Depok-The Creative Advertising study program, Vocational Education Program, Universitas Indonesia (UI), held a guest lecture entitled “Creative Strategy” by presenting Ezra Nathannael, Head of Business and Strategy at AmbilHati, on March 12, 2025. The guest lecture integrated with the Creative Strategy course aims to invite students to learn the role of a strategist in advertising.
A strategist is someone who is responsible for planning and developing broader strategies to achieve organizational or business goals. In the advertising industry, a strategist is responsible for designing and directing strategies that will determine the success of an advertising campaign. The strategist is the brain behind the planning that ensures advertising messages are targeted, relevant, and effective in achieving business or communication goals.
Ezra conveyed several mindsets required by a strategist, starting from analytical thinking, creative thinking, strategic thinking, data-driven thinking, empathetic thinking, to system thinking. “A strategist‘s mindset is a combination of analytical, creative, and empathetic. They must be able to see the big picture, break problems into smaller parts, and design innovative and effective solutions. In addition, strategists also need to be flexible, collaborative, and visionary to face the ever-changing challenges in the world of marketing and advertising,” said Ezra.
(Photo: Group photo of students after the guest lecture ended)
Furthermore, Ezra provided an understanding of the strategic logic chain, namely problem, insight, and solution. Ezra also shared several examples of brands and related them to the strategic logic chain. For example, milk products that have a problem in the form of the view that milk is for children, not adults. Then, the insight that can arise is that when fasting, the body feels weak and lazy to do physical activities. Thus, a solution arises in the form of milk products that contain vitamins and minerals that make a person stronger in fasting.
Finally, Ezra said that in creating a creative idea, it needs to start with a strong strategy. Some of the main points in a strong strategy are determining the foundation of the business; target audience for creative campaigns or messages; problems or challenges that need to be solved through creative solutions; in-depth knowledge of the audience, market, or situation as the basis for relevant and effective creative solutions; and ideas in the form of innovative and creative concepts or solutions based on a deep understanding of the four previous points. Ezra said, “Through a strong strategy, creativity will be more focused and effective in achieving business goals. Of course, this strategy will help us as strategists develop products or services through campaigns and messages to the target audience.”
Head of the Creative Advertising Study Program, Nailul Mona, S.I.Kom., M.Si., said that learning about creative strategies is one of the foundations for students before deepening their knowledge in the world of advertising. “I hope this knowledge of creative strategies can be used as their provision in creating an interesting and innovative advertising message or campaign. So, their competence will be in accordance with the needs of the advertising industry and various brands that will become their clients,” concluded Mona.
