Planning for the Best: Tim Collier Says Biggest Difference Between Brief and Client is "Humanity"

Tim Collier is on a mission to revive what makes advertising great: simple, entertaining, and memorable ideas that drive tangible business results. As the national head of strategy at Cummins&partners, he leads the charge for brands like Stellantis, McCain, and Snackbrands, ensuring strategy isn’t just smart, but works.

With experience on both sides of the fence, Tim knows that creativity and media go hand in hand. He’s been at the helm of award-winning campaigns, from launching UNIQLO in Australia (AIMIA’s Retail Campaign of the Year) to securing an APAC Effie for Fantastic Furniture. His early impact on the industry even earned him a spot in B&T’s 30 Under 30.

Tim believes the future of advertising isn’t about chasing the latest trend -- it’s about learning from the past. The brands that win will be the ones that embrace timeless creative principles while adapting to modern media and shifting consumer attention.

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

Tim> Maybe at some point in time there was some difference, but I don’t think this delineation really matters to anyone anymore. To clients, agencies already look expensive. So splitting hairs over nearly identical titles doesn’t exactly scream value. What the industry needs isn’t more semantic squabbling or highfalutin posturing about our roles. It needs fewer labels and more problem solvers who can drive profit.

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

Tim> Call me whichever you like, I won't be offended. Either way, my job is the same: apply expertise to find the most profitable solution for the client. Titles don’t solve problems. People do.

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?

Tim> I’ve always believed the best creative work is the best strategic work. Separating the two feels like a false dichotomy, one that props up a narrative that doesn’t really serve the industry. Great ideas are only great if they are commercial solutions born from one continuous process.

That said, some campaigns do wear their strategy on their sleeve. Jon Steel’s work on the ‘Got Milk?’ campaign is one I’ve always admired. The longevity of that platform speaks volumes about the strength of the insight behind it.

I’m also a bit of a Howard Gossage tragic. He didn’t work with a strategist but had an instinctive grasp of what we’d now call strategy. The story of him sending an intern to visit every gas station to map out how Fina’s competitors positioned themselves? That’s scrappy, grounded, and exactly how I aspire to work. His ‘Pink Air’ campaign was a masterclass in strategic and creative thinking, funny, clever, subversive. It was everything the category wasn’t. It’s a campaign that’s timeless, commercial, and genuinely original.

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

Tim> The biggest difference between our briefs and the clients is humanity. Clients often forget what it’s like to be a regular person who doesn’t think about their brand all day and understandably, we do the same with our own work.

So the most useful resource, for me, is people. Watching them, talking to them, researching them, really anything that helps reveal how they think, behave, and make decisions in the real world. Understanding what’s happening in people’s lives when they enter the category is where the real insight lives.

How you do that depends on the job. If the product is in retail, go to the store. I don’t think strategists go shopping nearly enough. But (and this is key) when you’re in those spaces, don’t turn into a ‘consumer’. Stay alien. Be objective. Musicians use active listening to focus on just one part of a song. We need to do the same. Zoom in on the moment that matters, listen with purpose.

We’ve never had more information at our fingertips, which ironically makes leaving the desk more valuable than ever.

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

Tim> What I love most is getting to learn about everything. One week I’m reading annual reports for the Australian Energy Regulator; the next, I’m deep in conversation about what dehydration feels like, or asking Tasmanian blokes how they plan a night out. I’ve spoken to students about choosing careers, unpacked consumer rituals, and explored all sorts of weird and wonderful decision making moments.

Being able to dive into different worlds, find unexpected angles, and make sense of them, that’s the part of the job I find endlessly rewarding.

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

Tim> One I come back to often (one I think is still widely misunderstood) is what Byron Sharp refers to as the “I love my mum and you love yours” principle. It’s a reminder that people form positive attitudes after using a product, not before. That reversal matters more than we often admit.

It’s especially useful when working with smaller clients, where brand tracking can be a bit soul crushing. Understanding that advertising’s job is often to drive usage, not create instant love. This helps reframe expectations. It also shifts focus away from chasing brand sentiment and onto outcomes that grow client’s business.

One of our industry’s greatest delusions is how much we think we can get people to “think” about brands. This principle keeps that in check — and keeps us honest.

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?

Tim> The best work between strategy and creative happens when there’s real collaboration, built on mutual respect for each other’s expertise. I love it when an ECD pulls up a chair and we talk through the brief and the strategic narrative before it ever hits the client or the wider team. And then having the same openness as the creative develops. That back-and-forth makes the work sharper, smarter, and more effective.

What I really want is for creatives to feel inspired and connected to the impact we’re trying to have on the audience. Use the information to see the shape of the opportunity, the role the product can play, then take it somewhere brilliant.

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?

Tim> There’s no one way to do this. The idea that strategists start with a blank page and build pure, objective narratives is a fantasy. We all begin with hunches and existing opinions. Strategists use those to navigate research and carve a direction; creatives use them to spark ideas. When an idea feels true and relatable, it’s not “reverse-justifying”, its validating creative intuition, just like Strategists do with their own thoughts. Strategy and creativity are parallel processes.

That doesn’t mean strategy should force square ideas into round briefs. Nor is it our job to be slavish bookworms to creative whims. The relationship between strategy and creative (like any relationship in the agency) is a dialogue, not a linear handoff.

And honestly, who’d want it any other way?

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

Tim> Being a strategist takes a special kind of person. There’s plenty of diversity in the people doing strategy, but there is almost no strategist who isn’t relentlessly curious. Having an excitement about the information around the brief, the itch to dig deep and uncover something unique and unseen, that’s non-negotiable.

Fostering that curiosity from day one is key. When recruiting, I look for people who want to go deeper, have their own perspective and have a knack for spotting the small, often overlooked details. That’s the attitude you can’t really teach. Sure, you can train most skills, but without curiosity, you get someone who ticks boxes, not someone who will love strategy.

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?

Tim> Effectiveness awards are fantastic for our industry because they refocus us on what really matters: making profit for clients. Awards handed out for campaigns barely seen, with little impact, are a farce. They devalue everything we do. Giving awards just to soothe the guilt of people working in advertising helps no one.

With effectiveness awards becoming more central, the strategist’s role naturally extends. You have to know how the creative will drive results before it even hits the market. You can’t just make a flashy campaign, then scramble to write a case study and win an Effie. Every piece needs to push hard toward the goal.

That said, creating effective work isn’t just on the strategist, it’s a full team effort. But if an agency makes effectiveness a priority, strategy will of course have a larger set of responsibilities throughout the process.

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

Tim> One of my biggest frustrations is how easily the practice of writing strategy gets drowned in ephemera. Every month there’s a new tool, a new source, a new framework; all fighting for industry attention. It’s distracting. At the heart of strategy is one job: simplify the chaos and set a clear direction. That’s the hard part, and the most important.

But all this obsession with side dishes creates pressure to overwrite. Strategy should be sharp, succinct, and focused. Instead, we end up with bloated slide decks, endless context setting, and walls of data. None of it really justifies the work. It’s there to justify the cost of strategy, it lacks confidence.

What’s baffling is, I’m not sure who actually wants this. Clients don’t want massive presentations. Creatives definitely don’t. Suits make jokes about them. Strategists surely aren’t pleased writing them. So who’s asking for it? It’s a mystery. But maybe if we all just stopped at the same time, we could finally fix this weird little bugbear of mine.

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

Tim> Be curious. Observe people, properly. Enjoy the mess. And please let’s make decks shorter.