The WARC Podcast Less bland, more brilliance: strategy skills for a new era
14 snips
Oct 9, 2025 
Tomas Gonsorcik, Chief Strategy Officer at DDB Worldwide, discusses the need to treat strategy as a talent-driven service. Joe Burns, Strategy Lead at Agency Quality Meets, highlights the challenges of free thinking in the age of AI, urging strategists to redefine value. Elizabeth Paul, CSO at the Martin Agency, emphasizes building trust and the importance of strategic depth over hurried tasks. Together, they explore how to reclaim strategic work, navigate change, and preserve human creativity, all while adapting to an evolving marketing landscape.
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Market Wants Strategy, Agencies Must Rebrand
- The market demands high-end strategy while agency strategists feel less influential and visible.
- Rebranding strategy as a client-facing service could restore its value and relevance.
Scoping Death Spiral Dilutes Strategy
- Strategists often end up shallow and overstretched due to reduced resourcing and broad scopes.
- That scoping death spiral dilutes strategic contribution and reduces perceived essentialness.
The Pitch Paradox: Giving Thinking Away
- Agencies often 'give the thinking away' during pitches then aren't paid for ongoing thinking afterwards.
- The challenge is whether to charge for thinking itself or for producing evidence of thinking.