furtherandfaster

APG Mark Boyd of BBH on Content

I wasn't supposed to be here - I was double booked at an AGM but I couldn't resist - content is the latest frontier of account planning and I wanted to hear despatches from the front. Mark Boyd is the head of creative content at BBH. He had a number of theories about how planning worked with content - in retrospect it would have been useful if some planners from BBH had showed up to back him up. The 3-4 models seemed to me at any rate to recognise planning as a creative role in its own right which worked iteratively with creative which is great but hardly a massive breakthrough and the different models seemed to be variations on this theme. However what made this so interesting was the casestudies - the story for example behind the Audi TV channel.  It was this which I thought was largely left unanswered - making new content and constructing new channels for it is very hard work and often the entrenched forces opposed to new ways of working are immensely strong. Agencies are by nature conservative beasts and content doesn't in itself offer lucrative rewards at the outset. For example with the Audi channel they bought 500 hours of Australian soaps for £500 and launched it as an Aussie soap channel before a reverse takeover allowed Audio to take it over.  Why would an agency bother to work so hard at this if the client is happy for them to go on running TV ads? Mark never really gave a satisfactory answer to this one.  There was a solid turnout perhaps 150-180 people - with a solid turnout from the digital planning fraternity - as I would have expected.  At some point I will try to write my notes up and publish them.

That was the week that was..

when I went to Dublin to be a fly on the wall at the Diageo planning leadership team event at the Guinness storehouse in London. This was a unique opportunity to find out how a client company planning department operates. It was soo interesting. I've now written this up - it will be going on a website very soon. Watch the blog because I'll tell you when it is ready.

Planning get together

In the evening it was time to head for the delightfully named Cafépedia (though they serve you – you’re not allowed to make your own coffee) which is the latest venue for the newly formed APG. Bogdana and Diana – queen bloggers from McCanns were hosting. I met a couple of digital planners there – interesting that breadth of planning being done is already growing to a level which must limit how much they can help one another. Also that the numbers were relatively modest – the meeting had been arranged at late notice and Costin was back in the IAA running APG training in the same room where I had been training during the day so several of the planners arrived later. But the working hours in Bucharest agencies are very long so it is entirely possible that planners may have too much work most weeknights to be able to attend even an 8pm meeting.

Styles of Planning

This morning I enjoyed reading a paper by Xcott Lukas and Stephen Walker from the 2003 AAAA USAPG conference all about where planning is going. You can find it in the new book Readings in Account Planning from the copy workshop in Chicago.  A really good thoughtful read - I wish there was more writing like this. It amounts to a survey of clients in the USA and what they think of planning. I'm trying to think if this exercise has ever been done in the UK. What is shows is firstly that agencies and clients are out of step in what they think planning is delivering and that clients are starting to get the impression what they used to get only from planning they can now get from  more conventional research. They then go on to outline a number of different ways planning could evolve to address this.  There's quite a lot of input from Ma Newman the mother of US account planning - clearly she's a formidable figure and hasn't left off steering where planning ought to be going even if she seems to be spending more time in Africa these days. I'd love to meet her.

You can find the book on http://www.adbuzz.com/   

How to cram account planning - the jon steel crammer

I have been acquiring planning books at a rate of notes for reasons which will become apparent soon  - but this was one mispurchase I didn't mind a bit. I have read Jon Steel's truth lies and advertising but had never got my own copy. It is the best introduction to Account Planning - that trade I have followed for so many years. But what arrived in the mail wasn't the book but the crammer for the book so I could pass an exam in it.  The left hand side of each page is full of definitions so you can memorise the key terms then put your comments on each chapter on the blank page on the right.

Here's some definitions for you: Account planner refers to an outgrowth of British Agency structure where a planner initiates and reviews research and participates in the creative process. In some agencies the planner is considered the spokesman for the consumer.

An advertising campaign is a comprehensive advertising plan that consists of a series of messages  in a variety of media  that center on a single theme or idea is referred to as an advertising campaign

A brief refers to a statement of a party's case or legal arguments usually prepared by an attorney. Also used to make legal arguments before appellate courts.

A brand is a name, symbol, or design that identifies the goods and services or one seller or groups of sellers and distinguishes them from the goods or services from competitors is a brand.

There's also an online area I can sign up for where I can do practice tests - at last I can be an accredited planner..

I knew planning was getting academic - there are now several honours courses in the discipline - you can even study integrated communications for 3 years. What I had not anticipated was reducing learning to the memorising of key phrases and a form of mutiple choice testing which enables candidates to parrot back what they have 'learned'. This isn't training - this is mindless. Who is buying this stuff (me!) Who thinks it is going to help them get a job?

Don't let this put you off the original - that WILL help you get your first planning job. Here's a reference to the book and an interview with Jon Steel I put on my site last year.

