I'm not sure of the value of getting more authentic / complex insights if its still feeding the lose-lose metrics of quarterly growth. If we're going to really speak truthfully then working in commercial strategy/advertising/marketing isn't an ethical choice of career. We try to make it so to justify our salary and safety but it does more harm than good. Bill Hicks was right. Advertising and marketing is part of the problem.
You say that this isn't about us all becoming activists - maybe it is or at least changing careers? Otherwise don't we risk purpose washing ourselves? We may tell the truth of what's going on but if its to sell more luxury to millenials and our truthful strategy succeeds, then is that really a good thing?
We put things in clinical boxes so that we can manage the overwhelm and the complicity. If were really going to look deeply at whats going on and our role in it, maybe we need to consider getting out of the industry? If we care morally about whats going on then, is it about demand creation (however we frame the insight) or is it about stopping feeding the machine?
Our industry is integral to the systemic collapse. The industry created the KPIs which are all about unsustainable growth and attention capture. As Simon Molley says "The IAB, along with the Media Rating Council, have set the definition of what constitutes a billable impression. For display it’s a mere 50% of pixels in view for just 1 second, and for video its 50% for 2 seconds. Tech companies have simply reversed engineered their UI to extract as many billable impressions as possible. This is why infinity feeds are the gold standard of attention mining - they’re designed to meet (but rarely exceed) the 50% viewability threshold. The result is a system that rewards bare minimum ad visibility and ignores genuine user experience."
I dont say this to shame people. I've been on the journey myself and made the leap and its scary and you still need to compromise because of the system we live it. Its not about being purist. But once you start looking deeply you see that there are other jobs that can make a better impact (I'm retraining to be a teacher- and still freelancing - I feel a whole lot better since making the decision). It does mean lowering salary and lowering standard of living..which is hard when you have a mortgage but it is possible.. but if we're going to look deeply and be really honest (which I think you're right in doing) we have to ask ourselves about our complicity in staying in something that is harmful, or at least asking what is the change we want to see by staying?
Like many strategists I burned out during the pandemic. I was trying to come up with ways to sell sneakers for a sportswear giant to kids who couldn’t even go outside. You don’t have to work on Israeli messaging to feel there is something fundamentally wrong with this profession. I saved my money, went to grad school, and now work in the public sector. I make less money but I’ve never looked back (of course this isn’t a viable sacrifice for many). Good on you for retraining as a teacher. If you are a young strategist reading this post and thread and you feel uncomfortable with your work I almost guarantee you those feelings won’t go away, they’ll probably grow. Pivot to something else as soon as you can.
I love this piece. A build: if you work in this industry, you have access to billions of dollars and the cultural megaphone that is mainstream media. That is real power, and it’s a privilege. You can’t dismiss your cultural influence in one breath and then brag about cultural insights for brands in the next without exposing the contradiction. The moment you accept the influence you hold as a strategist, you also accept responsibility for the fallout. To ignore it is, exactly to Zoe’s point, sociopathic.
Perhaps some find their refuge in selling soap. Perhaps selling soap amidst the horrors of today is not heartless or tone deaf. Perhaps it is an escape to a place where strategists know the rules in a world where rules don't seem to matter any more. Perhaps 'going through the motions' of selling soap is a trauma response to the crush of overwhelm and helplessness. We all wear our inner turmoil differently. Just a thought.
I think you're absolutely right about the psychological dimension - "selling soap" as a trauma response to overwhelm and helplessness makes complete sense. We're all trying to find ways to cope with processing horrors while maintaining some sense of agency and sanity.
I have deep empathy for people who find refuge in the familiarity of strategic frameworks when everything else feels chaotic and uncontrollable. That's a very human response to impossible circumstances.
But while I understand why people retreat into "going through the motions" as psychological self-protection, that retreat also makes the work itself less valid and less effective. When we use strategic practice as refuge from external reality, we're no longer really analysing the forces that drive consumer behaviour - we're analysing sanitised versions that protect us from having to see what's actually happening. Which is the point I'm making in my piece. The trauma response is understandable and human. But the professional frameworks that enable that avoidance still produce flawed insights, regardless of why we're drawn to them.
