Creative Strategy
Helping creatives, businesses + brands
Unify your content with an emotional strategy
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CREATIVE STRATEGY - OVERVIEW
What makes a good content strategy?
A good content strategy is based on knowledge but that’s the easy part, The hard part is to develop a creative strategy people will feel. That they will love. Because if they love it, they’ll share it.
Most strategies skip this and go straight to "what". They correctly describe the brand but give nobody a clear emotional need. The result is content that describes — not content that connects.
Here’s how Carl’s approach is different:
The content hook
What’s your one “story hook” strong enough to engage every channel / format?
All content should be based on that hook. Never the same post twice, always the same story underneath.
Identify the hook + you’ll save time + money.
The content strategy
What are your audience’s likes and loves? Always know before you develop a content strategy.
True for B2B as well as B2C.
Clarify needs / feelings then work back to the format
Understand emotions connected with sales
The content library
Can your existing content be reformatted or do you need to rebuild?
Often brands + businesses don’t need to start again they just need to adjust to changing audience demands.
Audit before you multiply formats.
What people loved
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![A woman with blonde hair wearing a black and white striped shirt and black overalls, looking upwards with a smile and her hand on her forehead, in a warmly lit indoor setting.]()
“Carl is an inspiring professional, we always get great feedback from his D&AD masterclass. He alwasy engages with everyone. "
Lisa Evans - D&AD
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![A man with blonde hair wearing a dark blue button-up shirt against a black background.]()
“Carl quickly understood our brand. He successfully challenged our thinking. His ideas on cross platform solutions gave us real emotioanl insight"
Mostyn Thomas - D3O
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![Black and white photo of a woman smiling with her arm around someone, against a wooden wall background.]()
“Travel is a unique industry. Carl embraced the challenge + gave us an emotional update. His idea to position us as Travel Experts was a really great piece of strategy. "
Holly - Diverse Travel
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![Daiso logo with black text on yellow hexagonal background]()
A greatGreat Masterclass - gave me a fresh perspective on the challenges of story telling especially in a commercial setting. Welcoming and informative.
Senior Copywriter
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![A middle-aged man with short gray hair wearing glasses and a light pink collared shirt, smiling slightly against a black background.]()
Carl's AI presentation was insightful, engaging, and highly informative. Carl connected exceptionally well with the audience, encouraging participation and ensuring everyone felt involved throughout the session.
Fergus Bowen - Managing Director Bene
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![Yellow smiley face with the text 'Harness the power of emotional creativity' in a semicircle around the top of the face, on a black background.]()
This class was equal parts inspirational and tactical, a great primer on ways to add emotion to any script and video project.
Emotional Workshop CEO
CREATIVE STRATEGY - DEVELOPMENT
Developing a good content strategy?
Your audience loves content. Every day they spend roughly 2 hours 21 minutes per day on social content that’s 12.2 billion hours globally. That’s a lot of time, So how do you convert those hours into sales? Stop the scroll, on your page? This is where strategy and numbers won’t help. You need a new tool.
For most creatives, brands and businesses developing emotionally attraction takes three direct stages. Of course every brand is different, and needs a specific brief, but in general we have found these three stages work:
CHARACTER + CONFLICT
Your audience is the hero. You’re the point of change.
The most effective strategies put the audience in the hero role — their problem is the conflict, your brand is the resolution.
This is how every story that has ever made anyone feel anything is structured. It also happens to be how the best strategies work.
Don’t be scared of change, embrace it.
THE BRIDGE
Between your brief + emotional reality
Your brief is written in logic. Your audience lives in feeling.
A good brand strategy links the two — turning rational objectives into emotional language that audiences can actually respond to.
That translation is the work. The structure is your story. Combined they’re very very engaging.
THE EMOTIONAL HOOK
One idea strong enough to unify content no matter the platforms
Two to five words that carry the entire strategy. For Notch: Passion for Life. For McConks: Unlock Your Freedom.
With a single unifying idea you can then develop your hook.
Remember, humans like consistency, they don’t like surprises.
