In order of appearance (left to right) Rik Haslam Group Creative Architect, Rapp, Ian Haworth, Global Creative Director, Rapp, Guy Murphy, Worldwide Planning Director, JWT, Nick Kendall, Group Planning Director, BBH, Adam Arnold, Managing Director, Zag, JimCarroll, Chairman, BBH, Russell Marsh, Group Digital Strategy Director, Rapp, Amelia Torode, Planning Director, VCCP, Bob Jeffrey, Worldwide chairman and CEO, JWT, Lorna Hawtin, Disruption Director, TBWA, Bruce Sinclair, Course Leader, BNU, MartinRunnacles, Former MD BMW, Dr Reg Winfield, VMC Tutor, BNU, Sarah Tate, Strategist, Mother, Ajaz Ahmed, Chairman, AKQA, Andrew Hovels, Planner, TBWA, Dr Paul Springer, Author of Ads to Icons, Stephen Maccrron< Planning Director, JWT Manchester,Aisha Shafiq – My Wife
for helping me challenge my thinking...
Than
k yo
u
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
Tutor: Dr Reg WinfieldModule Code: ADM02
Waqar RiazDecember 2009MA Advertising
Bucks New UniversityFaculty of Creativity & CultureMA Advertising
1
1. Peter Fisk, Marketing genius,, 2006, Page 23
Unless you are prepared to give up somethingvaluable you will never be able to truly change at all,because you will be forever in the control of thingsyou can’t give up.“ “
Andy law
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...the Journey I took
And then came "Mother" into my life offering her love, care and affection
which helped me to understand the fundamentals of creativity and how to
inspire creatives; explaining how to challenge Big Ideas with Rich Ideas...
and the ways to add magic to a product to turn it into an exciting brand.
I think that I should stop here at the moment and not take too long explaining
the wonders and magic of disruptive thinking (which I practised at TBWA).
Just to let you know, I am currently working at OMINICOM (RAPP) in Strategy &
Enablement. This is a newly-born discipline which combines the thinking of
Data, Creativity, Technology and Media and encourages 'T' thinking to
establish useful connections with the audiences.
My first interaction with the London ad industry was of BBH. It was
great! The place taught me how to create great communication
stories and how to bring integration into my thinking. Call it
Innovation Planning, Engagement Planning or just Planning... It all
results in one conclusion - real, simple and relevant solutions.
My addiction to advertising then took me to learn and understand
the digital thinking of VCCP - and how to create useful and
innovative communication connections with the audiences.
My journey into the realm of strategy began with a singular thought:
What's Planning all about? I commenced with the next stage a few
days later, travelling to the UK, having decided that I'd have a better
chance of answering my questions on planning in its place of origin.
The reaction on the thought was immediate. It was the result of my
years of interaction with the communications industry at JWT (Pakistan)
& DDB (Bahrain) as a creative and a planner respectively.
From 2006 - 2008 I spent my time in the UK as a layman whilst trying to
understand the "whats" and "ifs" of my new audience, whilst consulting MTN
South Africa and USAID AED as an Online Brand Planner.
At the end of 2008 I had enough ideas and understanding to begin my MA in
Creative Planning at Buckinghamshire University to broaden my thinking and
gain a good understanding of the industry.
*T-Shape Thinking: One area of specialisation with an understanding of multiple disciplines *
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
One can’t be practically rightif one is conceptually wrong
In the times of Twitter phobia, YouTube craze, Farm Ville quest
on Facebook, Blogging adventures, 3D digital environments,
Mobile purchases, iPhone apps, Flickr effects, Google
integration, Wiki wonders, Second World possibilities, Podcast
revival, Verizon Twitter and Facebook cable, Sidewiki’s threats,
iPlayer’s experience, Digital data systems, Amazon’s
commerce, iTunes distribution and so on... you would expecting
me to talk digital, as I believe this is the new Mantra nowadays.
One way or another we all are trying to own digital – as if digital
is not a language but a territory.
Please note that I won’t certainly be talking ‘cool’ as above
because if I were to do that then I would be making you aware
of the stuff you already know too much, or you will know too
much about by the time you prepare your next ‘trend
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
presentation’. Instead what I want to discuss in the next few
chapters are the concepts which direct our actions, as I cannot
imagine an action that can be conceptually incorrect and
practically sustainable.
This journey is to learn about and understand models and ideas
that are great enough to trigger our thinking, and may help
us to imagine what is possible with what we have.
This effort has been exerted in an attempt to understand the
grand concepts of planning and how it can help to strengthen
the future for brands, people and communication companies.
