Dear Ueno: How do you build strategy on your projects?

Dear Ueno is an advice column for people who for some weird reason think we know what we’re doing. Read more about all this, or check out our old advice.

Bradley Gabel in New York asks via email:

You often mention strategy and how it informs design. How do you build strategy on your projects?

Cort Cunningham, Strategy Lead at Ueno NYC, answers:

Hi Bradley,

Good question! While strategy as a formal practice is fairly new at Ueno, it’s been integral to our work since the beginning as we see strategy being inextricably linked to design. So, how do we approach strategy and why does it matter? Where to start…

A starting point

The word “build” in your question is a critical one, and whether intentional or not, I’m glad you mentioned it. Any built form needs a strong foundation and this is where strategy plays the most important role of any project: to provide a considered point-of-view and a clear path forward. It takes immersing ourselves in our client’s business and asking a lot of questions about the project. (When I say a lot of questions, I mean a lot.) It also takes observing, listening, and surrounding ourselves with people and artifacts that will help us gain insights. The point of course is to synthesize those learnings and craft a complete narrative — from reflection to insight to provocation.

Strategy is also just a starting point. At Ueno, the entire project team works together from start to finish. You mention strategy informing design which is true. And sure, a strategist’s time might be more concentrated at the beginning of a project. Yet strategy is not a one-and-done affair, and can often be informed by design.

Too often, strategists operate by their lonesome, churn out a brief, then it’s up to the creative team to do something with it. Consequently, the work only goes so far, or the client relationship becomes short-lived. We aim to build long-term relationships with each of our clients, so the entire team is invested in the work — from immersion to final output. I may be the one leading the strategy workshop or conducting the customer interviews, but with different perspectives in the room comes a new way of seeing something or realizing what’s worth exploring further. I can’t tell you how many times a designer or producer has noticed or said something in particular that has given me a new thought or a different way to perceive something that had otherwise gotten stuck in my own head. A strategist needs to provoke new lines of thinking which means keeping things open for new knowledge and future iterations.

There are a number of ways that Ueno “delivers” strategy through the entire project and relationship. Here are a few.

Create space

What if we build space into the scope to allow for meaningful understanding throughout the project?

Adequate space and time are crucial for meaningful strategy. Before any project scope goes out the door, the producer shares it with the team to make sure we’re accounting for enough time and resource for gathering research and insights at the onset of the project as well as shaping the brand narrative and product experience along the way. Sometimes immersion sessions and “down and dirty” research findings can set the foundation as we find ways to gain knowledge at later stages of the project. Other times we need to go deep with customer research and cultural immersion. Regardless, our aim is always the same: How do we create space for discovery of what we don’t yet know, that could unlock something we never thought possible?

“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.”
— Carl Sagan

Structure + chaos

What if the final form strategy takes shouldn’t always be pre-defined?

Building this space gives us room to find an alchemy between structure and chaos. There are effective frameworks that we deploy and fruitful exercises we conduct, yet every project is different. And if the process seems a bit chaotic, it’s because we’re going wide and letting our curious minds venture into the unknown.

I always try to bring the team along for the journey by shaping an initial strategic narrative, but the last thing I want is for strategy to feel formulaic or already written. Insights can come from anywhere — especially the not-so-obvious places — so purposeful distraction is often in order. This of course can drive producers a bit mad as they need to quantify every deliverable, but sometimes it’s better not to have too many preconceptions about the final form the strategy should ultimately take.

“The challenge is to innovate by learning from the world.”
— John C Jay, Future of Creativity

The art of stealth

What if a strategist’s secret weapon is the ability to adapt to any type of project or environment?

The role of a strategist calls to mind Ninjutsu, or the “art of stealth” practiced hundreds of years ago in the mountainous regions of Japan. Trained assassins, ninjas honed their skills of invisibility and camouflage by becoming one with nature. I’m not suggesting that strategists play the role of assassins (although they should be adept at stealthily killing bad ideas and misguided project goals), but rather that we should be a quiet force that can adapt to different environments, empathize with others, and train our minds and senses to notice our surroundings.

