How Agencies Deliver World Class Creative Strategy Services
How creative strategists can move their clients forward by using Foreplay to deliver clear inspiration, tight briefs, and a weekly creative rhythm that actually gets results.
If you are a creative strategist working at an agency that serves e-commerce brands, you already know your value comes down to one thing. Can your ideas actually move the brand forward?
You have creative concepts that can help your clients hit their goals. You want those ideas to land. You want them to get used. And you want your work to genuinely shape the business.
So how do you do that? How do you present creative ideas in a way that inspires a brand enough for them to take action.
Spoiler. It is not screenshots buried in a Slack thread that eventually gets muted. It is not a cluttered slide deck that looks like it belongs in a board meeting. And it is definitely not a Google Doc full of links that may or may not work three days from now.
Foreplay was built for creative strategists. Over ten thousand marketers from the world’s top agencies use it every day to deliver creative strategies that make clients feel energized instead of confused.
So let’s talk about how you use it to inspire the brands you work with.
First, understand the creative team you are dealing with. Are they aspirational? Are they visionary? Do they love polished photography or scrappy UGC? What do they respond to? What do they hate?
Start with research. Study their niche. Understand their creative target, which is the actual person buying the product. Then look at what the brand has posted before. Ask the decision makers what they like. You are not guessing here. You are gathering signals.
This part matters. You are trying to nail it for them. Listen now so you can create with confidence later.
Next, test the waters. Show them what you are thinking, but do not lock it in. Email is slow and permanent. Google Drive is a permissions mess. Google Docs is a nightmare of dead links. Do not force your client to open twenty windows just to understand your direction.
Build a mood board instead. One clean board. One clean link. Make it faithful to the brand. There will be a time to push boundaries, but early on you want to show them you understand their taste.
When I used to work with Goldhinge, a fast growing women’s athletic wear brand, I found a set of ads that had a paparazzi feel. Two models walking down the street, shot as if they were celebrities being followed on a morning walk. It matched their vibe perfectly.
I shared a Foreplay board with their team and it clicked instantly. They built their next shoot around that direction. The collection was successful because the inspiration was right.
So how do you become that kind of strategist? The one whose ideas turn into real creative output. Here is the checklist.
1. Save creative constantly.
Anytime you see something and think that might be perfect for my brand, save it. With over 82 million ads in Discovery, inspiration is everywhere.
2. Share it properly.
Build mood boards. Do not send isolated ads one by one. Present direction, not noise.
3. Create briefs that are clear.
Tell your creators exactly what you want. Give examples. Give constraints. Make it easy for them to execute.
4. Check performance.
Great creative should show up everywhere in the brand. Social posts, ads, emails, landing pages. Knowing what works is the baseline for improving it.
5. Make it repeatable.
Set expectations. One mood board, one brief, one creative report every week. That is how real agencies deliver creative strategy at a high level without burning out.
If you follow this system, you stop throwing ideas into the void. You start inspiring your clients with clarity, direction, and confidence. That is the job. And this is how you do it.
