Are we Strategists or Planners? (survey results)

Throughout January to February 2021, I gathered responses to explore the distinctions between a Strategist and a Planner. With over 150 collected responses, I aimed to validate my findings. Among the participants, 58% expressed the belief that no difference exists between these two roles, while 42% maintained that there is indeed a distinction. For those asserting a difference, additional questions were posed to delve deeper into their perspectives on the nuances between the two roles. Based on the insights gathered from the survey, here are 10 notable distinctions between these two roles:

1. Planning Focus vs. Activation Focus:

🟡 Planner: Focuses on oversight, coordination, and bringing the strategy to life through various channels.

🟢 Strategist: Concentrates on targeted activation, deep analytical thinking, and evidence-based decision-making for specific audiences.

2. Long-Term Continuity vs. Brand Guardian:

🟡 Planner: Contributes to long-term continuity, providing structure, organization, and understanding of the brand at a detailed level.

🟢 Strategist: Acts as a brand guardian, ensuring consistency, a forward-oriented vision, and adherence to brand needs while staying true to consumer needs.

3. Problem Definition vs. Solution Orientation:

🟡 Planner: Defines human problems, uncovers insights, and crafts strategies that lead to creative work, ensuring message effectiveness.

🟢 Strategist: Solves high-level problems, amplifies solutions, and establishes systems for overall effectiveness.

4. Connection with Customers vs. 360° Vision:

🟡 Planner: Represent the voice of the customer, leading research initiatives, and ensuring campaigns resonate with the audience.

🟢 Strategist: Possesses a 360° vision, finding connection points between insights, concepts, media, content, and KPIs for overall campaign success.

5. Maximizing Creative Messaging vs. Enhancing Brand Value:

🟡 Planner: Maximizes creative messaging effectiveness, providing strong consumer insights for successful campaigns.

🟢 Strategist: Enhances brand value by providing an overview, guidance, creativity, customer understanding, and establishing KPI frameworks.

6. Target Group Accuracy vs. Value Beyond Planning:

🟡 Planner: Ensures target group accuracy, efficiency, innovation, and measurement in campaigns.

🟢 Strategist: Contributes value beyond planning by tying client business strategy into agency work, advising clients directly, and leading projects.

7. Coordination of Actions vs. Upstream Strategic Thinking:

🟡 Planner: Coordinates a cohesive set of actions, ensuring the right communications are in the right place.

🟢 Strategist: Engages in upstream strategic thinking, encompassing business strategy beyond communications and ad strategy.

8. Voice of Customer vs. Impactful Brand Connections:

🟡 Planner: Represent the voice of the customer, leading research initiatives and identifying insights.

🟢 Strategist: Ensures impactful brand connections, providing clear roadmaps for success.

9. Overview and Guidance vs. Insights Generation:

🟡 Planner: Provides overview, guidance, creativity, customer understanding, and KPI frameworks.

🟢 Strategist: Generates insights, creates roadmaps for success, and provides an end-to-end solution.

10. Single Lift Activation vs. Comprehensive Understanding:

🟡 Planner: Focuses on bringing strategy to life through various channels and ensuring execution.

🟢 Strategist: Ensures comprehensive understanding of audiences and consumers, driving success in messaging, media, and insights.

These differences showcase the distinct yet complementary roles of planners and strategists in advertising.

Dear reader, I'm curious to know your stance on the survey findings. Would you agree or disagree? Feel free to share your arguments in the comment section.

Additional findings:

🟣 Do you believe that you're doing grand strategy or ad tweaking?

48% of respondents believe that they're doing a grand strategy. Only 10% admitted that they're doing ad tweaking.

🟣 Do you think that we need more specialists or generalists in Planning and Strategy?

34% of respondents said that we need more specialists and 28% - generalists.

🟣 Do you want to be a Planner or Strategist?

71% of respondents said that they want to be Strategists. Only 8% mentioned that they want to be Planners