Mark Pollard once wrote that all good strategists should “make stuff.” The founder of Mighty Jungle and former Edelman EVP believes getting your hands dirty is just as essential in building good brand strategy as conducting research. But, it looks like Lisa Hart thinks they should break stuff too.
Hart holds Pollard’s words dear when approaching her role as director of strategy at Cossette. When she’s not taking a lead role on the strategy for Sephora, the Banff Arts Centre, General Mills and McDonald’s McCafé brand, she’s developing her own line of skin care products or editing videos for her co-workers.
“The best strategists are producers first. They know how to make stuff and how stuff gets done,” says Hart, 28. “And if you understand that side of the business with the creative side, you have a better understanding of how to execute things.”
There was also that time she hacked Neo Pets. (That’s the breaking part.) The online game lets kids buy, sell and trade virtual goods. While still in elementary school, Hart was able to parse the site’s HTML, figure out how the trading system worked, and spoof it on her own website where she collected visitor data and their in-game currency. “I was really young at the time,” she says. “I didn’t know it was bad. They shut me down…but I got so many great Neo Pets.”
While she still maintains her digital chops (she won silver in the Globe and Mail‘s 2014 Young Cyber Lions program, the third Young Lion contest she’d taken part in]) her job is now finding and understanding the secret inner workings of human motivation instead of web games. It’s a mission she takes seriously.
“Unfortunately, advertising is in the sobering position of being disliked by a lot of people and, I believe, rightly so,” Hart tells Marketing. “The least we can do is make something entertaining, thought provoking, interesting or informative… bonus points if you can do them all.”
For Hart, this first manifested at Leo Burnett Toronto, where from 2013 to 2015 she contributed to IKEA’s national and global campaigns. “We developed an overarching strategy for IKEA global, which included global research into insights of the home and was presented in Malmo, Sweden.” In Canada, this formed the bedrock of campaigns such as #ShareTheBathroom and “House Rules,” which won top honours at the CMAs, MIAs, Promo Awards, Marketing Awards and, perhaps most importantly to a strategist, the Cassies, which values effectiveness over creative innovation.
Hart would go on to develop the strategy behind Raise The Roof’s award-winning “Humans for Humans” campaign, which featured “The homeless read mean tweets,” a video that has been viewed on YouTube more than 1.4 million times.
At Cossette, she now helps lead a strategy staff that has forged a strong relationship with the creative team. Hart has earned a voice among senior leaders and shapes campaigns all the way through development to launch.
“She seems like she’s been doing this a lot longer than someone getting on a 30 Under 30 list,” says Peter Ignazi, Cossette’s co-chief creative officer. “Clients really respect her, and her opinions are really respected internally as well.”
Jason Chaney, Cossette’s chief strategy officer, actually first met Hart in 2011 at Tribal DDB where he transferred her from the account team to strategy. “I knew as soon as I met her I needed her on my team.”
Chaney says Hart’s composure and honesty has strengthened Cossette’s relationship with its biggest client, McDonalds. He’s put her at the forefront of McCafé’s repositioning—“A New Way to Café”—that pushes McDonald’s coffee upmarket, away from Tim Hortons and closer to Starbucks.
“McDonald’s as an organization looks for leadership from their agencies,” Chaney says. “She’s quite composed and thoughtful in her approach, and that really resonates. She actively takes leadership roles. Her confidence transfers to her clients.”
There are insights and anecdotes aplenty in our 30 Under 30 editorial package. To get the scoop on our finalists visit 30U30.ca and read full profiles of Canada’s next set of marketing leaders.
