Ep 37: The Scrappy Strategy One

10/12/2025 16 min Episodio 37
Ep 37: The Scrappy Strategy One

Listen "Ep 37: The Scrappy Strategy One"

Episode Synopsis

In this short, slightly, scrappy, 10-minute bonus episode, the strategist’s strategist Julian Cole joins me again - this time for a real-time riff on how to devise a usable strategy brief… when you don’t actually have one.Julian has worked with Uber, Apple, Facebook, Disney and more, and is known for demystifying strategy and making it accessible. In our previous full-length episode, we got so deep into strategy chat that my producer gently told me off for going way over time. So here’s the fun bit we couldn’t bear to delete.What we cover in this mini-episode:Where to start when no usable brief existsJulian shares his “brief audit” approach — the mandatories, the nice-to-knows, and how to avoid reinventing the wheel.Live strategy development: The Dog Teeth Whitening BriefYes, really. We take a fictional vet chain launching a dog teeth-whitening service and unpack:The business problem vs the consumer problemHow to explore audience motivations, goals and fearsWhy aesthetics is never really about aestheticsHow social connection, status and even loneliness show up in strategic thinkingInside Julian’s strategic processWe walk through:Defining goals and problemsUsing goal/fear dynamics to find emotional territorySpotting potential insightsBuilding three “strategy napkins” — quick, rough territories you can test with clients or creativesWhy messy thinking is part of the processStrategy rarely arrives fully formed. This episode shows the real-world expansion phase — the part most people never see.Why listen to this bonus?If you ever need to develop a strategy without a proper brief (which, let’s be honest… is more often than we may like), this episode gives you a practical, human, and transparent look at how a top strategist begins to approach the problem.About Claire Bridges  Claire Bridges is Chief Spark and Founder of leading creative training consultancy Now Go Create, whose philosophy is that everyone can be creative. Claire worked as Managing Director and Creative Director working with global brands including Starbucks, Kellogg’s, Unilever, P&G and Danone in her previous PR career. Upskilling individuals, teams and organisations with practical creativity tools is Claire’s mission.  She’s one of only 250 people globally to hold an MSc in Creativity, Leadership & Innovation, and authored an Amazon best-selling creative handbook In Your Creative Element based on her academic studies. Claire and her hand-picked team of experts have worked on thousands of creative projects and trained over 40,000 people around the world since starting Now Go Create in 2011.Join our weekly email for free resources and worksheets to go with the podcast.Connect with Claire:Website: https://nowgocreate.co.uk/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nowgocreate/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NowGoCreateLinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/claire-bridges-b6205b14About Julian Cole:Julian Cole is a strategy consultant to leading brands including Uber,...