Victors & Spoils Begins Open Strategy

Advertising agency Victors & Spoils has established a separate global strategy practice, offering a blueprint for thinking to clients who believe a great idea can come from anywhere.

V&S Open Strategy is different from the strategy offerings of its competitors because the agency’s leaders can build custom teams from a global community of more than 1,100 strategists by matching specific skillsets to each project. With access to V&S’ 36,000-person global crowd of category and product experts, creatives and fans who think differently, V&S Open Strategy provides depth and breadth of thinking, no matter the type of strategic project.

“We’ve always operated under the belief that if you ignore the world when you develop strategy, advertising or products, the world will ignore what you develop,” Executive Creative Director Noah Clark said. Technology, he added, enables an open system to solve clients’ strategic problems.

Deliverables encompass brand, marketing and advertising strategy, including creative insights, consumer and target insights, ad testing, new product development and ethnographies.

V&S has performed open strategy with clients that include American Express, WD40 and Pernod Ricard, and it currently is working with Crocs, Vail Resorts and Unilever. V&S has applied its open strategy practice globally, in Australia, China, Russia, the UK and North America. Andy Sackmann, CMO of Crocs said, "We liked how V&S' open model provided timely and targeted consumer input and feedback to our brand development approach to insure we kept the consumer at the center of our strategy."

V&S brings an innovative and solution driven approach to problems clients face. "We were stuck on a big new customer acquisition challenge. We brought V&S in, they asked some really provocative questions and got back to us with a range of potential approaches within a clear strategic framework. We saved months and I loved the combination of strategic rigor and tactical nuance. It made it easy to see where we had to go to win in the marketplace," said John Steward, EVP & General Manager, American Express - International Consumer and Small Business Services.

The company's insights reach into consumer's hearts and minds. "V&S' Open Strategy has been a powerful tool for how to communicate outside of our office walls and spreadsheets, and into the hearts of people who ski / ride and love our mountains. It's strategic planning at its best," said Nina Cashman, Director of Corporate Marketing at Vail Resorts

V&S's open strategy allows them to find the best idea no matter where it is. “We don't have all the answers – no one person or organization does,” V&S President Jonathan Balck said. “But someone in the world does, and our model allows us to find the right person and ask.”