Creative Strategy (15 Apr - 15 June, 2026)

Program plan - 8 sessions, 8 weeks (1 session per week)

• Session length: ~45–60 minutes
  Written deep-dive content (+ optional additional materials) and 20–30 minute video
• Live sessions: 4 sessions, 60 minutes each (between every 2 sessions)
  Live class with instructors to discuss all your open questions
• Training simulator: all the theory will be practiced using 3 fictional brands:
  • PolarBean: Market leader - benchmark brand
  • Orbit: Mid-sized brand in the middle
  • NightShift: Niche/Cult favorite

🎯Goal

Draw a clear distinction between Persuasive (intuitive) and Salience (evidence-based) schools of thought

🔺 Features

The Creative Strategy Program is for experienced practitioners ready to master the two core schools of thought in advertising: Persuasion and Salience. Many rely on intuition alone, but this program shows you the evidence-based perspective you’ve been missing.

You’ll learn what each school emphasizes, what it overlooks, and where common misconceptions arise. Through hands-on exercises—including applying both perspectives to creative brief creation—you’ll gain practical tools to make smarter, more effective strategic decisions that drive real results.

What You'll Learn & unLearn:

⭕ Session 1: Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning (STP) vs. Market-Based Asset theory (MBA)

We’ll go through the very basics: what shapes intuitive STP thinking, and what forms the evidence-based MBA approach.

⭕ Session 2: Persuasion

We’ll take a deep dive into the Persuasion school of thought, rooted deeply in advertising history, but largely keeping alive only commonly held “beliefs.”

⭕ Session 3: Consumer Analysis: Behaviour, Motivations, Attitudes

So many perspectives it can get overwhelming. In this session, we’ll work to understand what truly matters, what makes sense, and what’s complete nonsense that we’ve been keeping alive like a religion

⭕ Session 4: Persuasion in Practice

To speak two languages, we first need to understand one in detail. In this session, we’ll explore the practical application of the Persuasion school to see how the majority of the industry thinks and applies creative strategy. We will practice on Coffee Wars brands.

⭕ Session 5: Salience

We’ll dive in from the other side to see how the evidence-based approach to advertising strategy is formed and defined—highlighting the fundamentals that set it apart from intuitive, law-like pattern thinking and practice.

⭕ Session 6: Consumer Analysis: Memory Building

We’ll dive deep into Associative Memory theory to uncover how people actually buy products, how memories are formed and stored, and why this is so crucial for building effective advertising strategy.

⭕ Session 7: Salience in Practice

To become fluent between two very different advertising “languages,” it’s essential to see how the Salience school of thought works in practice—where the focus shifts, how it changes your thinking, perspective, and the language you use to explain strategy to your clients. We will practice on Coffee Wars brands.

⭕ Session 8: Crafting Creative Briefs: Persuasion vs. Salience

Almost all creative briefs you’ll find—publicly or in industry circles—are structured around Persuasion thinking and often include many unnecessary elements. In this session, we’ll dissect a typical intuitive brief and then apply a Salience-style brief in practice, so you can clearly see the differences and understand how to make your briefs sharper, more actionable, and evidence-based.

🔺 Community & Collective Intelligence

brandLingual believes that real growth today happens only through collective learning from each other. That’s why we offer a safe space—our community platform—where you don’t have to pretend to be a superstar with all the answers when, in reality, you might feel a strong sense of imposter syndrome.

Our community is all the good you’re looking for on LinkedIn, leaving the negative side behind closed doors. Our goal is to encourage you to take off your armor and be curious and explorative again, asking: “Help me understand this” instead of quietly watching what others do without daring to find your own voice.