Maybe the real issue isn't individual coping mechanisms but the systems that force people to choose between psychological survival and professional accuracy. We shouldn't have to choose between seeing reality clearly and maintaining our mental health, but the current structures of strategic work seem to demand exactly that choice.
Okay, so this is about ‘how’ strategists sell soap, not the mere fact that they dare to sell something as trivial as soap amongst the turmoil that is today?
Whether we wear blinkers or not, ultimately we can’t help but be shaped by the forces that swirl around us. Even strategists. Many years ago, as part of my undergraduate degree, I interviewed WWII veterans and survivors about how the lived experience of WWII influenced, and continued to influence, their lives. The point was to explore these global shaping events using Bronfebrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory. Blinkers and going through the motions is nothing new. It is as you say, a perfectly human response. But there is no doubt that blinkered or not, we are shaped.
Putting my work hat on, the real question for me is whether strategists know how to translate this new reality into the work that they do. How does this new operating context change how people buy soap or what people want from the soap they choose to buy? When the world is so heavy, what role does soap play for people? It is soap’s job to stand for something big and meaningful? Or do I just want soap to simply be soap and not another thing I have to stop and think about how it might or might not align to my values?
Now, I am not one for black box frameworks myself, so a retreat into the safety of familiar frameworks and automated thinking is not an option for me. This means I regularly get deep into the dirt with people. The mum who cries as she confesses her shame in leaving out ‘yellow freezer food’ for her kids dinner because she is working three jobs; the 68 year old women who apologizes for crying as she quietly explains to me she has never talked about her menopause struggles to any living soul before because her husband ‘wouldn’t be bothered with women’s problems’, or the colleague who, angry and frustrated, tells me she needs to take the day to spend with her autistic child because Trump has reached deep into the heart of their home with his rhetoric about paracetamol. The realisation that friends or family ‘are not who you thought they were’ because you learn that your politics does not align on fundamental, non-negotiable values. When the relationships that have defined you are now under threat. When the side you choose matters.
As you mentioned, the world definitely is not the sanitised version we often see in written into beige pen portraits and vanilla segment profiles. Many people are at breaking point, and I agree we need to acknowledge and understand these tensions and how they impact the consumers we are strategising for. But sometimes, even when we do take the time to understand this, and all the implications, soap just needs to be bloody soap. That, in itself is seeing people’s struggles, empathising, and making a decision not to add to their burden.
I deeply agree that the nuances of our lived experience today matter. Even in happier times, the nuance is where the opportunity lies. But to get to that nuance, we need to get eyeball to eyeball with everyday people and hear about and see their hard stuff. Their dark stuff. Their dirty stuff. I think the challenge for strategists today, is firstly being brave enough to go there, and secondly being skilled (empathetic?) enough to know, or perhaps, choose what to do with the knowledge. And sometimes, although granted, not always, just selling the soap is the empathetic answer.
I hear that this feels personal, and I understand why. You're describing exactly the kind of strategic work I think we need more of - getting "eyeball to eyeball" with people's real struggles, seeing their shame and pain, understanding the complexity of their lives. That's not what I'm critiquing.
The issue isn't whether strategists care about people or try to understand their reality. It's about the professional frameworks and industry structures that systematically filter out that complexity before it reaches the final strategy, regardless of individual intentions.
You mention interviewing WWII veterans and exploring global shaping events through systems theory. That's preserving complexity, not sanitising it. But then you describe how this understanding gets translated into work - and that's where the tension lies. The question isn't whether you understand people's struggles, but whether that understanding survives the strategic process intact.
When you say "sometimes soap just needs to be bloody soap" - I get the empathy behind that. But the critique isn't about whether soap can provide comfort. It's about whether our analysis of why people buy soap acknowledges the full context of their lives, including the systems that create their need for comfort in the first place.
Your approach sounds like it preserves human complexity rather than filtering it out. That's actually aligned with what I'm arguing for. The essay isn't a personal attack on individual strategists - it's about industry-wide systems that make your kind of nuanced work harder to do and less likely to survive the client process.
