Strategic Minds: Kelly Rupp (Ammunition) — From Brand Strategy to Industrial Design
What is the role of a strategist in a product design studio and how does that differ from working in an advertising agency?
Kelly Rupp, Director of Strategy at Ammunition
Kelly Rupp is Director of Strategy at SF based design studio Ammunition, the folks Fast Company named #1 most innovative design company in 2019 for “making the ordinary extraordinary”.
Equipped with a degree in journalism and advertising, Kelly learned the ropes of campaign work and brand positioning in agencies like Liquid. His desire to connect brand and product work more closely ultimately brought him to Ammunition. Over the past five years, he has worked on projects ranging from a mug that keeps your coffee warm to an app providing personal loans in developing countries to a smart remote control that works across multiple devices like Nest, Sonos, and Apple TV.
As part of the interview series Strategic Minds, we talked about his understanding of strategy and design, how the work in a product design studio differs from working in an advertising agency, and how Kelly found his place in the strategy world.
Please note that this interview is an edited transcript of a conversation Kelly and I had in person. Please excuse any grammatical irregularities.
How did you end up as a strategist in a product design firm?
It’s interesting. I don’t have a design background. I majored in advertising and wanted to be an account planner or brand strategist. I got a job at an agency here in San Francisco — a small, independent agency. We worked with tech clients. People were great, but the output was not incredible. I did get a lot of experience as a strategist and learned many of the tools. I don’t necessarily think that strategy is a very complicated thing in and of itself, but of course, some people are better at it than others.
I realized pretty quickly that I didn’t want to make ads. We were trying to solve business problems using communication, when, what I would often see is, for example, the organization or brand really didn’t understand who they were in the first place. And so I moved into a more traditional brand strategy role at Liquid, helping organizations figure out and codify their reason for being. But even there, I realized, we were trying to solve problems using brand strategy, when the reality was that often times the product was the real problem. A disproportionate amount of experience someone has with a brand is through the product or service they offer. No matter how great your communication is, how great your brand looks and feels and sounds, if your product sucks you’re unlikely to be around a long time.
So I asked myself, “How can I get closer to the actual product?” To have some level of influence over the product using the same strategy methods. And that’s how I wound up at Ammunition.
Did Ammunition have a good understanding of the perspective you could provide — as someone without a traditional design background?
Yes, Ammunition already had a design strategy practice. I think that you’ll find, whether you’re an advertising agency or a design studio, is that there’s work that needs to happen that doesn’t necessarily fit into the typical job description for a designer or program manager.
Designers oftentimes want to focus on designing. However, they are usually looking for some guidance, some guardrails, to solve a particular problem using visual design or industrial design. This need for strategy — which is really just asking and answering a series of really important questions — almost always bubbles to the surface. There are a lot of these questions that need to be asked and answered and definitional stuff that needs to happen before anybody starts designing. That’s where strategy tends to happen at Ammunition.
Ammunition already knew strategy and wanted a strategy department that added to its capabilities. So when I started, it was a pretty easy transition.
I still had to learn a lot about product design and how to bring a physical product to market — how long it takes, how to work with an industrial design team. But there was already a process for using strategy inside of Ammunition and it wasn’t very different than what I had done at a brand strategy studio and in the advertising industry before.
Yet, even though some of the methods are similar, I feel there’s not a huge overlap between the [brand] strategy and design worlds. What do you think?
Strategy is not a world in and of itself. It’s an integral part of many worlds — be it advertising, design, operations, finance, etc. Strategy on its own — without the ability to do anything about it — can be pretty meaningless, albeit sometimes lucrative if you’re, say, a management consultancy.
If you’re asking about the difference between strategy in advertising and strategy in design I would say that the methods or inputs are quite similar. At Ammunition, I still spend plenty of time doing my own research. When we get a new client, I need to understand what their business is about and the market they are in. And the easiest way to do that quickly is to use the internet. Trying to get smart, reading everything you can and hopefully coming to those first conversations with some baseline level of knowledge.