CONTENTS CHART
© Intellectual Rights Reserved - Waqar Riaz 2009
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
CHAPTER ONE PLANNING IN GENERAL
ORIGINAL
(Honda book of dreams)
© All Rights Reserved Waqar RiazImages courtesy of Google Images available at ; http://www.google.co.uk/images?sa=3&q=pears+soap accessed on 12-11-2009
THINKING
(Charles Darwin) (Einstein) (Aristotle)
© All Rights Reserved Waqar RiazImages courtesy of Google Images available at ; http://www.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&ei=WTkZS8PvB8-njAem76z7Aw&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=einstein&spell=1&start=0accessed on 12-11-2009
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
ORIGINAL
© All Rights Reserved Waqar RiazImages courtesy of Google Images available at ; http://www.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&sa=1&q=innocent+smoothies&meta=&aq=1&oq=innocent+&start=0 accessed on 12-11-2009
IDEAS
© All Rights Reserved Waqar RiazImages courtesy of Google Images available at ; http://www.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&sa=1&q=google+logo&meta=&aq=f&oq=&start=0 accessed on 12-11-2009
One thing only I know, and that is I know nothing.
Socrates
2, 3
2 Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, January 1953, Page 63 Image courtesy of Google Images, available at http://www.entelechy-magazine.com/images/socrates.gif - searched on 21st October 2009
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
PLANNING
IS
PROACTIVE
NOT
REACTIVE
Ask an expert to define a planner’s role and the chances are that you will get a very
vague answer. At least, this was true in my case. I was fortunate enough to meet some of
the gurus of my field. Unfortunately, none of them ever gave a clear definition of what a
planner was actually supposed to do. Hmm… Well, you can’t define a planner, can you?
That’s the best answer I got anyway.
However, I strongly believe that there has got to be a definition for the subject – everyone
else has one for theirs. It’s time to challenge all those no-definitions “definition” of planners,
and maybe learn something useful on the way. Let's start this discussion by giving planner a
defined role. But, where to begin?
First of all, planners are not just in advertising. In fact, advertising stole planning from the
pre-existing services i.e. military, architecture etc.
Let’s look into the finest details of the subject and understand what planning does.
Planning in any industry or sector, prepares the businesses for forecast potential risk factors
and then recommends solutions to counter them whilst developing new areas for them
e.g. A new sector, service, category or goal.
I think we are getting somewhere defining planners and planning… Do you think I would
be wrong to say that…
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…a planner is a person who projects histhoughts forward in time and space to influenceevents before they occur rather than merelyresponding to events as they occur?
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
Great planning
Images courtesy of Google Images available at ; http://www.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&sa=1&q=egypt+history&meta=&aq=f&oq=&start=0 accessed on 14-11-2009
4 Yahoo answers - available at http://www.geocities.com/athens/academy/7357/unaslayout_n.gif - searched on 26th October 20095 Image courtesy of Google Images, available at http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_year_was_the_first_pyramid_built - searched on 26th October 2009
Though it was built in around 2630 B.C.E., Wecan still learn some valuable lessons ofplanning from the great pyramid of Djoser.4
Think big, give some space to your mind and put that seven
points communications brief aside for a little while. Once you
have done that, try appreciating the science and art of
pyramids. Indeed, it was a mind of a planner who thought
well about everything and its placement, who exactly knew
what would appeal to the masses and who could add lasting
beauty to clay and sand for generations to come.
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You could ask what architectural planning has in common with communications planning. I would say everything – The job of
planning is to design solutions for potential problems and then add sense to them by making them relate to human nature. It’s
not all science, but a balance combination of sense and creativity. The architect of the pyramid of Djoser could have made a
simple massive hall which would have perfectly served the purpose to the given task i.e. “bury the dead king”. However, the
genius thought of turning it into a brand known as...
6 SOURCED FROM WIKIPEDIA, available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_of_Djoser - searched on 26th October 2009
which made Djoser different, but the whole experience it offers . Building a rectangular structure is not a very difficult task , but
mastering it with the enclosure wall, the great trench, the roofed colonnade entrance, the south court, the south tomb, the step
pyramid, the burial chamber, the north chamber, the serdab court and the heb-sed court is something not every rectangular
shaped building can have. Adding all those details made it into something which holds value and recognition after all these
years.
‘The pyramid of Djoser.’
It was not just the idea
6
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
7
7 SOURCED FROM WIKIPEDIA, available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imhotep - searched on 26th October 2009
PLANNING IS A STATE OF MIND NOT MERELY
A DISCIPLINE Imhotep (the man who built the pyramid of Djoser), the first architect,
engineer, physician in history known by name, didn’t just spend his time
understanding and finding out facts on different kinds of burial chambers
for the kings all over the world. He may well have done, but one thing for
sure is that he didn’t just finish working at that point. The point at which
planning is today is not just being creative with what we have, but totally
forgetting what we know and making things different from what we
already have.7
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Military planning
Images courtesy of Google Images available at ; http://www.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&sa=1&q=military+planning&meta=&aq=f&oq=&start=0 accessed on 14-11-2009
who routinely face situations or problems where they
have to decide which actions to take. I hope to learn
how usefully they implement planning to grow their
collective successes. In a literal sense, military leaders
inescapably make all decisions in advance of taking
action. Therefore, military planning as discussed here
refers to situations where there is sufficient time to
employ a decision making process.