 

003

I was reading Stephen King's tome on the way into London this morning and read Stan Pollitt's paper on how he started account planning first at Pritchard and Wood. When he explains how he hired a planning manager and a couple of graduates. One of them was a familiar name - David Cowan who I had spoken to at the last marketing conference. I have a memory for names this far back. But if I hadn't recognised the name the description of what he did is a classic giveaway of someone with a planning mentality.  A number of people have written about the planner as a detective most recetly John Shaw and Rory Sutherland about the first 48 hours of an investigation and how critical it is to do the forensic work as soon as possible.  But the role of planner as the private detective or solo operative is a good one - often working alone - using hunches and making connections which an entire police force couldn't sanction and would lose because too many people were involved. As I got off the train I realised that I had met 003 - licensed to plan one of the very first!

Proximity

Dropped in on Mark Hancock and the planning posse at Proximity - we wound up in the pub around the corner. It was the start of an evening's drinking so my memory is suitbly hazy but I know that waggledancing was discussed - a theme I shall return to in the new year when I rework the site. Bees are coming to the fore. There's even a B movie coming out all about bees so I'm sure to be accused of pagiarism. Well I'm not it has to be a zeitgeist thing!

Behavioural planning

Had lunch with Verity Johnston planning director of Iris today. Iris is only about 5 years old but has roared through to being in the top 3 sales promotion agencies though they would shudder at the description - I think they'd rather describe themselves as creativing experiences for customers. At one point Verity said she saw herself as a behavioural planner more than anything else. Which I had heard elsewhere only a few days before. I think it was Kevin Schou of  Proximity who said exactly the same thing.  Planning is mutating at speed these days and the practitioners feel less and less inclined to frame themselves in the old advertising silos. Advertising planning can make few claims to altering behaviour and only does so using large econometric models. But these two asides served to show that whatever difficulties advertising is facing in Western Europe, planning is thriving in new environments.

Addressing the students of Solent university

Today I drove to Southampton to do an introductory session on account planning for the students of Solent university. I was more than a little surprised to find that most of those who were in to listen to me studied advertising and communicaitons for 3 years. The integrated marketing comms course lasts a full year. I can't get used to the volume and range of training that is now available.  In my session I gave a broad overview of planning, where it had come from and what it entailed.  I had an exclusive. Elena (see above) who had triumphed at the APG awards last week had very kindly let me use her presentation. A model of clarity on the wash and go campaign in Romania, it won a silver in the International category and took the gold for the best use of research.  I have an email from Elena enquiring of me about some technical planning issue when she was a student back in 2005 - so I read an extract from it and asked how many of the students had written similar emails. Of course they all had. I then revealed her as author of the  casestudy and made the point that at a similar development rate there was no reason why  one of them couldn't achieve the same in 2009 or 2011.  Perfect material for the audience  and I hope it was as inspiring as I had planned

There had been a bit of a giggle at the start when I had realised that I had started my first job in advertising before the entire audience barring the tutors had been born.  It didn't help when one of them came up afterwards and asked if knew Iain Dawson - with whom I had worked at ehs back in the early 1990s. It turned out to be his son.  When I asked hopefully if he was a first year - well he wasn't. So I have reach that dreadful age when I am starting to present to the children of my workmates! Time to retire!!

Watershed

APG awards 2007 are over - my highlight of the evening was watching Elena Ionita  collect a silver in the international award -  the highest award given for the category - and a gold for best use of research beating Lucozade Sport abd every other planning entry for that matter. Her table including John Bartle of BBH and Gary Duckworth  of DFGW gave her a standing ovation and toasted her with champagne - Adam Morgan of Eatbigfish and plenty of planning heads like Ali Bucknall of Leo Burnett London made a fuss over her. It was an impressive achievement to break the circle of London planning so convincingly. Proof positive that planning is indeed a global discipline and you don't have come to London to find the good stuff. Congratulations to Elena, and Razvan Matasel her collaborator, planning head and deputy MD of Burnetts in Bucharest. The Romanians have landed.

How do you get local (ie small clients) to pay for planning?

A question I was asked today so I thought I would put a reply on here.

I'm afraid I can't provide a straight reference to a book called Business casing account planning because there isn't one. Planning doesn't guarantee an ROI - but since most clients have no idea what their advertising is doing for them  anyway the perspective that planning can bring to a campaign ought to make it great value for money.