Oh, it is definitely harder to do, that’s for sure! We work so hard to understand the critical nuances and define the tensions through research and then watch as creative agencies and brand strategists suck the lifeblood out of the opportunity.
I agree that frameworks, structures and the internal workings of agency land definitely have a role to play. But I also believe that empathy is a key skill missing from the strategists toolkit today - and we have so many opportunities in this mad world to demonstrate empathy. Perspective taking, cognitive agility, call it what you will, the ability to see someone else’s reality and understand it as different to your own and then be able to think through the implications for strategy is critical. All to often I see strategists and brand planners building their brand for people just like them. Worse, I see them diminish or discount the ‘real world’ people who buy their brands because they simply can’t relate, or they are chasing the same sexy (and generic) ‘millenials’ target as everyone else.
Sometimes I just think this type of work sounds too hard for many strategists. I am sure that is selling many strategists short, but the reality is that I see so much strategy that feels like it has been conceived in a vacuum that it is easy to get despondent. Perhaps there is not the time, nor the budget, nor the structure, nor the skill set, but I agree with you, it is a most definitely a problem.
This - “the courage to look directly at what we're actually being asked to make sense of” - is almost verbatim a sort of chant I’ve had in my head for a long time. Excellent look at the strategic sociopathy (much better phrase than willful blindness, since it’s not blindness at all). Thanks.
Zoe Scaman, I want to express my appreciation. You jolted me out of my detachment. The question you pose for strategy, for any enterprise, troubles me deeply. We need an answer to the assertion that all that matters is 'selling soap', or as David Ogilvy said 'we well or else'. I will offer thoughts based on my experience and study since leaving this world a decade ago. Here are my reasons for caring. (1) Stagwell (I've met Penn) and Sable (whom I had to navigate as a colleague for 15 years) should be exposed. (2) I belong to a generation that went out to where people were before venturing strategy or ideas, and loved their complexity and richness. (3) I studied Economics and Marxism, and learned the importance of structures and emergence. (4) I once encouraged young people into this world; now we need to find a reason for doing so again.
This is a fascinating piece from the perspective of someone with a background in sociology, and I deeply appreciate it! This is the first strategist’s work that I’ve engaged with without wanting to throw everything off of my desk, and you’ve given voice to the frustration!
We must increase our tolerance for reality and ask ourselves: Who does that benefit to hide from these truths? And how? What happens when we as individuals start seeing ourselves as one of a greater collective and whole? Who does that threaten?
Sociology is one of those areas of studies that will make you no friends. Denial has become the norm. But this is a reframe that needs to be brought into every sector because the fear of truth prevents us from connecting, grieving, and finding honest ways forward. Ironically, while it has become taboo to speak about these difficult topics with nuance, I find that those who do have more resilience and optimism than most. The capacity and ability see and name a problem clearly opens the door to solutions—the only hope we have of building a more functional and sustainable future, of surviving at all is through the door of reality.
If the house is on fire, calling it a warm spell will not save you.
Thank you so much for this essay. Few have described so well how this culture has invalidated my experience of it as well as you have here. I can’t commend you enough.
I'll cop to guilt on strategic sociopathy... it's easy to put the headlines in our problem set-ups (the loneliness epidemic! young men feeling isolated and aimless! social media addiction!) but once you get into a strategic solution, we've shoved those back into their little box.
I've had clients say "we're not trying to solve society's problems" (basically "we sell soap"), and then get frustrated when creative can't tug at heartstrings or make people feel seen. We owe it to creatives who want to do exceptional work to fight that battle. And we owe it to the people who ultimately see the work to acknowledge the wholeness of their experience.
Sure, that's more than just selling soap, but you'll sell a whole lot more soap if you do it right.
Dead cert. Sat in a meeting with Sable once. Decetively disingenious and harmless in appearance. Culturally we're living in am empty box filled with prescribed paths that all lead to dead ends while marginalized populations are systematically erased. Meanwhile blind hamsters on the wheel. Good luck.
I’m the one who originally made the “we sell soap” comment. Saying that doesn’t mean I’m blind to the world’s complexities, or that I’m somehow “ok” with genocide in Gaza, with agencies laundering atrocities, with false vaccine claims, or with ICE propaganda. I’m not.
