The bottleneck is the thinking.
Not the budget. Not the brief. The thinking. Sharp enough to cut through, specific enough to travel, honest enough to hold when the market shifts and the scrutiny sharpens.
Most strategy produces ideas no one hates. No one loves them either. They arrive on time, stay inside the guardrails, and change nothing.
Plan B exists for the work that has to change something.
Plan B delivers growth and margin for businesses at inflection points: new markets, corporate reinvention, AI disruption, sustainability under commercial scrutiny. The work is grounded in research and market understanding before it becomes communications. Because strategic marketing that starts with the message before the insight is just noise in a new format.
Getting it wrong is not an option. Getting it right changes the trajectory.
Get in touchHow it works.
Edge Study
Sharp, focused, fast. Ninety days or less. Deep immersion in the challenge, the market, and the organisation, including the competitive forces reshaping both. The work surfaces the drivers of growth and the emotional reason to believe that repositions the brand with commercial credibility. It ends with a clear point of action and the tools the team needs to carry it forward.
Market Intervention
Maximum impact, not maximum headcount. A talented team of strategists, researchers, and makers, assembled specifically for the problem, briefed to make a difference everywhere the brand turns up.
Recent work: a Rick and Morty partnership that introduced a green energy contender to a global audience. An engineering-as-fashion photoshoot that made Fortescue Zero feel like a brand, not a programme. A brand launch for MINEX that broke industrial category norms and arrived as a tech brand. Work that moves markets looks nothing like what came before it.
The Right Hand
High-bandwidth strategic support for the problems that do not fit inside a neat brief. This is a full embed: present, invested, and accountable to a clear set of goals. The thinking stays sharp because it is never divided. Plan B takes on two engagements of this kind at any one time.
Built for this moment.
AI is generating answers faster than anyone can read them. Judgement is the scarce resource now. Research and understanding are what separate signal from noise, and the businesses willing to treat disruption as a creative brief are the ones that will lead.
Plan B backs those organisations. Not safe. Precise. Durable.
Plan B is based in Sydney. Location is not a constraint. The work has spanned 90 countries. If the problem is interesting, geography is not the issue.
Book the callCommon questions.
How does an engagement start?
With one of the best conversations you have had about your business. From there, Plan B scopes a proposal specific to the problem. No standard packages. Every engagement is defined by what the work actually requires.
What does Plan B do?
Plan B works across brand strategy, positioning, creative direction, and market entry, for businesses where the stakes are real. The work starts with research and market understanding, not messaging. The output is a clear commercial position and the tools to hold it.
What kinds of organisations does Plan B work with?
Size matters less than the stakes. Plan B works with large corporates navigating transformation and ambitious founders scaling into new territory. The right fit is an organisation with a complex problem that needs genuine strategic thinking, not a template.
Does Plan B offer retainers?
The Right Hand is an ongoing engagement built around a clear set of goals. It operates like a full embed, not an advisory arrangement at arm's length. It is one of two at any one time. Beyond that, Plan B works on a project basis: scoped, delivered, and closed.
How long does a project take?
An Edge Study completes in 90 days or less. A Market Intervention is scoped to the scale of the idea, but urgency is built into how Plan B works: assembled fast, focused hard, delivered clean. The Right Hand runs for as long as the work requires. Timelines are always defined by what the problem needs, not what is convenient.
What is Ben Shipley's background?
Ben Shipley has twenty years of creative strategy experience across three continents. He led global brand strategy at Fortescue through its transformation from iron ore giant to green energy contender, across 90 countries and through one of the most complex repositioning challenges in Australian corporate history. Before that: building a brand and culture consultancy in Shanghai, leading creative and digital strategy across APAC at Hill+Knowlton, and running marketing and innovation for Australia's largest print company through a period of serious disruption. Curiosity built it. Curiosity keeps it sharp.