8 Source - Paul K. Van Riper, PLANNING FOR AND APPLYING MILITARY FORCE: AN EXAMINATION OF TERMS, March 2006 – Page 2
8
9 SOURCED FROM GOOGLE IMAGES http://www.ecse.rpi.edu/~cvrl/EBO/ebo_files/image001.gif - searched on 268h October 2009
(EFFECTS BASED MILITARY PLANNING)
Let’s now look at planning from a ratherdifferent perspective, let’s now lookfrom the eyes of great military leaders
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
10 Carl Von Clausewitz, On War, Michael Howard and Peter Paret, eds. And trans., Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976, p. 579.
(Carl von Clausewitz)
When it comes to discussing strategic planning in the military and its grand
concepts there could be no one better than Clausewitz to quote. Prussian
military thinker Carl von Clausewitz is widely acknowledged as the most
important of the major strategic theorists. Despite the fact that he's been dead
for over a century and a half, he remains the most frequently cited, the most
controversial, and in many respects the most modern.
In his classic ‘On War’, he wrote, “No one starts a war—or rather, no one in his
senses ought to do so without first being clear in his mind what he intends to
achieve by that war and how he intends to conduct it.”
He was the man behind the thinking and theory of concepts such as ends, the
means model, and selected terms to support more detailed and explicit
planning. That is, he recognized how the methods or ways, and means are
employed is important. Thus, the current ends, ways, and means paradigm. In
trying to understand where to focus the available means, he created concepts
such as centre of gravity and decisive points.
10
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11 John M. Collins, Military Strategy: Principles, Practices, and Historical Perspectives, Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 2002, p. 3..12 JWT Planning Cycle – JWT Planning Guide available at http://www.slideshare.net/williamtheliar/jwt-planning-guide accessed on 29th October 2009
Several contemporary scholars of strategy broadened the basic Clausewitzian ends-means concept. For example John
Collins (a military writer), described ends, ways, and means based on the names Rudyard Kipling provided his “six honest
serving men.” Collins set them forth this way:
• “What” and “Why” correspond to perceived requirements (ends),
• “How, When and Where” indicate optional courses of action (ways),
• “Who” concerns available forces and resources (means).
If we look at the diagram above which shows the planning cycle Stephen King at JWT created in 1969, then we further
realise that the points he touched upon were already in discussion at a much greater level way before his time.
(JWT Planning cycle)
11
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In its true sense, planning is not a domain like marketing, finance or even physics for that matter – instead, it’s something universal,
applicable to all fields and categories (Figure 1). A good lawyer is the one who plans his case effectively, does research thoroughly
and then finally has the courage to work his magic in the court room, based on facts and findings. and the story won’t be much
different for a military general , a good financial officer or a chief executive of some fortune 500. “Planning is the origin of success ”.
MILITARY
LAW
Figure 1 - Universal Model of Planning © Waqar Riaz
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
CHAPTER TWO BRANDS AND PLANNING
14 Adam McQueen, The King of Sunlight, 2004, Page 52
Okay, too much business. Let’s talk some learni
The Story of William Lever
Images scanned from The King of Sunlight, accessed on 14-11-2009
William Hesketh Lever
13 Adam McQueen, The King of Sunlight, 2004, Page 118 Line 11
The man who makesno mistakes usuallymakes nothing.
(William Hesketh Lever)
13
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We now know for certain that planning is a fundamental
element in making solutions for any given potential problem.
We have also identified that in the past, people have used
planning in many different ways. Now let’s get back on track –
back to the subject of communications. Let's try to understand
planning from the perspectives of people as great as William
Lever and of brands as unique as Lever brothers . If we try to
understand how usefully they implemented planning in the
early days then it may help in understanding the real meaning
of the subject.
© All Rights Reserved Waqar RiazImages courtesy of Google Images available at ; http://www.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&sa=1&q=sunlight+soap&meta=&aq=0&oq=sunlight+s&start=0 accessed on 15-11-2009
15 Adam McQueen, The King of Sunlight, 2004, Page 16, 17, 18
Eight year old William (top, sitting on the right) poses with his brother, James Darcy, and their
oldest sister, Elizabeth Emma, in 1859.
Did you know that William Lever, the founder of Lever Brothers (now
Unilever) and one of the most successful and wealthy men in history,
came from poor beginnings?