What I reject is the framing that unless I feel shame about my work, I must be morally inferior or even a sociopath. That’s a false hierarchy. Reflection is important, but feeling shame is not the only measure of ethics.
Make no mistake, I do agree that strategy is often sanitized, a crude simplification of complex reality. What you describe as the brief on Sarah is a sad reality of our job that we need to challenge and resolve. Where I take issue is when you start judging my ethics and morals; that’s a non sequitur. There’s no logical connection between the two.
I’m actually fine with this quote: “Strategists are supposed to be systems thinkers. The entire discipline is built on understanding how different elements connect and influence each other, how economic forces shape behaviour, how cultural shifts drive brand perception, how technological changes create new market dynamics. Systems thinking is supposed to be our core competency.” I do exactly that, but for companies that sell soap. You can choose to do it in other scopes if you want, that’s valid, but that’s another job, not mine.
I understand Sarah’s struggle because they are my struggles. My job is to channel that understanding and complexity into a product that can be sold. You are no different: you understand the alienation of the younger generation and how they escape into a world of fantasy they can control. But then you package that understanding into a keynote you can sell to companies so they can leverage that insight to increase brand value, loyalty, and all the “lingo” you reject.
“You can’t unfeel the complicity that comes with translating existential terror into brand positioning opportunities.” Sure, but that’s exactly what advertising and branding do. They create or respond to emerging needs so that people buy products. That’s how capitalism works: it runs on choices and needs.
This sentence is intellectually dishonest:
"The detachment that lets you discuss 'consumer resilience' while children starve seeps into every area of life until you're not sure what you actually feel about anything."
You can swap “consumer resilience” with any of your strategy deck titles, “Solitude Generation,” “values-driven purchasing,” whatever, and the implied moral superiority instantly collapses. It’s not the phrase that makes someone ethically awake or blind, it’s just a convenient rhetorical device.
Acknowledging the complexity, grief, and moral tension in our work doesn’t excuse harm, but it also doesn’t make you ethically deficient. Critique and reflection are crucial, but judgment of someone’s moral character based on their professional role is a separate issue.
Francesco, you're absolutely right about my keynotes - I do exactly what you do. I process cultural complexity and package it into presentations that companies can act on. There's no meaningful moral difference between us in that regard, and I didn't mean to imply otherwise.
The distinction I'm trying to highlight isn't between "good" and "bad" strategic work - it's about whether we preserve complexity in the process or systematically filter it out. When I give keynotes about cultural shifts, I try to maintain the grief, desperation, and moral contradictions that drive those shifts rather than sanitising them into neat trends. But you're right that I'm still ultimately translating that into actionable insights for commercial purposes.
But I'm aware that I'm complicit in the same systems I'm critiquing. This essay is partly about recognising my own participation in strategic sociopathy, not positioning myself above it. Maybe the real issue isn't individual moral failing but the structural dynamics that push all of us - you, me, everyone - toward sanitisation regardless of our intentions.
The difference might be degree rather than kind. You maintain awareness of complexity while doing commercial work. I try to preserve that complexity in my presentations. But we're both operating within systems that reward moral avoidance and punish complexity.
That's what I want to shine a spotlight on, that's what I want to examine - how these structural forces shape all of us, regardless of our individual intentions or moral awareness.
On this, we are totally on the same page. I’ve often been accused, and I’ve taken it as a compliment, of being painfully honest and making people uncomfortable.
Good strategy should make you feel uncomfortable, and yes, strategy has a problem.
I’m not sure I fully agree that "we’re operating in systems that uniformly reward moral avoidance and punish complexity." At least I hope not.
There is good and bad strategy, like in any field, and I like to think that good strategists are recognized for their work. You are a great example of that. Your unfiltered keynotes are fantastic, I love them, and you deserve all your success.
As a single parent with two young kids, I also feel you. I really do.
I'm not sure of the value of getting more authentic / complex insights if its still feeding the lose-lose metrics of quarterly growth. If we're going to really speak truthfully then working in commercial strategy/advertising/marketing isn't an ethical choice of career. We try to make it so to justify our salary and safety but it does more harm than good. Bill Hicks was right. Advertising and marketing is part of the problem.