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![A person paddleboarding in calm water under a large, dilapidated pier structure with seagulls nearby.]()
McConks
Combine photography and video
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![Pink background with white text that reads "Wear the real you."]()
Notch + Interpride
Cross over brands
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![A top-down view of a plate of stir-fried noodles with chicken and vegetables, surrounded by small bowls of sliced red chili peppers, green edamame, shredded coconut, soy sauce, and fresh cilantro, set on a black surface with chopsticks underneath.]()
OOH Sales
Partnerships and traditional media
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![A man dressed in a wetsuit standing on a pebbled beach, holding a blue and white paddleboard and paddle, with overcast sky and water in the background.]()
McConks
Using social to build online sales
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![A person paddleboarding on calm water with small islands and grassy areas, and a background of trees and hills.]()
McConks
Build communities and share campaigns
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![A person wearing a black and blue athletic tank top and matching blue athletic leggings stretching outdoors near green foliage, holding their foot behind them while balancing on one leg.]()
Special offers
Black Friday and beyond
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![A woman sitting at a table with a bowl of ramen, using chopsticks, with another woman behind her giving a massage, in a dimly lit setting, with Wagamama branding and the phrase "from bowl to soul".]()
Big Brand Campaigns
Crowd pleasing campaigns
STRATEGY - THE BEGINNING
A single “hook” will save you time and money
Posting on various channels can be exhausting. An engaging campaign hook naturally adapts to every platform. From YouTube to Meta, TikTok and OOH your audience only cares about one thing - what is it about this brand that attracts me + why should I care?
WITHOUT AN EMOTIONAL STRATEGY
Feeding every platform. Getting nothing back.
Different message on every channel — nothing connects
Needs endless content to keep platforms "active"
Teams briefed differently — inconsistent output
Impressions but no emotional impact — no brand memory
Audiences scroll past — nothing asks them to feel anything
WITH ONE CLEAR EMOTIONAL STRATEGY
One idea. Working everywhere.
Every channel carries the same feeling — they reinforce each other
Less content needed — every piece knows what it must do
All teams briefed to the same emotion — consistent output
Audiences feel something — which is why they act on it
Brand memory compounds — the same feeling, every encounter
Passion for Life
WHAT YOUR AUDIENCE NEEDS
It’s your heart that buys you ice cream, not your mind
Science fact. A researcher eats an ice cream close to a monkey and the monkey’s mirror neurons fire as if the monkey was eating the ice cream. So what have monkeys got to do with your brand?
TRUTH 01
Nobody remembers what you said.
They remember how you made them feel.
Emotional memory is more durable than factual memory. A brand that makes you feel something is a brand you remember. A brand that tells you things is a brand you forget before you close the tab.
TRUTH 02
Your history is about you.
Feelings are about them.
Every time a brand leads with its founding story or its milestones, it makes itself the hero of a story the audience has no reason to inhabit.
Your history only matters if it reveals something about their future.
TRUTH 03
Data informs.
Stories persuade.
Statistics activate the language brain. Stories activate the emotional brain — the part that makes decisions.
Lead with feeling and the logic lands better. Lead with logic and the feeling never arrives.
IN PRACTICE — UNIT CREATIVE CASE STUDIES
Real Hooks Real Campaigns
The most valuable part of any brand strategy is finding the single emotional idea that makes every subsequent decision obvious. Here is how it worked for two Unit Creative clients.
CASE STUDY · UNIT CREATIVE
Notch
The challenge: Transform an achievement-based jewellery brand into a desirable everyday object — increasing sales and visibility without losing what made it meaningful.
THE EMOTIONAL HOOK
Passion for Life
One hook shifted the brand from race-day reward to everyday desirable — opening a far wider audience without a rebrand. New look and feel, website, unified advertising across all channels. Social managed. ROAS enhanced. All from one clear emotional idea.
CASE STUDY · UNIT CREATIVE
McConks
The challenge: An ecological paddleboard brand needed pre-season sales. Real commercial results — not awareness.
THE EMOTIONAL HOOK
Unlock Your Freedom
200% - SALES INCREASE · 6 WEEKS
McConks isn't a paddleboard company. It's a freedom company. One hook, one video campaign, one consistent message. The strategy did the work — not the volume of content.
D&AD APPROVED MASTERCLASSES + BESPOKE SESSIONS
Discover a new perspective
D&AD Emotional Creativity Masterclass
The D&AD-approved 3-hour programme — the fastest way for a team to understand why their strategy isn't landing
In thre hours you will discover
A new way to think about your strategy
Your Creativity
Your Content
Discover the science behin the theory
Access a tool kit for development
Sometimes it’s not about a brief it’s just about a fresh perspective. A chance to sit back and see - you’re not alone. Other people, other brabds have faced the same challenges and goine on to devlop long lasting award winning strategies.
So why not ask Carl to come and fire up your yteam or join one of the rolling Masterclasses.
NEED A WORLD CLASS SPEAKER OR FACILITATOR
Keynote Speaker
Specialising in innovation, media and film, Carl is an in-demand speaker and has delivered public + private presentations and keynotes worldwide.
Clients appreciate how he blends a deep understanding with practical hands-on experience in a relaxed, spontaneous and humorous style.
FACILITATOR
With a history of hands on experience as a creative, film director, content producer and strategist trained in the UK + the USS car can facilitate or chair your events in a open clear way based on real knowledge and experience.