It's true. He was born on 19 September 1851 in Bolton, a town
described seven years earlier as one of the worst in Britain by no less
of an authority than Friedrich Engels. William joined his father’s
grocery business at the age of sixteen, starting right at the bottom,
as an apprentice. He was put in charge of preparing sugar and
soap. Both of the products arrived as foot-long, solid bars, which had
to be sliced into manageable quantities and individually wrapped in
greaseproof paper. You can imagine the tediousness involved in the
process. However, William, the ever improver, couldn’t stop thinking
that there had to be a better way. Soon William was moved to
another department where his talents were put to greater use as he
looked after the company’s accounts. 15
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
15 Images and text Adam McQueen, The King of Sunlight, 2004, Page 16, 17, 18
The company’s account system was a mess – much of this
was due to the old way of working. However, William saw
potential problems that this system could create in the
future and that this very system could become a threat to
the company’s growth. He put his mind to creating an
alternative, more efficient, robust and effective method of
book-keeping. Creating the system was one part of what
he did and selling the idea to his conservative father was
another. William used all his strategic sense and before
attempting to sell the idea to his father, he worked on
winning the trust of his fellow clerks. Eventually, the success
15
William’s Bolton House (Left). William’s open air Port Sunlight bedroom (Right).
of his modernised system granted the son new respect and
an increased voice in the company.
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
16 Adam McQueen, The King of Sunlight, 2004, Page 27, 29, 31
By the age of 23 William was married to Elizabeth and had
transformed his father’s company. However, he claimed
that he hadn't done anything revolutionary. In his 1915
‘Secrets of my success’ speech, he mentioned, “There is a
general impression that in making money you have to do
16
something wonderful, but believe me, there is much more
money made in doing something better than ever it was
done before than in doing something new – far more.”
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
16 Adam McQueen, The King of Sunlight, 2004, Page 27, 29, 31Images courtesy of Google Images, available at http://www.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&sa=1&q=sunlight+soap&meta=&aq=0&oq=sunlight+s&start=0 accessed on 17-11-2009
He always remembered this self-created golden rule (which
we discussed on the previous page) which he kept with him
during his 1884 cruise. Even on a leisure tour, Lever was thinking
of business ideas, remembering how successful ‘Lever Pure
Honey’ was (their own patented product) – which made them
loads more money than a normal honey could. I imagine Lever
standing on the deck of his ship and asking himself – What’s
Next, William? And it was one of those moments when he
thought of the killer idea – why not make a branded washing
soap? Clearly, there was a need in the market as washing
clothes wasn’t as easy as it is now - It was a long, laborious task
for women. And William exactly knew how to make the
process easier, quicker and more enjoyable.
Sunlight was born and Lever Brothers took off.16
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
Do you know what soap is made of? Me neither and frankly
speaking nor did William Lever . When he founded his
fortune on it, he claimed to be, “as ignorant of soap-making
as baby in arms”. What William was doing was nothing
normal. He was actually thinking of manufacturing his own
soap and then patenting it with a brand called “Sunlight
Self-Washer”. He took his stance against all odds and he
began to turn his dream into a reality. He knew his audience
would want his product and so he leased a soap works in
17 Adam McQueen, The King of Sunlight, 2004,
17
Warrington and started to produce his own brand of soap,
the ‘Sunlight Self-Washer’.
© All Rights Reserved Waqar RiazImages courtesy of Google Images available at ; http://www.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&sa=1&q=sunlight+soap&meta=&aq=0&oq=sunlight+s&start=0 accessed on 15-11-2009
Gone were the days of the foot-long soap bar. Sunlight (William’s biggest
Invention) was cut at source and each tablet was wrapped individually in
bright, colourful packaging.
17 Adam McQueen, The King of Sunlight, 2004,
William was a unique man. There was no part of the business that he wasn’t
directly involved, even advertising – especially ‘Advertising’. He specifically told
his staff to let children inspect the brightly coloured Sunlight Boxes as they would
then insist their parents to buy the product. Things as small as closing the house
gate after a sales pitch were part of William’s staff syllabus.
He created cookery books, direct marketing material, story books for children
and so on. He was the first man to think of railways as a medium for advertising in
his age and entered into a £50 contract with London and North-Western Railway
company as part of Sunlight’s first advertising campaign. He then personally
selected the spots where the ads should be displayed and he even wrote the
slogan himself. It read, ‘Sunlight Self-Washer: See how this becomes the house’.17
© All Rights Reserved Waqar RiazImages courtesy of Google Images available at ; http://www.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&sa=1&q=sunlight+soap&meta=&aq=0&oq=sunlight+s&start=0 accessed on 15-11-2009
17 Adam McQueen, The King of Sunlight, 2004,
17
In doing what he did, William actually solved all the
communications problems many companies still struggle
with.
He didn’t go to a media house to buy a big ad space; he
didn’t even visit an ad agency for creative inspiration. He
simply did what we all forget to do today – he followed the
audience. Very soon people across the UK loved Sunlight
and by the end of 1888, just after two years of the product
launch, they were producing 14,000 tons a week. Sunlight
boxes soon started to advertise a common phrase ‘has the
largest sale of any soap in the world’.
