Strategy is a Verb

Notes from the Front Line.

By Martin Weigel

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About the Book

We live in a low-resolution, endlessly scrollable world where everything is visible, yet nothing is really seen. No-one is bored. Everything is boring. Optimism is thinned. And for many, wallets even thinner.

Meanwhile, business leaders are grappling with the very real challenges of operating in a non-linear world, where attention is fractured, growth anaemic, and technological disruption threatens everything and has clarified nothing. They are hungry for perspective that matches the scale of that.

And somewhere along the line, strategy got hollowed out - turned into a process, a deliverable, a warm-up act, a set of templates to fill in. The art of the merely feasible, not the art of the necessary or the desired.

Strategy is a Verb: Notes from the Front Line is my attempt to push back against that.

The argument is simple, even if living it isn't: the most urgent task for anyone who cares about brands right now is not to optimise, not to fill space, but to show up with conviction - and build things that are more vivid, more worthwhile, and more valuable. You have to do it on purpose. With conviction. With curiosity. With love. And you have to do it; strategy is a verb.

When she first read the manuscript, my editor called it "quite unusual - philosophical, ontological and, to some degree, practical." I think that's about right.

Structured around 58 verbs - from Cook and Imagine to Struggle, Disobey, Unlearn, and Ignore, it's a collection of observations and provocations drawn from nearly four decades at the front line of creativity, culture, and commerce - from New York and São Paulo to Amsterdam and London.

It's not a how-to manual. No formulas, frameworks, or hacks. No guaranteed pathways to success. No "five secrets of awesome brands I've never worked on" nonsense. Equal parts kindling and kerosene. And a clear articulation of the mental posture strategy demands - imagination over optimisation, judgment over process, conviction over compliance.

The questions the book keeps circling are the ones that have always mattered: How do you make change happen on your own terms? What separates great from merely good? And what does it take to hold meaning in a world that has made peace with noise?

I don't think there are clean and tidy answers to any of them. But I do think asking them - seriously, repeatedly, with some courage - is what strategy actually is.

**Early readers on Strategy is a Verb.**

"This book is so refreshing. What Martin Weigel appreciates, and what most strategists could learn from his book, is that strategy is an inherently imaginative exercise."

Margaret Heffernan
Author of Wilful Blindness, Embracing Uncertainty and Uncharted
“Insightful, provocative and inspiring. A much-needed reminder that strategy is a creative act in its own right, not just part of a process, but something that moves a business forward. A book I’ll return to in the late nights when my slides are messy and my thinking even messier, when I need clarity and a reset on what good reallylooks like.”

Emma Wiseman
Global Head of Brand Strategy, Spotify
“Read one short chapter each day or so, in a random order. And one by one, they will get under your skin, like acupuncture needles, and open up new possibilities for you” 

Paul Feldwick
Former Head of Planning, BMP/DDB London; author of The Anatomy of Humbug and Why Does the Pedlar Sing?
“A collection of occasionally whimsical and often provocative perspectives on strategy, all immaculately argued. Dipping in and out of chapters at will, I found my thinking stretched and some long-held paradigms broken. It’s an absolute gem”

Chris Paton
Managing Director, Quirk Solutions, former Lieutenant Colonel in the Royal Marines and advisor to the UK Cabinet and National Security Council on the Afghan strategy
“A brilliant compendium of insights into brands, culture and humans. Essential reading for strategists of all stripes” 

Ian Leslie
Author of Curious, How to Disagree, John and Paul and the Ruffian newsletter
“Weigel invites strategists to reflect on strategy – what it means and how to do it well. Intelligently navigated, insightfully illustrated and elegantly articulated, this book will help you think, imagine and act more effectively.”

Jim Carroll
Long-serving strategist, former Chairman, BBH London
“Weigel’s grasp on the subject is no less than magisterial. He insists on understanding strategy as an underlying discipline (the thing we do) rather than contenting himself with the superficial examination of mere ‘strategies’ (some things we did).” 