You say that this isn't about us all becoming activists - maybe it is or at least changing careers? Otherwise don't we risk purpose washing ourselves? We may tell the truth of what's going on but if its to sell more luxury to millenials and our truthful strategy succeeds, then is that really a good thing?
We put things in clinical boxes so that we can manage the overwhelm and the complicity. If were really going to look deeply at whats going on and our role in it, maybe we need to consider getting out of the industry? If we care morally about whats going on then, is it about demand creation (however we frame the insight) or is it about stopping feeding the machine?
Our industry is integral to the systemic collapse. The industry created the KPIs which are all about unsustainable growth and attention capture. As Simon Molley says "The IAB, along with the Media Rating Council, have set the definition of what constitutes a billable impression. For display it’s a mere 50% of pixels in view for just 1 second, and for video its 50% for 2 seconds. Tech companies have simply reversed engineered their UI to extract as many billable impressions as possible. This is why infinity feeds are the gold standard of attention mining - they’re designed to meet (but rarely exceed) the 50% viewability threshold. The result is a system that rewards bare minimum ad visibility and ignores genuine user experience."
I dont say this to shame people. I've been on the journey myself and made the leap and its scary and you still need to compromise because of the system we live it. Its not about being purist. But once you start looking deeply you see that there are other jobs that can make a better impact (I'm retraining to be a teacher- and still freelancing - I feel a whole lot better since making the decision). It does mean lowering salary and lowering standard of living..which is hard when you have a mortgage but it is possible.. but if we're going to look deeply and be really honest (which I think you're right in doing) we have to ask ourselves about our complicity in staying in something that is harmful, or at least asking what is the change we want to see by staying?
This is precisely the kind of conversation we should be having. So, yes.
Like many strategists I burned out during the pandemic. I was trying to come up with ways to sell sneakers for a sportswear giant to kids who couldn’t even go outside. You don’t have to work on Israeli messaging to feel there is something fundamentally wrong with this profession. I saved my money, went to grad school, and now work in the public sector. I make less money but I’ve never looked back (of course this isn’t a viable sacrifice for many). Good on you for retraining as a teacher. If you are a young strategist reading this post and thread and you feel uncomfortable with your work I almost guarantee you those feelings won’t go away, they’ll probably grow. Pivot to something else as soon as you can.
I love this piece. A build: if you work in this industry, you have access to billions of dollars and the cultural megaphone that is mainstream media. That is real power, and it’s a privilege. You can’t dismiss your cultural influence in one breath and then brag about cultural insights for brands in the next without exposing the contradiction. The moment you accept the influence you hold as a strategist, you also accept responsibility for the fallout. To ignore it is, exactly to Zoe’s point, sociopathic.
THIS.
Perhaps some find their refuge in selling soap. Perhaps selling soap amidst the horrors of today is not heartless or tone deaf. Perhaps it is an escape to a place where strategists know the rules in a world where rules don't seem to matter any more. Perhaps 'going through the motions' of selling soap is a trauma response to the crush of overwhelm and helplessness. We all wear our inner turmoil differently. Just a thought.
I think you're absolutely right about the psychological dimension - "selling soap" as a trauma response to overwhelm and helplessness makes complete sense. We're all trying to find ways to cope with processing horrors while maintaining some sense of agency and sanity.
I have deep empathy for people who find refuge in the familiarity of strategic frameworks when everything else feels chaotic and uncontrollable. That's a very human response to impossible circumstances.
But while I understand why people retreat into "going through the motions" as psychological self-protection, that retreat also makes the work itself less valid and less effective. When we use strategic practice as refuge from external reality, we're no longer really analysing the forces that drive consumer behaviour - we're analysing sanitised versions that protect us from having to see what's actually happening. Which is the point I'm making in my piece. The trauma response is understandable and human. But the professional frameworks that enable that avoidance still produce flawed insights, regardless of why we're drawn to them.
Maybe the real issue isn't individual coping mechanisms but the systems that force people to choose between psychological survival and professional accuracy. We shouldn't have to choose between seeing reality clearly and maintaining our mental health, but the current structures of strategic work seem to demand exactly that choice.