Perhaps it takes embedding with the client’s team to understand their day-to-day process or delving into their analytics to see what their data could tell us. No matter the environment, we can be ready to attack each problem through first-hand knowledge and personal conviction.

“The only way to see the path in the wind is to become the wind itself.”
— Leza Lowitz Shogo Oketani, Jet Black and the Ninja Wind

Know your audience

What if a strategist sought to find answers in shared human experiences rather than mere data points?

The strategic aim of this piece of content that you’re reading right now is to tell everyone who reads it how strategic we are here at Ueno. But I also wrote it to answer a question posed by one particular person: you, Bradley Gabel in New York.

Knowing your audience means seeking to understand them as humans and to understand the experiences they share. This means going beyond generic category definitions — millennials love experiences! — or viewing data as absolute truths — conversion doesn’t lie! — and instead looking deeper for ways to shape and tell a story.

Thus, when the product or campaign finally shows up in the real world, it’s more likely to be authentic to the brand, demonstrate an understanding of the audience’s needs, and make people to actually want to engage with what you’ve created.

“Instead of looking for answers in the vast amount of data we collect, maybe we can find them more surely in those rare moments when we take part in a shared human experience.”
— Kim Goodwin, Offscreen Magazine Issue 21

A comfortable discomfort

What if making people uncomfortable were a strategist’s way to create fruitful creative tension?

A few months ago David Navarro, our Executive Creative Director, said to me, “You make me uncomfortable.” It took me a moment to realize that he meant it as a compliment. I keep coming back to that point as a shared goal for both strategists and designers in the fight against mediocrity.

Strategy isn’t rehashed words on a page for everyone to nod their heads or feel better about themselves. If it is, the work won’t be all that interesting and people won’t be the least bit interested in engaging with the work anyway. Strategy is about exploring different directions to find creative tension where ideas can thrive; it’s about learning, un-learning, and re-learning new patterns and behaviors; it’s about finding better words to shape a narrative that feels fresh, interesting, and relevant.

“The illiterate of the 21st century are not those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”
— Alvin Toffler

Creative hybrids

What if strategy is at its best when it can flex in different directions based on what a project needs?

As a strategist, my primary purpose on the creative team is to fuel creativity. On any given day, I might be developing a brand strategy, crafting a narrative strategy for a website, or creating an editorial strategy and seeing it through production. Often it’s all of the above, and more.

At Ueno, we want everyone on the team to be able to quickly switch gears and flex in different directions depending on the nature of the project, because in reality it’s all connected. This is of course not to argue against pure product strategists and comms planners who bring a deep specialization to their craft. Rather, it’s an argument for collaborating across disciplines, with the goal of seeing things from all angles so we can help our clients solve real problems.

Think holistically

What if strategy’s delivery date is a constant?

Seeing things from multiple angles means we can create work with many dimensions. We often ask our clients, Where does this initiative sit in the larger marketing plan? What comes next? A new content series? Future product expansion? Rather than be blinded by scope or deliverable, strategy’s true value is when it not only answers an immediate need but also creates a plan for new opportunities. When a product or campaign launches, it’s a manifestation of how we have envisioned the world to look and interact in that moment. With a strategic foundation open to new learning, we can build upon it over time with new ideas. We’re in the business of creativity. The more we can help our clients understand their customers better, put meaningful work into the world, and show how an investment in creativity leads to business success, the better off everyone will be.

For Bradley, and anyone else who kept reading until the end, thanks for fighting the trend toward brevity and letting this strategist provide a long-form response to your essential question.

Thanks for listening, and happy strategizing!

Cheers,
— Cort

Cort Cunningham is Strategy Lead at Ueno NYC. He’ll be the first to tell you he’s a dog-loving vegan who really loves Berlin, but he might just be too humble to mention that he’s also the Managing Editor of Vegan Good Life Magazine, which you should totally snag a copy of the latest issue out now.

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