Laurence Green
Director of Effectiveness, Institute of Practitioners in Advertising
“At a time when marketing risks becoming an exercise in optimization without meaning, Weigel offers a timely and necessary counterpoint. Strategy Is A Verb is a meditation on agency; on the responsibility to imagine better outcomes, and the discipline required to bring them into being. Drawing on decades at the heart of global brands, Weigel examines brand strategy with clarity, conviction and rare intellectual honesty. This is strategy stripped back to its purest expression.”

Héctor Muelas
Chief Brand Creative Officer, Tiffany & Co., formerly Apple, LVMH, Rimowa
“Where so many talk about strategy, this is from someone who delivers it at the highest level, time and time again. Weigel is an undisputed champion in a world of part-time players.” 

Rob Campbell
Chief Strategy Officer, Colenso BBDO
“Strategy is a noun until you need it. Martin Weigel has been ‘verb-alizing’ it his whole career. He’s sharper than anyone in the room. The rest of us just got the memo. "

Cheryl Calegari
Global Brand Marketing & Business Leader, Converse, Beats byDre, Apple, Dyson
“Strategy must be a creative act. This book rescues it from being mere abstraction conjured by the dead hand of process.” 

Mark Bernath
Former joint Chief Creative Officer, Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam
“Lou Gerstner, the CEO who turned IBM around, famously said ‘strategy is execution’. Weigel takes that idea and pushes it further. Strategy is the actions you choose – and this book makes that case with rare depth and honesty.” 

Andy Bateman
Founder & Partner, Mixtape Partners; coach, investor; former CEO, Interbrand New York, CMO, Telstra, CMO LALO Tequila and; Lead Partner, Deloitte
“I’ve stolen shamelessly from Martin Weigel for years. His thinking sits behind some of the best work I’ve ever made. Now it’s all in one place. No excuses.”

Eric Quennoy
Former joint Chief Creative Officer, Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam

Strategy is a Verb

Notes from the Front Line.

About the Book

We live in a low-resolution, endlessly scrollable world where everything is visible, yet nothing is really seen. No-one is bored. Everything is boring. Optimism is thinned. And for many, wallets even thinner.

Early readers on Strategy is a Verb.

"This book is so refreshing. What Martin Weigel appreciates, and what most strategists could learn from his book, is that strategy is an inherently imaginative exercise."

“Read one short chapter each day or so, in a random order. And one by one, they will get under your skin, like acupuncture needles, and open up new possibilities for you”

“A collection of occasionally whimsical and often provocative perspectives on strategy, all immaculately argued. Dipping in and out of chapters at will, I found my thinking stretched and some long-held paradigms broken. It’s an absolute gem”

“A brilliant compendium of insights into brands, culture and humans. Essential reading for strategists of all stripes”

“Weigel invites strategists to reflect on strategy – what it means and how to do it well. Intelligently navigated, insightfully illustrated and elegantly articulated, this book will help you think, imagine and act more effectively.”

“Weigel’s grasp on the subject is no less than magisterial. He insists on understanding strategy as an underlying discipline (the thing we do) rather than contenting himself with the superficial examination of mere ‘strategies’ (some things we did).”

“Where so many talk about strategy, this is from someone who delivers it at the highest level, time and time again. Weigel is an undisputed champion in a world of part-time players.”

“Strategy is a noun until you need it. Martin Weigel has been ‘verb-alizing’ it his whole career. He’s sharper than anyone in the room. The rest of us just got the memo. "

“Strategy must be a creative act. This book rescues it from being mere abstraction conjured by the dead hand of process.”

“Lou Gerstner, the CEO who turned IBM around, famously said ‘strategy is execution’. Weigel takes that idea and pushes it further. Strategy is the actions you choose – and this book makes that case with rare depth and honesty.”

“I’ve stolen shamelessly from Martin Weigel for years. His thinking sits behind some of the best work I’ve ever made. Now it’s all in one place. No excuses.”