Okay, so this is about ‘how’ strategists sell soap, not the mere fact that they dare to sell something as trivial as soap amongst the turmoil that is today?
Whether we wear blinkers or not, ultimately we can’t help but be shaped by the forces that swirl around us. Even strategists. Many years ago, as part of my undergraduate degree, I interviewed WWII veterans and survivors about how the lived experience of WWII influenced, and continued to influence, their lives. The point was to explore these global shaping events using Bronfebrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory. Blinkers and going through the motions is nothing new. It is as you say, a perfectly human response. But there is no doubt that blinkered or not, we are shaped.
Putting my work hat on, the real question for me is whether strategists know how to translate this new reality into the work that they do. How does this new operating context change how people buy soap or what people want from the soap they choose to buy? When the world is so heavy, what role does soap play for people? It is soap’s job to stand for something big and meaningful? Or do I just want soap to simply be soap and not another thing I have to stop and think about how it might or might not align to my values?
Now, I am not one for black box frameworks myself, so a retreat into the safety of familiar frameworks and automated thinking is not an option for me. This means I regularly get deep into the dirt with people. The mum who cries as she confesses her shame in leaving out ‘yellow freezer food’ for her kids dinner because she is working three jobs; the 68 year old women who apologizes for crying as she quietly explains to me she has never talked about her menopause struggles to any living soul before because her husband ‘wouldn’t be bothered with women’s problems’, or the colleague who, angry and frustrated, tells me she needs to take the day to spend with her autistic child because Trump has reached deep into the heart of their home with his rhetoric about paracetamol. The realisation that friends or family ‘are not who you thought they were’ because you learn that your politics does not align on fundamental, non-negotiable values. When the relationships that have defined you are now under threat. When the side you choose matters.
As you mentioned, the world definitely is not the sanitised version we often see in written into beige pen portraits and vanilla segment profiles. Many people are at breaking point, and I agree we need to acknowledge and understand these tensions and how they impact the consumers we are strategising for. But sometimes, even when we do take the time to understand this, and all the implications, soap just needs to be bloody soap. That, in itself is seeing people’s struggles, empathising, and making a decision not to add to their burden.
I deeply agree that the nuances of our lived experience today matter. Even in happier times, the nuance is where the opportunity lies. But to get to that nuance, we need to get eyeball to eyeball with everyday people and hear about and see their hard stuff. Their dark stuff. Their dirty stuff. I think the challenge for strategists today, is firstly being brave enough to go there, and secondly being skilled (empathetic?) enough to know, or perhaps, choose what to do with the knowledge. And sometimes, although granted, not always, just selling the soap is the empathetic answer.
I hear that this feels personal, and I understand why. You're describing exactly the kind of strategic work I think we need more of - getting "eyeball to eyeball" with people's real struggles, seeing their shame and pain, understanding the complexity of their lives. That's not what I'm critiquing.
The issue isn't whether strategists care about people or try to understand their reality. It's about the professional frameworks and industry structures that systematically filter out that complexity before it reaches the final strategy, regardless of individual intentions.
You mention interviewing WWII veterans and exploring global shaping events through systems theory. That's preserving complexity, not sanitising it. But then you describe how this understanding gets translated into work - and that's where the tension lies. The question isn't whether you understand people's struggles, but whether that understanding survives the strategic process intact.
When you say "sometimes soap just needs to be bloody soap" - I get the empathy behind that. But the critique isn't about whether soap can provide comfort. It's about whether our analysis of why people buy soap acknowledges the full context of their lives, including the systems that create their need for comfort in the first place.
Your approach sounds like it preserves human complexity rather than filtering it out. That's actually aligned with what I'm arguing for. The essay isn't a personal attack on individual strategists - it's about industry-wide systems that make your kind of nuanced work harder to do and less likely to survive the client process.
Oh, it is definitely harder to do, that’s for sure! We work so hard to understand the critical nuances and define the tensions through research and then watch as creative agencies and brand strategists suck the lifeblood out of the opportunity.
