Ask any marketing textbook and the answer is clear: strategy first, creative second. Define your audience, nail your positioning, set your objectives – then unleash the creatives to bring it all to life! But what if the textbook is only half right?
At Moreish, we’ve been exploring this in practice, not just theory. Recently, a client asked us to develop exploratory creative routes before shaping their go-to-market strategy or aligning internal stakeholders. It felt unconventional. But honestly? It worked brilliantly.
The creative concepts didn’t derail the strategy – they accelerated it. Suddenly, stakeholders weren’t debating abstract positioning statements or wrestling over jargon-filled PowerPoint slides. They were reacting emotionally to tangible ideas and the business aligned around possibilities instead of process.
It got us thinking: is strategy-first really the only credible approach anymore? Or, in a world flooded with data, dashboards and AI-generated optimisation, is there growing value in letting the creative spark lead?
The Case for Strategy First
Good strategy gives businesses clarity, direction and commercial confidence. It ensures campaigns are rooted in customer understanding rather than personal taste, while helping marketers justify investment and measure effectiveness.
In sectors like financial services, healthcare or B2B technology, strategy also reduces risk. It creates the framework senior stakeholders need to approve bold decisions.
Done properly, strategy answers the questions that matter:
- Who are we trying to reach?
- What problem are we solving?
- What do we want people to think, feel or do?
- How are we differentiated?
- What commercial outcome are we driving?
Without those foundations, creative work can become directionless. Plenty of campaigns entertain without persuading, or generate attention without delivering commercial impact.
But there’s a danger in ‘over-strategising’ too.
The Case for Creative First
When every decision is driven by frameworks, personas and performance data, marketing can start to feel painfully predictable. We’ve all seen it: perfectly targeted campaigns that disappear from memory the second you scroll past them. Technically correct. Emotionally lifeless. The danger of relying too heavily on frameworks, audience personas and performance data is that marketing starts to converge. Every brand follows the same best practices. Every campaign is informed by similar datasets. Every message becomes polished into predictability.
In a creative-first model, the big idea leads. Strategy exists to support and scale it, not constrain it from the outset.
To traditional marketers, that can sound chaotic. But breakthrough creativity rarely comes from consensus. The best ideas often feel risky, irrational or slightly uncomfortable at first.
Some of the best campaigns in history had no strategy behind them at all. Red Bull and Cadbury’s Gorilla being the obvious two. Totally un-strategic, wacky campaigns that were super successful and prove that thinking everything through first doesn’t always lead to the best outcomes.
“Red Bull Gives You Wings” wasn’t born from a carefully crafted brand strategy, but rather a desperate, last-minute creative breakthrough that became the strategy.
A gorilla embodying pure joy nearly got killed in a boardroom. Cadbury’s Marketing director Phil Rumbol spent 6 months fighting to get it on air – and in doing so, built a new brand strategy around the creative, not the other way around.
Both campaigns are examples of System 1 thinking at work: instinctive, emotional decisions that feel right before they can be rationalised. As consumers, we’re wired to respond emotionally first and justify our choices later. (See our behavioural psychology blog “You’re being irrational” which looks at how our “caveman brains” process information and shape the choices we make.)
So whilst strategy is important, some of the most effective ideas don’t start with a plan. Sometimes the creative leap comes first. These are two large profile examples, but honestly a lot of times agencies do this without fessing up – they come up with a brilliant creative idea then post-rationalise it later.
What this means for modern marketers
None of this means strategy no longer matters. Far from it. The best marketing still requires commercial rigour, audience understanding and clear objectives.
But modern marketers may need to rethink the sequence as sometimes creative work isn’t the output of strategy, sometimes it’s the catalyst for it.
We’re seeing more organisations use early-stage creative exploration to unlock strategic clarity. Instead of waiting until every audience segment and messaging hierarchy is agreed, they use provocative creative concepts to spark reactions, challenge assumptions and accelerate stakeholder alignment.
That’s especially valuable in large organisations where decision-making can stall. A strong creative route gives people something tangible to respond to. It turns vague discussions into sharper strategic thinking.
So, is there a right answer?
Honestly? No.
Both approaches have genuine merit and genuine risk. For financial services marketers in particular (a sector defined by regulation and risk-aversion) leading with a wild creative concept can feel especially counterintuitive. And yet, in an AI-saturated landscape, leaning into pure human creative instinct might be exactly the counter-move that cuts through.
The important thing is recognising that strategy and creativity shouldn’t operate as opposing forces.
The best marketing happens when they challenge and strengthen each other.
So, struggling to land on the right strategy? That might be exactly the right time to talk to us. You don’t need a perfectly polished brief or a fully formed strategy before bringing in an agency. In fact, some of the most valuable work happens when the destination isn’t quite clear yet.
Just like our recent work, where we helped a client move from indecision to a clear, actionable brand strategy; using insight and creative thinking, we explored different positioning routes, messaging territories and creative expressions -showing how each one could come to life in market. Early testing revealed which messages best aligned with their business priorities, helping the team focus commercially, build internal confidence and move forward with a shared sense of direction.
So if you’re not quite ready to brief an agency because the strategy still feels a little ‘fuzzy’, that’s absolutely fine. We’d love to have a conversation about your financial services marketing strategy. We can help shape the thinking with you, explore creative routes, and provide stimulus much earlier in the process than you might expect. Get in touch for a chat here.