© All Rights Reserved Waqar RiazImages courtesy of Google Images available at ; http://www.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&sa=1&q=sunlight+soap&meta=&aq=0&oq=sunlight+s&start=0 accessed on 15-11-2009
Lever brothers was now a business generating £50,000 profit a year.
This made Lever more conscious of what he was doing, He started to think that he
had the same works, the same soap boiler, the same manager and the same staff.
The question he asked himself was ‘whose is that money?’ In answering his own
question he totally changed the concept of how businesses would run by building
a town for his employees and named it as ‘Port Sunlight’.
Much of the architectural credit of ‘Port Sunlight’ goes to William Lever as he paid
attention to detail with the look and feel of the town and its social values. He
introduced the concept of large houses for communities with gardens, he built
cafés, gyms, pubs and restaurants within the town, and school for the children of
his staff.
18 Text and Images Adam McQueen, The King of Sunlight, 2004,
18
(Port Sunlight)
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
This may not be the right place to highlight William’s every success and achievement. However, by the time Lever died in 1925, the
company had evolved from one brand to several, it had 187,000 shareholders, and 85,000 staff ‘living and working in almost every
country in the world’. Lever Brothers issued capital was some £57,000 million and 18,000 of his staff were co-partners.
18 Adam McQueen, The King of Sunlight, 2004,
18
© All Rights Reserved Waqar RiazImages courtesy of Google Images available at ; http://www.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&sa=1&q=sunlight+soap&meta=&aq=0&oq=sunlight+s&start=0 accessed on 15-11-2009
William Hesketh LeverThe key to William Lever’s success was his unique approach to
things in general. He always tried making sense of the processes
and their surroundings. Be it a sales boy selling soap to a lady at
her doorstep, a retailer taking stock for the local market, the
mayor of Bolton representing his people, a wholesaler opening
his doors to the international market or an employer living in ‘Port
Sunlight’, William was focused and useful for everyone around
him.
In his 1915, Secrets of my Success speech, William said, “I started
locally and when I got it established there and making money, I
ventured forth to Liverpool and Manchester. Established there
and making money I ventured as far north as Newcastle and as
far south as Plymouth with the intervening country more or less
opened. Established there and making money I opened up in
London, Scotland and elsewhere, and covered the United
Kingdom.” This was the strategy William used for his impressive
success.
He involved planning in every stage of his selling channels. He
used strategic techniques for every single business process he
went through. Whether it was launching a new system for
managing the company accounts, growing a happy door-to-
door customer base, selling his products by the power of a brand
called ‘Sunlight’, or leading Lever Brothers successfully from
challenging times, he never stopped adding creativity to the
subject. Maybe Lever wanted us to know something. Maybe he
was trying to tell us to think rich and instead of creating
integrated systems, to become integrated individuals.19
19 Adam McQueen, The King of Sunlight, 2004,
© All Rights Reserved Waqar RiazImages courtesy of Google Images available at ; http://www.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&sa=1&q=william+lever&meta=&aq=f&oq=&start=0 accessed on 20-11-2009
William Hesketh Lever
20 Fig 2 © Waqar Riaz 2009
The times of Lever were simple and focused. Every system was totally integrated.
Thanks to Lever’s command everyone was working for the people, without creating unnecessary additions in the process of
manufacturing the product to selling it to the end user (Fig 2). The benefits of the services and products were communicated
exactly when, where and how people required. The thinking was totally integrated and everyone involved in the process, knew
exactly what the business was doing.
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
PEOPLE (CUSTOMERS/BUYERS)
MANUFACTURER DISTRIBUTOR RETAILER
OC M U N I C AM T I O N S
(Fig 2)
William Hesketh Lever
1935 – LUX Ad (Ain’t the William Way)
21 Image courtesy of Google Images, available at http://www.adclassix.com/images/35luxsoap.jpg , accessed on 8-11-2009
1932 – Sunlight Soap Ad 1932 – LUX Ad
Just five years after the death of William Lever, Lever
brothers became Unilever as a result of an international
merger. Whilst the merger brought benefits for both
parties, it also had negative implementations. The biggest
of all was ‘disintegration’- not so much in the way things
worked, but in the thinking of the business.
Then started the war of share, one way or another
everyone wanted to own the end user. However, in doing
so they totally misunderstood the William’s secret; it wasn’t
about owning the audience in different domains, instead
understanding their life in general and addressing their
different needs by introducing products, services and
useful interactive communications. Nobody understood. It
wasn’t about segmenting people as if they were a species
from another planet; rather, considering yourself as part of
their community and addressing the needs of your
community.
