Skunk Strategy

Richard Huntington is back on top form in his latest blog entry which is all about Skunk Strategies. These are the strategies that you should always have up your sleeve to keep things interesting in case the current strategy doesn’t live up to expectations.

“Whenever I come across thinking that simply doesn’t excite me but where there are extenuating circumstances for why the strategy is as it is, I always ask the planner for their skunk strategy. A skunk strategy is that alternative bit of thinking that they really wanted to land. Who knows, with a following wind we might be able to create some new energy around it and even if this isn’t possible it is a reassuring sign of professional pride and personal standards.”

Richard provides his very own example of a skunk strategy from his days at HHCL:

“When pitching to hold onto the Tango business I was in a skunk team that was concerned with putting the ‘orange’ back into Tango and used the strategy ‘Its the oranges stupid’ in honour of the note that Clinton had pinned around the place in the run up to the 1992 presidential elections. One route was based on the observation that Tango contained the whole fruit a bit like economy pies contain the whole pig. The line was “The whole orange from snout to arsehole” and the work depicted the ghastly abattoir where Tango was made. Hey ho.”