The breakthrough moment
This week I listened to a podcast which was a discussion between senior strategists regarding the WARC Future of Strategy report, it makes for tough but fascinating listening.
You can listen to it here:
80% of strategists say the discipline is at a crossroads. 62% believe it’s treated as expendable when budgets tighten. Agency head counts are shrinking. Confidence is down.
But here’s the paradox: at the very moment strategy feels under threat, clients need it more than ever.
WARC’s most interesting finding for Independents?
Brands are increasingly looking outside the walls of holding companies towards independent agencies that can think fast, move freely and bring real-world perspective unfiltered by global politics.
Why this matters
At Lunar, we see it every week.
When we’re brought in early, before the brief, we don’t just deliver ideas. We shift thinking.
Independence gives you space to challenge.
No shareholder politics. No global processes. Just sharp strategy that solves the problem in front of you.
That’s why our strategy team has become the growth engine for Lunar Group. It’s where relationships deepen and where long-term trust is built.
The future of strategy (my perspective)
1. Insight is the new creative brief
We’ve redefined strategy around insight-led storytelling.
Through Lunar Intel, we use many tools but video insight really helps CMOs see the tension points shaping their market, not just read them in a report.
It’s faster, more visceral and it sparks conversations that drive business decisions, not just campaign ideas.
2. AI isn’t replacing thinking, it’s supercharging it
At Lunar Brain our AI division turns noise into signal.
But it’s our strategists who find the story in the data, who connect what’s trending today with what will matter six months from now.
AI accelerates. Humans interpret. Together, they transform.
3. Independents have the cultural advantage
The WARC report nails it: clients increasingly want thinking from outside the walls, agencies that aren’t trapped in the same echo chamber as their competitors.
That’s the edge independents bring: less hierarchy, more honesty and the freedom to move at the speed of culture.
For CMOs reading this
When you buy strategy from an independent, you’re not buying slides, you’re buying real life perspective.
You’re getting access to people who live closer to your audience, not the boardroom.
People who care more about outcomes than optics.
The irony? The most valuable strategy often comes from those furthest from the corporate walls.
Closing thought
The strategists in WARC’s report are right, the discipline is at a crossroads.
But it’s not dying. It’s decentralising.
The future belongs to the outsiders, the independents who combine human instinct with technological intelligence and the courage to say what others won’t.
At Lunar, that’s exactly where we’re heading: upstream, outside the walls, and right into the heart of what brands need next.
