Speed is a Strategy

In 1999, I learned how 62 people could share one job: make the boat go faster.

I was a sponsor of Team New Zealand, who were defending the America's Cup in Auckland.

What I observed, from the skipper, to the grinders to the guy driving the forklift at the marina, was that every single person on that crew had the same mission when asked: make the boat go faster.

Everything they touched had one metric: speed.

Here at CES 2025 this week, surrounded by countless new technologies and innovations, I'm struck by a similar clarity of purpose emerging in marketing: the need for speed.

2024 was the year everyone dipped their toes in the AI waters. Proofs of concept. Careful experiments. Limited trials. It was prudent then – but prudence has diminishing returns. John A. Shedd once wrote, "A ship in harbour is safe, but that's not what ships are built for."

While you are moored in safe harbours, others are setting set sail across open waters.

Walking the exhibition halls at CES, meeting with clients and our platform partners, one message rings clear: 2025 is about speed. Not the reckless kind that breaks things, but the strategic kind that breaks barriers. The kind that turns "time to market" from a metric into a competitive advantage.

Making speed your strategy isn't about rushing. The America's Cup team didn't just push harder – they reimagined how every role, every process, every decision could contribute to velocity. When "make it faster" becomes your North Star, it clarifies decisions, streamlines processes, and transforms culture.

What's fascinating is what happens when speed becomes your strategy. Just as the America's Cup team discovered that their focus on velocity led to better teamwork, clearer communication, and stronger innovation, we're seeing the same patterns emerge in marketing. Speed doesn't just make you faster – it makes you better.

The commitment to speed as strategy transforms market leaders. ByteDance/TikTok's algorithm adapts to user behaviour in seconds, not hours, making any competitors' weekly content optimization look like watching paint dry. Meta's "shipping is better than perfect" mantra has accelerated their feature deployment from months to days, evidenced by their rapid response to market changes with products like Threads. Shein has revolutionized fashion by shrinking design-to-delivery cycles from months to days, using real-time data to adjust production mid-run. And Amazon, with their eternal "Day 1" philosophy, maintains startup velocity at enterprise scale - they'd rather make a hundred quick decisions knowing five might be wrong, than make ten slow decisions hoping for perfection.

These Speedleaders share one thing in common: they've made speed a fundamental part of their operating system, not just a metric on their dashboard.

But here's the thing: you don't need to be a tech giant to make speed your strategy. Start by asking these questions:

"But what about safety?" I hear this concern often, especially from brand leaders. There's a common belief that increased speed means increased risk. But here's the counterintuitive truth I've learned: properly implemented speed can actually enhance safety.

AI can check thousands of brand safety parameters in milliseconds. Automated systems can flag potential issues faster than any human review. Real-time monitoring can catch and correct problems before they scale.

The key is building safety into your speed systems, not adding it as an afterthought. At Monks, we're seeing clients use AI not just to generate content faster, but to simultaneously ensure brand safety, legal compliance, and creative quality. The technology acts as both accelerator and guardian.

1. Speed to Act. This is about removing friction from execution. Like the America's Cup team streamlining every movement on the boat, it's about eliminating unnecessary steps, automating routine decisions, and building systems that scale. At Monks, we're seeing clients transform six-week production cycles into six-hour ones. Not by cutting corners, but by cutting complexity.

2. Speed to React. The marketing equivalent of reading wind changes. It's about sensing market shifts before they're obvious, having systems that adapt content in real-time, and decision frameworks that turn data into action instantly. One global brand we work with reduced their insight-to-action cycle from weeks to hours by automating their market sensing and response systems. They're not just faster – they're fundamentally more competitive.

3. Speed to Learn. To win you need to learn and adapts fastest. In marketing, this means building rapid testing frameworks, creating fast feedback loops, and turning data into decisions in real-time.

1. Kill Your Approval Chains

Map out every approval step in a typical project. Challenge each one: "What's the worst that could happen if we removed this?" You'll be surprised how many exist just because "we've always done it that way." One client cut their 12-step approval process to 3 steps in a day, instantly halving their time to market.

2. Make Decisions in Parallel, Not Series

Stop waiting for complete information to make every decision. Instead, identify which decisions can be made independently and empower teams to make them simultaneously. The America's Cup team didn't wait for perfect weather data to start preparing the sails – they prepared for multiple scenarios at once.

3. Build Your "Speed Muscle"

Start with small, low-risk projects where teams can practice moving faster. Like athletes progressing from sprints to marathons, build up your organizational speed stamina gradually. Create safe spaces to experiment with faster cycles, then scale what works.

4. Automate Your Safety Nets

Instead of manual checks that slow you down, implement automated guardrails that protect you while you move fast. Use AI to scan content for brand safety, compliance, and quality in real-time.

5. Measure Speed, Not Just Outcomes

Add velocity metrics to your dashboards today. Track time-to-market, decision cycle time, and learning cycle speed. What gets measured gets managed – and what gets managed gets faster.

6. Reward Learning Over Perfection

Change your team's incentives immediately. Celebrate those who test quickly and learn from failures, not just those who play it safe and succeed. Create weekly sharing sessions where teams discuss what they learned from moving faster, including the failures that taught them the most.

The beauty of these steps? You can start any of them today. You don't need new technology or a restructure. You just need to decide that speed matters and take the first step.

While you're running careful pilots, your competitors are building speed as a core capability. While you're perfecting your process, they're perfecting their ability to change processes instantly. While you're discussing digital transformation, they're discussing what comes next.

The America's Cup team knew that every second counted – not just in the race, but in preparation, in learning, in adapting. They understood that speed wasn't just about moving fast; it was about moving fast with purpose, with precision, with a clear understanding of how every action contributed to velocity.

In marketing, as in sailing, the race doesn't go to the strongest or the smartest, but to the swiftest. The winners in 2025 won't be those who waited for perfection in safe harbours, but those who set sail, learned fast, and made speed their strategy.

Because in the end, that's what separates the winners from the participants – not just their ability to go fast, but their commitment to making speed a fundamental part of who they are and how they work.

And Team New Zealand? They kept the Cup. Five wins to zero. Not even close.

Next week: Why orchestration is the new creative superpower, and how it enables the speed we need.

Brandflow is written by Justin Billingsley, who has spent his career on all three sides of the industry's table: senior client, global agency leader, technology founder. First published 8 January 2025 in the Brandflow newsletter on LinkedIn.