Baiba Matisone - Strategists in advertising - How agencies and clients can work better together - S4 Ep9

Baiba’s career is varied to say the least. Starting with a bachelor of visual arts at university where she was dissuaded from pursuing a career in this field, to later attempts at breaking the small glass ceiling of male advertising strategists in her native Latvia. After some account management experience at both Ogilvy and Grey group she landed a strategist role at an agency in the Czech Republic, later working at Kantar Millward Brown. During COVID she started a community dedicated to serving fellow strategists around the world - pushing the profession forward.

Now she works mostly freelance in between guest lectures at Miami Ad School and a mix of other pursuits from her new base in Berlin. You couldn’t get someone closer to the front line in the advertising agency world who also has a healthy cross functional chunk of experience.  

Sometimes referred to as The Mark Pollard of Europe. She specializes in brand strategy and creative strategy. 

In this episode you’re going to get a good grounding in the history of strategists, formerly known as account planners. You'll learn where the role came from. Why it is needed. What the role looks like today (for better or for worse). Why you need access to one when working with an agency and all of the good, the bad and the ugly within the modern world of advertising.  

But what also leaks out are some very interesting comments about the modern state of the client agency relationship. The problems on both sides and how we can solve them together aligned in the pursuit of better work.

You'll learn how to brief better. How to tell an experienced planner from a junior one (or influencer cult follower). You'll learn which strategy frameworks you can use and which ones are overrated. You'll also learn why insights are not essential for good strategy - and much more.

As usual, many common myths will be debunked and if you don’t learn something new, you haven’t been listening. 

So what are you waiting for?