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
William Hesketh Lever
However, instead of continuing with integration what we got
was ‘champions of consumers’. I hate that word -
‘consumers’. Anyway, no matter what you were selling,
these were the guys you had to go through (Fig3). Because
apparently they knew everything about the customers. They
created a universe which was more like this;
The Manufacturer is on planet Zoron, the Customer is on
Planet Delta, and these geniuses know the secret portal that
the seller (Manufacturer/Retailer/Distributor) can take to get
closer to the buyer and eventually make a happy sale. What
22 Fig 3 © Waqar Riaz 2009
(Fig 3)
Think...
a strange concept – I wonder where this portal was when
William was selling millions of tons of soap without consulting
these consumer-geniuses?
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
The
poin
t is..
.Planning has no limits
CHAPTER THREE COMMUNICATIONS AND PLANNING
William Hesketh Lever
want to be looked back on asbeing very innovative, verytrusted and ethical andultimately making a bigdifference in the world.”
“Obviously everybody wants to be successful, but I
Sergey Brin
© All Rights Reserved Waqar RiazPeter Fisk, marketing Genius, Inspiration Google, 2004
William Hesketh Lever
“In a world filled withdespair, we must stilldare to dream, and ina world filled withdistrust, we must stilldare to believe.”
Michael Jackson
© All Rights Reserved Waqar RiazImage scanned from the book, Micheal Jackson – Life of a legend, accessed on 8-11-2009
Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen.
“Some people want it tohappen, some wish it wouldhappen, others make ithappen.”
Michael Jordan
© All Rights Reserved Waqar RiazImage courtesy of Google Images, available at; http://www.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&sa=1&q=micheal+jordan&meta=&aq=f&oq=&start=0 accessed on 13-11-2009
William Hesketh Lever
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives,
nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one
that is the most adaptable to
change.”Charles Darwin
© All Rights Reserved Waqar RiazImage courtesy of Google Images, available at; http://www.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&sa=1&q=charles+darwin&meta=&aq=f&oq=&start=0 accessed on 13-11-2009
William Hesketh Lever
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
Ahhhhh.... It has been a longand intensive journey. Though,I hope that it was enjoyableand worth experiencing – westarted from understandingthe grand definition ofplanning and how in differentfields and times people haveused it. Then we fastforwarded to the times of‘Sunlight’ and learnt thatplanning is not just aboutfinding the targetaudience and effectivelycommunicating to them, butdesigning the whole businessaround people. On our way,we analysed Planning fromdifferent perspectives andpoints of views. However, I amglad that there was one thingcommon in all ourendeavours: Sense andCreativity.
Let’s stay loyal to our subjectand jump straight into the1960’s. Oh yes, the time whenStephen King and StanleyPollitt had their ‘Planning-Wars’. The time, because ofwhich I am able to write andyou are able to read all this.Let’s discuss those preciousmoments when Planning wassticking its neck out in theCommunications industry, ‘byname’. Let’s make anattempt to understand allthose intelligent conceptsKing and Pollitt introducedand if we are lucky enough tocover them, then we’ll try tounderstand the currentdisintegration and the mythsof specialisation in thesubject. Let’s learn the‘relevant’ and delete the‘stupid’ (from our memories).
PLANNING IS
NOT ABOUT
ANSWERING
WHAT’S
RIGHT OR
WRONG, BUT
WHAT’S
RELEVANT
William Hesketh Lever
The mantra every marketer was singing.
I am afraid, but in order to understand King’s and Pollitt’s
effort we have to go a little back in time – as the
development of planning department is directly linked with
the evolution of brands.
Before the Fifties or even the Forties, ‘Marketing’ as a
department had no existence as far as companies were
involved. However, when companies started to realise the
importance of brands and sensed the increased control of
advertising agencies on their businesses, they immediately
thought of a counter strategy which was to open a
marketing department within their corporations. Thus, the
marketing department was born in companies as a
‘second wife, married to the husband (Client) of
23 Henrik Habberstad, The Anatomy of Account Planning, accessed on 10th November 2009
advertising’. The second possible reason could be too
much specialisation in the communications discipline. It
also made it difficult for the brands to decide between
right and wrong communications partners because
everybody was saying the same thing – ‘I am the
consumer-genius you need’. Therefore, brands needed a
neutral voice within the company (FIG 4, 5).23
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‘It’s all in the brand, brand, brand’.
William Hesketh Lever
The example of the birth of marketing department scares me
a lot and forces me to think. The specialisation/disintegration
in the Advertising / Communications business forced clients
into having a marketing department, so maybe the same
thing could happen to planning. In recent years we have
added too much irrelevant material to the subject. There’s
just too much disintegration in planning – We have taken ‘P’
‘L’ ‘A’ ‘N’ ‘N’ ‘I’ ‘N’ ‘G’ out of planning and started to call it
whatever we like it to be. And still we complain, why don’t the
clients trust us?