I agree that frameworks, structures and the internal workings of agency land definitely have a role to play. But I also believe that empathy is a key skill missing from the strategists toolkit today - and we have so many opportunities in this mad world to demonstrate empathy. Perspective taking, cognitive agility, call it what you will, the ability to see someone else’s reality and understand it as different to your own and then be able to think through the implications for strategy is critical. All to often I see strategists and brand planners building their brand for people just like them. Worse, I see them diminish or discount the ‘real world’ people who buy their brands because they simply can’t relate, or they are chasing the same sexy (and generic) ‘millenials’ target as everyone else.
Sometimes I just think this type of work sounds too hard for many strategists. I am sure that is selling many strategists short, but the reality is that I see so much strategy that feels like it has been conceived in a vacuum that it is easy to get despondent. Perhaps there is not the time, nor the budget, nor the structure, nor the skill set, but I agree with you, it is a most definitely a problem.
I couldn't agree more with you. It is "The zone of Interest" time. But there is hope. You're the proof. Thank you.
This - “the courage to look directly at what we're actually being asked to make sense of” - is almost verbatim a sort of chant I’ve had in my head for a long time. Excellent look at the strategic sociopathy (much better phrase than willful blindness, since it’s not blindness at all). Thanks.
It’s all one big daisy chain of cognitive dissonance, isn’t it.
Zoe Scaman, I want to express my appreciation. You jolted me out of my detachment. The question you pose for strategy, for any enterprise, troubles me deeply. We need an answer to the assertion that all that matters is 'selling soap', or as David Ogilvy said 'we well or else'. I will offer thoughts based on my experience and study since leaving this world a decade ago. Here are my reasons for caring. (1) Stagwell (I've met Penn) and Sable (whom I had to navigate as a colleague for 15 years) should be exposed. (2) I belong to a generation that went out to where people were before venturing strategy or ideas, and loved their complexity and richness. (3) I studied Economics and Marxism, and learned the importance of structures and emergence. (4) I once encouraged young people into this world; now we need to find a reason for doing so again.
Go on... say the C word
It's in its death throes but say it anyway.
I absolutely love this essay and wholeheartedly agree as well as recognising myself as the anxiety riddled individual. Bravo Zoe
This is a fascinating piece from the perspective of someone with a background in sociology, and I deeply appreciate it! This is the first strategist’s work that I’ve engaged with without wanting to throw everything off of my desk, and you’ve given voice to the frustration!
We must increase our tolerance for reality and ask ourselves: Who does that benefit to hide from these truths? And how? What happens when we as individuals start seeing ourselves as one of a greater collective and whole? Who does that threaten?
Sociology is one of those areas of studies that will make you no friends. Denial has become the norm. But this is a reframe that needs to be brought into every sector because the fear of truth prevents us from connecting, grieving, and finding honest ways forward. Ironically, while it has become taboo to speak about these difficult topics with nuance, I find that those who do have more resilience and optimism than most. The capacity and ability see and name a problem clearly opens the door to solutions—the only hope we have of building a more functional and sustainable future, of surviving at all is through the door of reality.
If the house is on fire, calling it a warm spell will not save you.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much for this essay. Few have described so well how this culture has invalidated my experience of it as well as you have here. I can’t commend you enough.
I'll cop to guilt on strategic sociopathy... it's easy to put the headlines in our problem set-ups (the loneliness epidemic! young men feeling isolated and aimless! social media addiction!) but once you get into a strategic solution, we've shoved those back into their little box.
I've had clients say "we're not trying to solve society's problems" (basically "we sell soap"), and then get frustrated when creative can't tug at heartstrings or make people feel seen. We owe it to creatives who want to do exceptional work to fight that battle. And we owe it to the people who ultimately see the work to acknowledge the wholeness of their experience.
Sure, that's more than just selling soap, but you'll sell a whole lot more soap if you do it right.
Dead cert. Sat in a meeting with Sable once. Decetively disingenious and harmless in appearance. Culturally we're living in am empty box filled with prescribed paths that all lead to dead ends while marginalized populations are systematically erased. Meanwhile blind hamsters on the wheel. Good luck.