Then, we do plenty of qualitative and sometimes quantitative research where we spend time out in the field, talking to users or potential customers and doing “ethnography” — for the lingo folks. It’s really just about paying attention. The same things an account planner or a brand strategist at an advertising agency would do to dig around for insights.
The difference is that our output is a product rather than a campaign. We are trying to understand user behaviors and patterns and perceptions around existing products or existing routines that people might have. How we can augment or improve their lives in some way using the product that we’ve been asked to design. So the inputs can be pretty similar, just the output is more product-focused.
Does that put you into a different position in the relationship with the client?
I think it does a little bit. The nature of working at a place like Ammunition is we tend to work with founders or CEOs, rather than a marketing director or somebody who’s a few rungs down the decision tree. This allows us to have more influence over the process and decisions.
We come to the table and say: “We’ve done some research and thinking, and we think you should design a product this way. We should make sure that it does X or Y.” We have the founder across the table who’s listening, who’s paying us to do this work and, of course, wants to do it the right way. So I think we’ll wield a little bit more influence.
As a strategist, I’d like to think we might get listened to a little bit more directly than a strategist at an advertising agency where their role is to go out and do research and then come back to their creative team with a brief that has to have some golden nuggets in it they then build a campaign around.
Our work is definitely a little more fluid. We still come in at the beginning of the process and try and help our visual design and industrial design teams understand what’s going on. But we are involved at that point throughout the process, making sure that everything we’re doing is tied back to a foundational strategy. We just happen to call it Design Strategy.
Do you take all the work to execution in this way?
We definitely have a larger role at the beginning of a project. When we kick off a new project, it’s really on the strategy team to take in all the information, continue to keep everybody up to speed, and define things like: What might be our design principles? Who is the target audience for this, and what does that persona look like?
Ultimately, we’re thinking about product design requirements: What are the business requirements? How does this product need to work? How is this company going to make money selling this product? Who is the product for? What are the brand considerations that we need to think about? What tone or visual language are we going to use?
If it’s a piece of hardware, things like, “Does it need a battery?”, “It needs to function this way.” That might include a user journey, for example, the idealized way that somebody would buy it, open it, use it for the first time, clean it, maintain it, and then continue to use it. We work closely with our User Experience team to think through all of these things.
From there, we work closely with our Industrial Design team and Visual Design teams. Strategy rides along to make sure that everything we do ladders back to the requirements we all agreed upon, to make sure that the guardrails we set are being followed.
Do clients always want a tangible design, or are you also providing strategy as a consulting service?
At other studios or consultancies, you might find strategy sold as a merchandized unit. A client might come to them and say, “we need a brand strategy”. And they would come up with a company purpose and a promise and a brand platform.
We don’t do that at Ammunition. People come to us and they say, “we want to build this product and we want to get it to market”, and strategy is a really important part of this process.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of selling strategy on its own, rather than something that’s part of the whole package?
The advantage of having strategy as part of the process is that we get to see it through. One frustration about working in brand strategy was we delivered strategies that were really just words in a framework. We handed these off, and then hoped that the people we handed it off too were capable of executing on it. We would do good work and get everybody on board. And then we watched the client build a brand that wasn’t exactly the brand we would have built for them.
At Ammunition, we have the ability to influence the entire process. The product we design for the client, we ensure it meets all of the requirements we set. We are not going to hand a design requirements document or a strategy off and let the client do whatever they want with it. Ultimately, what the client wants from Ammunition is a product in their hand, on shelves, on devices, out in the market. We basically say, “all right, in order to get this thing, you have to go through this process with us, which includes strategy.” Strategy doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It happens because it’s part of how we get the thing to market.
A note or provocation to the advertising folks out there who often struggle to convince clients of the value of strategy or planning: it would be interesting to see if you can change the status quo in terms of how strategy gets “sold.” If you’re a shop that does good work and a client wants what you make — be steadfast in letting them know that strategy is not some added cost optional thing — it’s integral to them getting the thing they want — great communications. And it’s just built into the price of the project or relationship.
