Planning for the Best: Why Effectiveness Matters with Julian Smilg

Julian is a highly ambitious associate strategy director at Collective, he has a track record of delivering results for clients quickly. 

In the last three years he has helped Aston Martin F1 revolutionise their data strategy, planned the most successful year in 125-year history of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, and developed an award-winning user experience for the FA through their new flagship website. These achievements resulted in Julian being named as one of The Drum’s Rising Star Of The Year in 2021.

Having spent years learning from the best at Zone, one of the largest agencies in the country, he is now using those skills to deliver major pitch wins and grow key accounts at Collective, where he is enjoying the dynamism that working for an independent agency offers.

LBB> What do you think is the difference between a strategist and a planner? Is there one? And which description do you think suits the way you work best?

Julian> My old strategy director used to have a post-it note on his desk permanently that simply said: “expedience is not the highest order”. A job done quickly is not the same as a job done well. Clarity – of thought, of communication, of execution – is often a better objective to seek. That’s really the role strategists can and should play.

Job titles, along with job descriptions, are a great example of where clarity has unfortunately faded in our industry. In theory you could draw a line showing the difference between a strategist and a planner, but I’m not sure that drawing the line is worth the metaphorical ink. 

I like ‘strategist’. It sounds snazzier. And it makes me feel like a lieutenant general pushing soldiers around a table-sized map. What’s not to like?

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?

Julian> Strategists on telecoms accounts can have it rough. If you’re not competing on price or smashing it on reliability, and your client isn’t tempted to shell out £1.5bn on a sports TV empire, it’s not an easy marketing challenge to approach with confidence. 

So I’ve always had a lot of admiration for when VCCP and O2 asked the British public to ‘Be More Dog’.

The campaign was brilliant for three reasons.

First, it was based on a genuinely valuable audience insight, the kind that creatives can actually use: the nation has an uncontrollable love for our dogs. Ask someone about their breed of dog and the barrage of energy you often receive in response is enough to have you question their sanity, and their dog’s safety. Brits love dogs.

Secondly, this was O2 suiting up to take on the competition. At the time, Three’s ‘The Pony’ campaign, along with their cheaper tariffs, were giving them the edge on whimsy, while Orange were getting cosy with Kevin Bacon for the first time. ‘Be More Dog’ wasn’t just for fun - it had a specific purpose for the brand. 

And thirdly, it’s brimming with confidence. The TV ad doesn’t have an immediately discernible proposition beyond a sense of fun and positivity. Quite frankly, it doesn’t need one. it doesn’t include an offer or messaging ‘hierarchy’, and it doesn’t need that either. Instead, it took something brilliant and fun and boiled it down to three little words. That is wonderful strategy and creativity in tandem.

I can understand why O2 nearly kicked the agency out the room when they first pitched it. After d385,000 views in the first 48 hours, I bet they’re glad they didn’t. 

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?

Julian> It must be talking to real people. Customers, retailers, industry experts… good creative strategy tends to come from insights spoken not insights read. 

Having said that, the best way to get those insights out of people is to do your homework before speaking to them.

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

Julian> Honestly, I love pitching. That can be both pitching for new work, or pitching the big idea to an existing client. Any moment in which you are putting yourself out there in front of someone and saying: trust me, I know the way through the fog (or at least the method to find the way through the fog). I like that – it’s exciting.

We have recently started working with Europe’s largest producer of on-shore wind, Ventient, to help them expand across Europe and across the various renewables technologies. The pitch for that had all the elements that make pitching so fun: A cool brand and brief, an engaged client, a dedicated team from varied disciplines, and a few properly awesome ideas. What’s not to like?

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

Julian> I think SOSTAC correctly reflects the way a lot of people think naturally anyway, and therefore works very well as a structure for presenting a strategy. Like most good frameworks though, if you stick to it too rigidly it becomes formulaic and boring. So ultimately, most situations will require some creative tailoring.

It also helps clients sell ideas to their peers and superiors subsequently – always a useful advantage. 

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?

Julian> Ambitious creatives. The best creative/strategic conversations we have is when you go much too big and someone, normally a sensible account director or strategy director, has to reign you in. Sometimes though, it’s best to go in with the mental idea as well – clients rarely mark you down for it. I want to work with creatives who are going to put me out of my comfort zone and give me the challenge of selling a whopping great idea that’s totally impractical and unpalatable. I’ll take that over more of the same any day. 

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?

Julian> It’s a fair question. It’s easy to get into a pattern when you develop a strategy, hold a creative briefing, the creative work is done in silo and then the strategist ends up retrofitting the strategy to match the ideas that come out. 

The answer lies in the reinvention of the creative briefing process. It shouldn’t really be a ‘briefing’ at all. That suggests there’s a moment when strategy is done and ideas begin. The less there is a wall to hand a project over between those two moments in the process, the less likely it is that the ideas will exist independently from the strategy. 

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

Julian> Natural curiosity has to be the single most important factor – a desire not just to answer the question that has been asked but to figure out if there was another question sitting behind it that has more value.

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?

Julian> Effectiveness matters. Not everything is easily measurable, so perhaps it over-values things which are (engagement, sales, CSAT etc) and devalues less tangible objectives like awareness and perception. But ultimately, if we’re not being effective, then we are just shouting into the abyss. 

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

Julian> Of course, but generally, it’s a fantastic job. We get to have variety in terms of client and project, and we get to have a say in the big decisions. If we’re doing the job well, we are having a substantive impact on our clients’ performance – that’s exciting. 

Since December, we’ve worked with a small energy charity on their Christmas campaign, a huge B2B tech firm on rebranding their product range, relaunched the Carbon Trust website, helped Avis on their brand strategy for the next three years, and started working with the coolest brand in sport…more on that in due course. It has been busy, yes, but brilliantly varied. 

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

Julian> Don’t be sucked into the jargon (or worse…). It’s easy to find yourself regurgitating other people’s fuzzy language. The best advice I could give is to find opportunities to learn from clear communicators.