I’m the one who originally made the “we sell soap” comment. Saying that doesn’t mean I’m blind to the world’s complexities, or that I’m somehow “ok” with genocide in Gaza, with agencies laundering atrocities, with false vaccine claims, or with ICE propaganda. I’m not.
What I reject is the framing that unless I feel shame about my work, I must be morally inferior or even a sociopath. That’s a false hierarchy. Reflection is important, but feeling shame is not the only measure of ethics.
Make no mistake, I do agree that strategy is often sanitized, a crude simplification of complex reality. What you describe as the brief on Sarah is a sad reality of our job that we need to challenge and resolve. Where I take issue is when you start judging my ethics and morals; that’s a non sequitur. There’s no logical connection between the two.
I’m actually fine with this quote: “Strategists are supposed to be systems thinkers. The entire discipline is built on understanding how different elements connect and influence each other, how economic forces shape behaviour, how cultural shifts drive brand perception, how technological changes create new market dynamics. Systems thinking is supposed to be our core competency.” I do exactly that, but for companies that sell soap. You can choose to do it in other scopes if you want, that’s valid, but that’s another job, not mine.
I understand Sarah’s struggle because they are my struggles. My job is to channel that understanding and complexity into a product that can be sold. You are no different: you understand the alienation of the younger generation and how they escape into a world of fantasy they can control. But then you package that understanding into a keynote you can sell to companies so they can leverage that insight to increase brand value, loyalty, and all the “lingo” you reject.
“You can’t unfeel the complicity that comes with translating existential terror into brand positioning opportunities.” Sure, but that’s exactly what advertising and branding do. They create or respond to emerging needs so that people buy products. That’s how capitalism works: it runs on choices and needs.
This sentence is intellectually dishonest:
"The detachment that lets you discuss 'consumer resilience' while children starve seeps into every area of life until you're not sure what you actually feel about anything."
You can swap “consumer resilience” with any of your strategy deck titles, “Solitude Generation,” “values-driven purchasing,” whatever, and the implied moral superiority instantly collapses. It’s not the phrase that makes someone ethically awake or blind, it’s just a convenient rhetorical device.
Acknowledging the complexity, grief, and moral tension in our work doesn’t excuse harm, but it also doesn’t make you ethically deficient. Critique and reflection are crucial, but judgment of someone’s moral character based on their professional role is a separate issue.
Francesco, you're absolutely right about my keynotes - I do exactly what you do. I process cultural complexity and package it into presentations that companies can act on. There's no meaningful moral difference between us in that regard, and I didn't mean to imply otherwise.
The distinction I'm trying to highlight isn't between "good" and "bad" strategic work - it's about whether we preserve complexity in the process or systematically filter it out. When I give keynotes about cultural shifts, I try to maintain the grief, desperation, and moral contradictions that drive those shifts rather than sanitising them into neat trends. But you're right that I'm still ultimately translating that into actionable insights for commercial purposes.
But I'm aware that I'm complicit in the same systems I'm critiquing. This essay is partly about recognising my own participation in strategic sociopathy, not positioning myself above it. Maybe the real issue isn't individual moral failing but the structural dynamics that push all of us - you, me, everyone - toward sanitisation regardless of our intentions.
The difference might be degree rather than kind. You maintain awareness of complexity while doing commercial work. I try to preserve that complexity in my presentations. But we're both operating within systems that reward moral avoidance and punish complexity.
That's what I want to shine a spotlight on, that's what I want to examine - how these structural forces shape all of us, regardless of our individual intentions or moral awareness.
On this, we are totally on the same page. I’ve often been accused, and I’ve taken it as a compliment, of being painfully honest and making people uncomfortable.
Good strategy should make you feel uncomfortable, and yes, strategy has a problem.
I’m not sure I fully agree that "we’re operating in systems that uniformly reward moral avoidance and punish complexity." At least I hope not.
There is good and bad strategy, like in any field, and I like to think that good strategists are recognized for their work. You are a great example of that. Your unfiltered keynotes are fantastic, I love them, and you deserve all your success.
As a single parent with two young kids, I also feel you. I really do.
This was everything!!!
This is brilliant. Having experience of this kind of wilful blindness at work, I can say that you hit the nail on the head.