I tend to favour “strategist” so as to not get confused with a media planner, but it’s not something that keeps me up at night. I often get called either of them.

LBB> And which description do you think suits the way you work best?

Ryan> Definitely “strategist”! I don’t tend to do much planning, because that would suggest there is a rigid plan I always stick to, and nothing could be further from the truth! A strategy is an “informed best guess” for how we can solve the client’s business problem, and that certainly is a better description for how I tend to work. 

There’s certainly an element of planning individual campaigns, and how they’ll work, but that’s done as a team. My primary role is done upfront in setting the strategy for the brand and/or creative.

LBB> We’re used to hearing about the best creative advertising campaigns, but what’s your favourite historic campaign from a strategic perspective? One that you feel demonstrates great strategy?

Ryan> It’s a campaign I had very little to do with (I mainly helped write the Grand Effie-winning entry), but for a few years, I embarrassingly did that horrible industry thing of claiming I worked on it. It wasn’t a lie, but it was stretching the truth to within an inch of its life. 

Yet, I digress!

It was the ‘Pinky’ campaign for the NSW Roads & Traffic Authority (now Transport for NSW). The strategic thinking was mind-blowing brilliant, with an insight based upon a truth uncovered in research: young male drivers were more scared of being perceived as uncool, than they were of dying in a high-speed car crash. That led to the strategy of making speeding uncool. Which led to an amazing creative idea of portraying young speeding male drivers as having small . . . penises. Which, to that age group, was seriously uncool.

Just brilliant thinking from insight, all the way through to execution.

LBB> When you’re turning a business brief into something that can inform an inspiring creative campaign, what do you find the most useful resource to draw on?

Ryan> There’s no single resource that I would claim to draw upon the most. The truth is that each brief requires its own ‘discovery’ phase that necessitates inputs from a number of different sources/resources. I always liken it to analogy I was taught: “If you’re solving a murder, you don’t speak to one witness, and then arrest someone. You speak to lots of witnesses to get the full picture of what happened.” The same is true for strategy (except for the murdering part!), in that it’s wise to have a variety of sources to help you to solve your mystery.

LBB> What part of your job/the strategic process do you enjoy the most?

Ryan> Without hesitation, I can answer this immediately, because it’s simply the truth: the part of the process I enjoy the most is the time just before the first creative review. I absolutely love that feeling. The sense of anticipation and excitement, wondering where the creatives have taken your creative brief, is always exhilarating. 

Of course, it often lasts about 30 seconds, before you realise the creatives have ignored your brief and gone rogue, crushing your hopes, dreams and career in an instant. (I jest, I jest!)

LBB> What strategic maxims, frameworks or principles do you find yourself going back to over and over again? Why are they so useful? 

Ryan> I’m a fervent believer in the ‘KISS Principle’ that my dad taught me. Funnily enough, it was in reference to basketball, not strategy, but it’s an acronym for ‘Keep It Simple, Stupid’.

Strategists have a well-earned reputation for making things overly complex, and its sadly born out of a need for many of us to feel like we need to be the smartest person in the room. It’s silly, ego-driven, and a complete waste of time. A boss once told me “Give me a useful planner over a smart planner any day of the week”, and it’s something I’ve always remembered, because it’s true. It honestly doesn’t matter how smart you or your thinking is, if it’s not useful.

That’s why I always come back to that ‘KISS Principle’. Keep it simple, keep it useful. That’s a pretty good strategy for strategy.

LBB> What sort of creatives do you like to work with? As a strategist, what do you want them to do with the information you give them?

Ryan> I love creatives who zero in on the business problem. Solving that is all that matters, and you can tell a great creative team by what their focus is on in the creative brief. The ones that sweat the business problem and use that as the lens for their thinking are the great ones, and therefore the ones I love working with. At the end of the day, solving the client’s business problem is what we’re paid to do, so the creatives who are passionate about that are the ones I love.

In terms of the information I provide them, I hope they use it as a springboard for their thinking, but I’m not precious about it either. As I mentioned before, strategy is an ‘informed best guess’, not a guarantee of success, nor a promise of the only way in. Please take what I’ve given you and use it to ideate solutions to the business problem, but if you have other ways in, let’s see them! (As long as they’re on-brand, on budget, on target audience, and are somewhat validated.)

LBB> There’s a negative stereotype about strategy being used to validate creative ideas, rather than as a resource to inform them and make sure they’re effective. How do you make sure the agency gets this the right way round?

Ryan> I have no qualms about strategy being used to validate creative ideas, as long as those ideas are deemed to be the best solution for the business problem. ‘Post rationalisation’ should be a tool in every strategist’s belt. I think it’s arrogant to assume your way in is the only way in.

However, strategies are usually validated in some way. Whether it’s the insight, the reasons to believe, data, behavioural science, qual research, or any other number of inputs. These all ensure a strategy is informed. Creative ideas don’t have to come off the provided strategy, but they do have to have some evidence that they’re a valid alternative to the strategy.

Strategists can help bulletproof that alternative, but they shouldn’t be asked to validate ideas born out of scratch. That’s an inefficient, and I dare say, ineffective, way to do creative.

LBB> What have you found to be the most important consideration in recruiting and nurturing strategic talent? 

Ryan> It’s probably the same as my hiring policy: strategists need to be smart, nice and a little bit wonky (ie: think about things differently). Tick those three boxes, and you’ll be a good strategist. 

LBB> In recent years it seems like effectiveness awards have grown in prestige and agencies have paid more attention to them. How do you think this has impacted on how strategists work and the way they are perceived?

Ryan> Hopefully it hasn’t impacted how strategists work or how they are perceived too much at all, because it should have always been a strategist’s overt ambition to create effective work. 

The biggest shift for me has been the number of creatives who are now inspired and motivated to win effectiveness awards. I think that can only be a great thing for our industry and our clients. As long as everyone remembers that creativity and effectiveness are not mutually exclusive. Creativity is how you achieve effectiveness.

LBB> Do you have any frustrations with planning/strategy as a discipline?

Ryan> Yes, I do! The discipline is filled with ‘dickheads’ that think they’re absolute geniuses, who consistently want to show how intelligent they are, and think they’re above the industry, or too good for it. They behave as if it’s a daily struggle for them to be too smart for this “silly” industry. Said people have an over-inflated opinion of themselves and their impact, and need to calm down a touch.

I’m also not a fan of strategists whom I mockingly label as “frustrated creative directors”. If you want to be a creative, go be a creative! It’s fine to think creatively, and one should throw ideas into the mix, but when you consistently just want teams to mock up your own ideas, I don’t think you’re doing anyone any favours.

LBB> What advice would you give to anyone considering a career as a strategist/planner?

Ryan> Be a sponge. Just soak up every single lesson, opinion, thought-piece, podcast, marketing textbook, etc, that you can. You don’t have to agree with everything, but just opening your mind up to all that is out there gives you wonderful perspective, and a solid foundation.

Also, read Effie papers. Lots of them. Read one a week. There’s no better way to learn about great strategy and effective thinking.