The other reason that made King and Pollitt introduce
Brand
Research
ATL
BTL
MEDIA
Brand
Research
ATL
BTL
MEDIA
MARKETING DEPARTMENT
(Fig 4) (Fig 5)
planning as a department is obvious: the disintegration within
the advertising industry started to take media away from the
large advertising agencies and other jobs e.g. production
and printing. In order to recover from this situation, a common
bridge was needed immediately to help integrate the
systems and make things make sense for everyone i.e.
agency and client.
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
William Hesketh LeverBefore we advance with our discussion, we must understand
that the birth of planning in advertising doesn’t, by any
means, mean that advertising before Planning was not
planned. Good advertising has always been planned and
campaigns have always been post-rationalized. People like
James Webb Young, Claude Hopkins, Rosser Reeves, David
Ogilvy and Bill Bernbach were all superb planners. What was
new was the existence in an agency of a separate
department whose primary responsibility was to plan
advertising strategy and evaluate campaigns in
accordance with this.
The revolutionary Volkswagen ‘Think small’ campaign by Bill
24
24 Henrik Habberstad, The Anatomy of Account Planning, accessed on 10th November 2009, Page 425 Images courtesy of Google Images, available at http://mootee.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/01/11/1113.jpg, accessed on 10th November 2009
Bernbach is a good example to consider. The campaign
was delivered before the times of Planning. Yet it had all the
ingredients of planning that any brand could ever have. It
helped the company to develop a philosophy around the
brand and business whilst achieving all the business
objectives, both in terms of volume and value.
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William Hesketh Lever
The agencies were the J Walter Thompson (now JWT) London
Office, and the new, very small agency Boase Massimi Pollitt (BMP),
now BMP DDB, also in London. It is also worth mentioning that the
two dominant personalities involved were JWT’s Stephen King and
the late Stanley Pollitt of BMP. Apart from a shared emphasis on the
consumer, the approach of these two agencies was very different,
representing two distinct ideologies. However, both were useful and
have had a profound influence on subsequent advertising
practice. Inevitably, there has been some dispute about which
came first, and which was the better.
Officially, the origin of account planning occurred at about thesame time (in the mid to late 1960s) in two of the leading Britishadvertising agencies, and was in each case the product of asingle, dominant thinker.
26 Henrik Habberstad, The Anatomy of Account Planning, accessed on 10th November 2009, Page 524 Images courtesy of Google Images, available at http://mootee.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/01/11/1113.jpg, accessed on 10th November 2009
26
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William Hesketh Lever
The Thompson T Plan (today widely known as ‘The Planning
Cycle’ and recently strengthened by ‘The New JWT
Planning Model’ by Guy Murphy, Worldwide Planning
Director, JWT) was developed in early/mid 1960s. However,
in 1968 the agency realised the potential of The Thompson
T Plan working, and thus decided that the approach should
be integrated in agency thinking which gave a reason for
the birth of a new department (which was later named as
Account Planning). The reason for setting up Account
planning and the responsibilities of an Account planner, as
defined by Stephen King, were (FIG 6).
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Okay – now briefly, let’s look at thedevelopment of account planning in JWT andBMP.
William Hesketh Lever
Account planning
Implications for the Agency Account Planner Responsibilities
Integrate Campaign and Media Objectives
Develop specialist skills in research and planning
Link technical planning and its information sources
Set objectives for creatives, media buying and scheduling, merchandising and help develop objectives into action
Plan commission and plan advertising research
Plan advertising experiments
Evaluate advertising and experiments
Present work to account groups and clients
FIG 6 – JWT ACCOUNT PLANNING
27 Extract from Stephen King’s Internally Circulated Document, 1968
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William Hesketh Lever
Ultimately, this system became the reason for a new kind of working andteam setup. JWT created an integrated, new, three person team for eachof its accounts (fig 7).
Guy Murphy, Worldwide Planning Director at JWT, defines JWT
planning by quoting Stephen King “strategic imagination on
the grand scale”. By definition, this sounds impressive and
highly appealing. However, it seems as though this ideology
has been somewhat compromised in the formation of this
team structure, which has been in practice at JWT since 1968.
We suddenly realise that the job of a planner at JWT, who in
theory works as a grand business consultant for the client and
agency, is actually working as a logical connection between
creativity and sales.
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William Hesketh Lever
However, this doesn’t mean at all that JWT didn’t benefit by the
introduction of this discipline. Of course, there are plenty of
campaigns where planning played a very significant and
important role and actually made things happen for both the
client and the agency. But unfortunately, the influence of
planning has never on anything beyond campaigns
Nevertheless, I wondered why the role of a planner has always
been limited to a communications problem solver? What
Stephen King introduced was a business consultant, a grand
strategist; someone with the ability to take a holistic view of
every single business process and then design solutions around
success. Someone who could see all the potential problems
and address them before they occurred, rather than simply
responding to problems as they occur.