What do you enjoy most about the work you do and what is the biggest frustration?
The thing I think I enjoy most is kicking off a fresh project like we just did yesterday and getting to learn about a market that I may not have known a whole lot about. In this case, we’re working with a company in a very nascent and wildly fast paced market. There’s just so much to learn. It took a little while for me to come to terms with, but being the dumbest person in the room is often really, really fun. You can ask the “dumb” questions, and you don’t get judged for it.
If we’re working with a new client, we want to have some baseline level of knowledge, but ultimately, in that moment, the client is the expert. We get to ask all the questions we want to ask. Of course, we have to look smart when we come back with product design concepts and design requirements and all of our thinking. But at the beginning of the project, you get to sit there and absorb a whole bunch of information.
I know a little about a lot. Enough to sit down and have a knowledgable conversation about dozens of industries and topics. And I’m able to do that now because of the last 10 years working in strategy for different industries and categories, which is fun.
Although, the flip side of that is, sometimes, you find a category or product or service that you really love. The project ends and you think, “gosh, I just want to continue to build this thing that I helped start.” There’s definitely a period when you’re bummed at the end of a project because it was fun. It is rewarding to see something come to market, but then you also have to come to terms with letting go of it and hoping that the leaders who are responsible for it have what it takes to succeed. It doesn’t always happen.
There aren’t many frustrations for me, personally, if I’m being completely honest. Differences of opinion happen from time to time and I might get frustrated at wanting to do something one way while others want to do something another way. You have to pick your battles and ask yourself what’s worth fighting for. We’re all on the same team. We want things to succeed. I work with some insanely smart and talented people with an insane amount of collective experience. You have to know when to trust them. I think we’re really great about letting everyone do the thing they’re good at at Ammunition. The reality is that there are no “right” answers in this world. So much of it is subjective. Some answers are just better than others.
In retrospect, would you do anything differently?
The grass is always greener. Luckily, I’m incredibly fortunate to get to come to work here every day. I could be in a cubicle as an accountant somewhere. I’m very happy that did not happen (respect to my accountant friends — the world needs you, I’m just not your guy).
But it’s been a struggle for me at times. I have certainly questioned my existence as a strategist and whether I made the right decision. In my previous roles, there was always something in the foreground I couldn’t quite reach. I’ve definitely found a good fit at Ammunition and I like being here.
I’ve got other friends who still love advertising. They love the creative process and building a campaign and seeing the campaign out in the world and they won’t get tired of it. They’ll stay in advertising. I think it’s just different for different people.
Do you see strategy as more of a mindset, something you already have, rather than a craft or skill set that can be learned?
I think that it starts with a mindset. It’s something that good strategy types inherently start to do regardless of what their title might be. Whenever you have a problem to solve, you start to look at it from different angles and ask important questions, “what is the context that I’m working in?”
You start answering questions that, sometimes, other people might not ask. They might not ask: Who is this really for? What business is this company in? How do we make sure the way we design this is going to be different, is going to stand out? Is going to look iconic in the context of all the stuff that’s going on in the world? If you are the type of person who likes thinking through those problems, asking those questions and searching for those answers, then you’ll take to strategy pretty quickly.
The methods, the tools, the frameworks are available to everyone. There is not some secret to this just like there isn’t a secret to being a good accountant. What makes someone a great strategist is not the tools, it’s how they use them.
Would you say it’s fairly common for people to transition between strategy roles in different industries?
I’ve seen it happen. I have friends who started out in similar places like a brand strategy firm, bouncing around and using the strategy skills they gained from their first jobs. I would say, not to be picky. Don’t try to become a strategist at an industrial design studio, because you think that’s where you should be. Realistically, there are just fewer strategy roles in industrial design than there are in places like advertising, where agencies can get to thousands of people and have much larger organizations.
