Agencies sideline strategy even as client demand spikes in volatile environment

New Delhi: Strategy in marketing agencies is at a crossroads, according to new findings from WARC’s The Future of Strategy 2025 report. Despite strong client demand for guidance in a volatile and uncertain environment, many agency-side strategists report that their discipline is often treated as expendable.

The study, based on a survey of 1,127 strategists worldwide and interviews with leading experts, highlights the tension between growing client expectations and declining resources for strategic roles.

“Agency-side strategists feel their discipline is at a crossroads and all too often is treated as expendable. Agency-side strategy needs to rebrand, focusing on helping clients identify where and how to grow,” Lena Roland, Content Director, WARC Strategy, said.

The survey revealed that 80% of strategists believe their field must adapt to remain relevant, while 62% feel strategy is deprioritised during budget constraints. Headcount is also declining, with only 31% of respondents expecting strategy positions to grow over the next year, down from 47% in 2024.

Tom Morton, founder of strategy consultancy Narratory Capital, observed: “The economic housing of strategy is coming apart, which is strange because the demand for it is as high as ever.”

Ellie Bamford, Chief Strategy Officer at VML North America, added: “We’ve become risk averse, and our clients have become risk averse... We are hiding behind mountains of data and research, and we’re not coming out strongly enough with our point of view. And that’s diminishing our value.”

The report also examines the impact of AI on the role of strategists. While 46% of respondents disagree that AI will erode their value, 37% agreed that AI could learn some of the most important strategic skills. Use of AI tools has increased sharply, particularly in North America, where 85% of strategists report adoption, compared with 74% in Asia and 69% in Europe.

Oliver Feldwick, Chief Innovation Officer at T&P, said: “The challenge for strategists is not to resist AI, nor to blindly embrace it, but to partner with it. This is not about abdicating our role. It’s about evolving it. Reclaiming strategy from the grind and rediscovering the joy of thought.”

Strategists are leveraging AI to streamline tasks such as competitor analysis (66%), brief development (51%), and cultural insight generation (42%). Yet limitations remain, with 61% noting a lack of originality and 60% citing insufficient cultural nuance and emotional resonance.

Industry experts emphasise the importance of human-led research and imaginative thinking. Joseph Burns, Strategy Lead at Quality Meats Creative, commented: “Strategy regains relevance when it stops polishing symmetry and starts opening up advantages: gaps in understanding, in access, and in timing.”

Steve Walls, Planner at Moon Rabbit, added: “Planning needs to stop trying to be right and start trying to be useful. It needs to take leaps of faith and to convince others to follow it into the unknowable. Strategy should be infused with empathy, imagination, ambition and truth.”

Tomas Gonsorcik, Global Chief Strategy Officer at BBH, said: “We have to rebrand strategy – not as a back-office function, not as a luxury, but as a service: clear, accountable, and indispensable. Strategy should operate as a standalone service inside the agency. Its primary customers are creatives and CMOs, and its purpose is to deliver growth clarity, not just decks.”

The report identifies the most significant opportunities for strategists as helping clients navigate volatility in their categories (52%) and in the media landscape (45%). The Future of Strategy 2025 also includes quantitative and qualitative analysis, expert commentary, and advice from leading strategists.