Planning for the Best: Sin Liu’s 5 Core Principles of Strategy

Sin Liu is a strategic planning director at Minneapolis-based advertising and branding agency MONO. For more than ten years, Sin has used her passion for understanding human behaviour and knack for storytelling to help brands translate their ambition into clear, actionable strategies that are truthful to the needs of consumers and impactful. Sin’s expertise has led her to build brand strategy recommendations for clients, including Bumble, American Red Cross, Molson Coors, Timberland, LG, Tommy Bahama, The Gap, The Atlantic, Glossier, Denny's, and Sunglass Hut. In her free time, Sin often draws inspiration from her lengthy history of Muay Thai fighting – as she believes martial arts are the best metaphoric representation of life. 

LBB> Is there a difference between a strategist and a planner – which role fits you the best?

Sin> In the grand scheme, the difference between a strategist and a planner is a bit of semantics. I have been addressed as both, which is fine with me, but I find myself fitting in more as a strategist since it's more comprehensive to my role and skillset. If we nuance the two positions, a planner primarily oversees qualitative and quantitative research to inform the creative brief and campaign output. A strategist has a more expansive influence on a brand’s marketing process beyond campaigns, often leading workshops, recommending new audiences, informing innovation, designing go-to-market plans, or operating as an extended arm of a company’s marketing team.

LBB> We’re used to hearing about the best creative advertising campaigns, but what’s your favourite historic campaign from a strategic perspective? One that you feel demonstrates great strategy?

Sin> Dos Equis’ 'Most Interesting Man In The World' is one of my favourite strategic and creative case studies. I love that it was born from a simple but provocative insight: men would rather be dead than boring – this was such a compelling truism, and they found such a clever way to differentiate a beer with no product differentiation. As a strategist, this is my goal post regarding the type of transformative insights I want to bring to the table. 

LBB> What do you find to be the most useful resource for helping you turn a business brief into something that can inform an inspiring creative campaign?

Sin> Contagious is one of my go-to syndicated research platforms. Not only do they share inspiring, best-in-class global creativity, but they also provide fantastic case studies that reveal the thinking behind brilliant work. TikTok and Instagram have also become great resources in helping me understand the cultural landscape and approach a business problem/opportunity through the lens of consumers. I find that the comments section tends to be more revealing than the content itself!

LBB> What part of your job/strategic process do you enjoy the most?

Sin> I love delving into the minds and perspectives of target audiences that I would have never engaged with before. And there is nothing like jamming with brilliant minds to tackle complicated problems. For example, recently, I worked on two separate campaigns for Bumble and the American Red Cross that dove into the minds of gen z.  

Our strategic process for Bumble’s 'New Rules of the Game' was to get a full picture of the dating landscape by having conversations with gen z/millennial daters, conducting online ethnographies, and sourcing the internet for negative dating stories, memes, podcasts, and documentaries. Our data revealed that women and members of the LGBTQIA+ population had a higher probability of encountering a bad dating experience. Our audience also feels a growing sense of burnout and loneliness from an overwhelming sense of toxicity in the dating culture. Since our data suggested that these negative experiences were so prevalent that gen z/millennials felt this was an innate part of life, we knew the campaign had to feature women playing defence in a competitive sport to symbolize the dating culture from a female’s perspective. 

When we worked on the 'Drop 4 Drop' campaign with the American Red Cross (ARC), they were in the midst of a blood shortage crisis driven by the dramatic decrease of young donors like gen z during the pandemic. Since campuses were closed, the ARC had to find another way to grab the attention of gen z to donate blood. Through conversations with college students, we learned that gen z'ers are motivated to donate blood; however, fear and lack of awareness of donation sites kept them from doing this. We agreed that we needed to meet gen z where they were and noticed how feverishly passionate they were about streetwear. This revelation sparked the idea to partner with legendary streetwear designers to create limited edition items, which could be only redeemed in exchange for blood donation. 