Advertising agencies are so much more ebb and flow. They’ve got a new client, all of a sudden they have to hire in order to service this new client. So I think you see job opportunities come up there quite a bit more.
If you find a strategy role, I would recommend anybody who wants to get into strategy to take it — as long as the company and the culture are good and the output is good. The skills you learn as a strategist are kind of all the same — again, the tools are not a secret. Things that a strategist in an advertising agency does, the activities, the methods, are pretty simple. Apologies to anyone who thinks it’s really complicated or should be. These things can be learned.
What do you think are the most interesting places to work for as a strategist at the moment?
That’s hard for me to say. The big four or five tech companies often have interesting strategy roles dedicated to hardware programs or dedicated to communications. These opportunities might be interesting because of the scale of these companies and the influence they have with people. If you want to work somewhere smaller and more boutiquey, I think these experiences can be great as well.
Frankly, I don’t think that anybody is a strategy powerhouse or some special place where you learn to do the best kind of strategy. The best you can ask for is working with smart people and looking at the output of that particular place, whether it’s an advertising agency or design firm. What does the output look like? Is it great? That’s what I would scrutinize. But, as I said, for someone who’s junior and looking for a way into strategy, you’ll learn a lot working as a strategist in lots of places and contexts.
Are there any particular groups or people you consider interesting voices to follow?
When I was first finding my way into strategy, I joined a few groups on LinkedIn and tried to pay attention to people who were blogging. Gareth Kay and Rob Campbell were very smart, sharp people to listen to. I read some books by Marty Neumeier who wrote The Brand Gap and Zag, which I highly recommend. Really quick reads, great little lessons in there.
I worked on this project called Junior Strategy many years ago where we did interviews and wrote blog posts. The whole point was to help everyone in the strategy community, but especially young people who are just starting out, get an understanding of what was going on — methods and lessons. I interviewed Matt Rolandson who is a partner at Ammunition before I started working there. On a sailboat. I recommend anyone go watch those clips as everything he said is totally still relevant to people who are learning about this thing called strategy.
Now, I don’t pay attention to the world of “strategy” much. I can only take talking about strategy so much. I love talking about solving problems and the things you get to think through as a strategist, but I have a hard time talking about process. If anyone tries to tell me they’ve got a special process for doing great work better than somebody else, I will happily call bullshit. There are really only so many ways to get smart and make decisions. So I don’t pay too much attention to that world these days.
I just try to stay abreast of popular culture and what’s happening in subcultures — I have always enjoyed sneakers and apparel. I am interested in the nuanced world of high fashion and luxury and why people are still so enamored by those industries and brands. We have a lot of conversations about these various aspects of consumer culture. When we launch a new product, we’re often wondering: Is this a luxury product, is it mass, is it somewhere in between? Trying to pay attention to these shifting consumer dynamics (read: just paying attention to people in the world) and making sure I’m not one-track-minded, thinking about “strategy” or “design”.
I would advise anybody who wants to be in strategy, just be interested in many things. I have found that the most interesting people are often interested in a diverse set of things. If someone is truly interested in something you can tell, and they stand a much better chance of getting me to listen.
Thank you for these insights, Kelly!
A few interesting podcasts Kelly is listening to:
The Moment with Brian Koppelman — interviews about pivotal moments in fascinating careers ranging from entertainment to journalism to wrestling. Conversations with Tyler — exploring the world views and methods of sharp thinkers like Daniel Kahneman.
Some books he recently came across:
Kelly likes to keep a mix of fiction and non-fiction. His wife recently got him the first book in the Harry Potter series because it was a big part of her childhood. Now Kelly has wild dreams about 3 headed dogs and weird wizard things. He also just finished reading Natural Causes by Barbara Ehrenreich — “great read about how we’re dealing with wellness in society today.”
If you enjoyed reading this interview, keep an eye out for other interviews in the series Strategic Minds: Conversations with strategists across different disciplines exploring their view on the nuances of strategy.