If the client wants to go a la carte - then I would start with the simplest option

a) - they should write the ads themselves and hire a designer to art direct/code

They then have all the risk themselves for the lowest cost. Next up

b) is using a creative hotshop and placing the work themselves but buying in creative ideas. Within this they still have to pay for a production team and an account handler

c) Add a planner - who brings strategic skills (though these are also to be found with good account handlers in ad agencies) - in other words deciding how does the work build the brand and how best to use communications to achieve marketing objectives? The planner also brings a consumer perspective with or without research so will argue about the effectiveness of the ad when the account handler shuts up because if the client is happy then the account handler is happy. The final thing the planner brings is the experience of using different media channels - how the media channels are consumed.

d) Add a marketing consultant and you have a whole new layer of cost, lots of presentations and charts but no better work because they aren't creative people. They would still need an agency to execute.

My argument would be that in the scale of things d) is far too expensive. But I don't think b) gives the client enough value for money. The addition of the planner c) brings in 3 new areas without the client spending significantly more budget. If the client doesn't want to pay for a strategically thought out piece of work which is aimed at customers and which understands how to use the media channels to deliver this then perhaps it is time they were using a studio and doing it all themselves.

An option you haven't mentioned is the client claiming they have already paid for planning once through advertising and don't see why they should pay for it again on dm or digital. That's a toughie!

One of the best things about planning is the contribution it can make across the whole span of business from 200K a year accounts to 20 million. This is primarily because thinking about a piece of business and challenging the existing orthodoxy almost always saves money and helps to make money. And because planning skills are well understood and written down - it isn't just a question of calling in a planning guru and asking if they have any ideas. There are tangible contributions which every planner ought to be able to make even without an IPA effectiveness casestudy and an econometrician.

I was interested in Jon Steel's perspective in the interview which I put on the accountplanning.net site last March. He brought planning to Goodby Silverstein but only used it on new business and on newly won accounts. Over time all clients became users of planning. I don't know if he would take this line but if a client refused to have planning on a pitch for the business then perhaps the agency should withdraw. That way clients understand that planning is integral to the agencies product and if you fire the planning function you may as well fire the agency. Agencies using planning in new business win more pitches than those without. But I think you have to be equally strong so that if planning helps to win the business then the client can't turn around and say they're not going to pay for it.

What does everybody else think?

The battle of big thinking Round 2

is over and what a lot of fun it was. You can find my account of the day on the WARC site. I have become a guest columnist/blogger there and it should mean that in future I get to a few more events than usual which is nice for me and hopefully beneficial for those who want to keep up with things but can't get to everything. It was great to catch up with friends - a real pleasure to bump into Razvan Matasel deputy MD of Leo's in Bucharest and one of the main movers in getting the planning scene going over there. One of his proteges Elena Ionita is on the APG awards shortlist - a vivid reminder of how international planning has become. So I guess it is time to book up for Awards night the next biggie on the APG calendar.   

Its nearly time for the battle of big thinking

Which is taking place next Thursday. I've written a prequel to it which you'll find posted on WARC and no doubt will be writing about it afterwards too.  And yup I'll be there.

Stephen King remembered

This evening the APG ran an event to celebrate the publication of a collection of Stephen King's writings. Not to be confused with the horror writer, Stephen King was instrumental in developing the understanding of brands in the UK from bundles of rational benefits to emotional values which have proven to be even more powerful.  He also was one of the first to quantify brand effects in terms of customer preferences -more subtly than just watching the tills. He was one of the founding fathers of account planning. I have written more fully about the evening on the WARC site. If you have access you can read what I posted about the event there.

Planning drinks at the Crown and Two Chairmen Soho

  Organised by Mark Hancock head planning honcho at Proximity. With a turn out from al of this department we hung out round the side of the Crown and Two with a minder pushing us back on the pavement - lots of puns about moving across the line. Al and David turned up from Imagination. Will Humphrey also made an appearance. I met the head of research from BBDO - and the talk turned to people she knew in Bucharest. Alex James the semiotician was also there. Sorry if I've left anyone unattributed! With beer on tap thanks to Proximity a merry evening was had by all.  No such thing as a free drink so a couple of times a camcorder was produced and questions address to the throng for an impromptu debate which was set to be dropped onto a blog somewhere sometime.  Proximity have been running a study about personal identity as mediated through the web. You can read about it on Facebook if you track down Mark Hancock's Metaverse group They have used semiotics, discourse analysis and anthropology as well as mildly more conventional tools. And it is raising big questions for them about how brands are supposed to relate to us digital prosthetically enhanced human beings. I've been asked to recall what we talked about there. Which I will.. when I remember!  Belgian beer is bad for recall - somebody tell Millward Brown. Caught the last train home by running. Will Humphrey wasn't so lucky and got into a scrape losing mobile and watch.

One of our conversations was about planning. I remember that bit - the exponential growth of the planning industry. Planning is growing way faster than anyone could have ex pected. And the UK advertising bit is getting proportionately smaller all the time. Only a couple of those present would describe themselves as ad planners.