LBB> What strategic maxims, frameworks, or principles do you find yourself going back to repeatedly? Why are they so valuable?

Sin> One of my biggest passions is practicing Muay Thai, also known as Thai Boxing. Through practicing this art form, I have learned combat strategies, which I firmly believe apply to marketing. They’ve shaped how I approach brand strategies. Facing an opponent in the ring is the same as the branded battlefield, which is why I use these five core principles when working. 

1. Winners always have a game plan. Great brands analyse the landscape and the competition to design a game plan that addresses the circumstance. They commit to the plan and consider the long game, not just the short-sighted vision to score in the immediate moment.

2. Be ready to strike. You must be ready to move if the competition gives you an opening. As important as it is to have a plan, we must also be able to recognise moments when we need to adapt and capitalise quickly – and in today’s fragmented, social media-driven landscape, the ability of brands to spot opportunities to act in the moment is more important than ever.

3. Don’t fight your competitor’s fight. Hone in on your style and your strengths, and stay true to that. Trying to fight someone else’s game is almost always a losing battle.

4. Winning requires more than just 'skills.' Legendary fighters hone in on their swagger to win over the audience – much like a brand. 

5. Fundamentals win fights. Fighters become engulfed in the glitz and glam of the newest/flashiest techniques. However, winners remember the constant need to perfect the basics, a notion relevant to marketing. Strategists often obsess over fancy frameworks, sophisticated methodologies, and the newest terminologies. But at the end of the day, I believe in the effectiveness of thinking through the 4C’s (category, consumer, competitive, culture), which resonates with MONO's mantra: 'Simple always wins.'

LBB> What sort of creatives do you like to work with, and what do you want them to do with the information you provide? 

Sin> I love creatives who enjoy the collaborative process between strategy and creativity, the ones that see the process as fluid, where an insight can spark an idea, but the idea can also shape further strategic exploration that bolsters the creative output. The best creatives I work with are also strategic thinkers who can contribute to the strategic process and allow space for the strategy to influence the creative process beyond the point of creative briefing.

LBB> There’s a negative stereotype about the strategy used to validate creative ideas rather than as a resource to inform them and ensure they’re effective. How do you make sure the agency gets this the right way around?

Sin> The most effective way to course-correct narrow views of strategy is to craft more impactful briefs and insights. When creatives can visually see the value of the strategic process, the agency’s culture can adapt. Simply put, if you want your strategic voice to matter in the room, create strategies that matter. Also, ensuring there’s advocacy from executive leadership across disciplines can be influential in setting the precedence.

LBB> What have you found to be the most important consideration in recruiting and nurturing strategic talent?

Sin> When looking for young talent, I always look for those who can translate innate curiosity into a usable output, like a thirst for culture. As a mentor, I try to provide frameworks that present an issue requiring out-of-the-box thinking to land with an impact. The best type of young strategic talent is the one who can quickly and proactively adopt that direction into their work. 

LBB> Are you frustrated with planning/strategy as a profession or discipline? 

Sin> The shrinking timelines and budgets are a significant frustration to the strategic discipline – which definitely applies to the creative process as a whole. Such limitations prohibit the strategic process from flourishing; however, this often occurs from clients who expect a quick turnaround at a low rate. Although it is understandable if you’re looking at the budget, from a strategist's perspective, it displays a real lack of understanding of what it takes to produce meaningful strategies. 

LBB> What advice would you give anyone considering a career as a strategist/planner?

Sin> Be a sponge and soak up all the knowledge you can get from fellow strategists and everyone with a creative brain. Be open to every opportunity, take constructive feedback positively, and don’t let it weigh on your confidence. People don’t give feedback unless they feel like you have the potential to grow. Don’t be afraid to speak your mind and understand you have much to learn. Most importantly, find your style and own it. I spent many years trying to project the strategist I thought people wanted me to be, but I became much more persuasive when I decided to be myself.