As an industry, we are not currently encouraging the kind of
thinking that we need – every single brief has a very dominant
‘what’s the problem?’ part. Why are we always addressing
problems and why can’t we stop being so negative? I wonder
when will we start thinking of brand opportunities instead of
brand problems?
(Example of JWT Creative Brief)
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William Hesketh Lever
There’s the potential ofwriting a complete book allabout the magic of Kingand the superiority of JWT,but I guess that’s not thepoint of this primer. So let’slook at the other side ofplanning – Pollitt’s way,which took place at a verysmall agency, BMP (nowDDB).
28 Henrik Habberstad, The Anatomy of Account Planning, accessed on 10th November 2009, Page 7
From 1965, Stanley Pollitt, then at Interpublic Group agency
Pritchard Wood & Partners in London, drew similar conclusions to his
contemporaries and friends at JWT. His legacy to the advertising
industry would be a new agency structure revolving around a set of
principles which also attracted the title ‘account planning’.
Pollitt’s ideas blossomed when, in 1968, he helped set up Boase
Massimi Pollitt and established what he called a ‘consumer
alliance’, openly adopting the phrase from JWT. The new account
planning department at BMP was quite different from that at the
London office of JWT. BMP was a tiny agency with no international
connections at that stage, but it was soon to develop a reputation
for good creative work, thanks to the efforts of the young and very
talented John Webster. The aim of BMP was to show that its
advertising was both accountable and effective. Martin Boase was
once quoted as saying that he did not accept that there had to be
a choice between strategically relevant and creatively original
advertising. This remains something of a mantra at BMP DDB.
Planners at BMP mainly got involved in the following principles:
- Advertising research, and often fieldwork.
- Working with creative teams and researching rough creative
ideas.
- Using consumer research to clarify the issues and enrich the
advertising development process.28
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William Hesketh Lever
(Example of BMP DDB Creative Brief)
FIG 8 – NEW BMP TEAM STRUCTURE
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To better understand the relationship between planning and communications, let’s study some brandcommunications. We’ll look at examples where agencies and brands used planning (intentionally orunintentionally) and benefited from it.
To conclude, BMP and JWT both realised the importance of planning in the advertising process and introduceda new department into their agencies. However, the role played by planners at BMP was more focused on thedevelopment of ‘creatives’ while JWT encouraged its planners to look at the bigger picture ‘The GrandConcepts’.
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William Hesketh Lever
It all started with “1984”, the
groundbreaking Super Bowl
commercial that introduced
the Macintosh and is still
talked about two and half
decades later. Director Ridley
Scott paid homage to
George Orwell’s classic tale
by creating a vision of a bleak
conformist world, in which a
lone heroine rebels against
the automatons by throwing
a hammer. The ad only ran
once, but it helped change
the world of computers, and
of advertising.
Big brother voice-over:
For today we celebrate thefirst glorious anniversary ofthe information purificationdirectives.
We have created, for the firsttime, in all history, a gardenof pure ideology, where eachworker may bloom securefrom the pests ofcontradictory and confusiontruths.
Our unification of thought ismore powerful a weapon thanany fleet or army on Earth.
We are one people.With one will.One resolve. One cause.
Our enemies shall talkthemselves to death. And wewill bury them with their ownconfusion.
We shall prevail.
Announcer voice-over:
On January 24th
Apple Computer willintroduce Macintosh.
And you’ll notice why 1984won’t be like “1984”.
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William Hesketh Lever
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William Hesketh LeverMacintosh, welcomed
people to a new age of
computers.
It first happened a little over two decades ago, on a Sunday afternoon
in January of 1984. no one expected it, which was part of what made it
so powerful. As millions of people sat before their television sets,
watching a football game and shifting their attention to snacks and
conversations when the commercials came on, something round
about the third quarter – a kind of tremor. But it was above ground and
right on the TV screen, in the form of a woman charging full speed,
wielding a hammer and preparing to fly. Once she did that a lot was
shattered the way people thought about big business and
entrepreneurial brands, the way people thought about computers,
and most of all the way people thought about a company named
Apple.
29 Robert Schnakenberg, Apple Computer, Inc.: 1984 campaign, Encyclopaedia of major marketing campaigns, Volume 1 200030 Warren Berger, Disruption Stories, 2004, Page 16
Long the pacesetter in the business machine sector, IBM had become the
company for Apple to beat. Before IBM entered the personal computer
market in 1982, Apple had more than 40 percent of the sales. By 1983 IBM
had gained first place, capturing 36 percent of the market, while Apple's
share had fallen to 25 percent. Industry analysts were not sure how Apple's
Macintosh would fare against IBM. The Macintosh could not run programs
written for IBM personal computers, and most new programs on the market
adhered to the standards set by IBM.
The Macintosh would be a test of Apple's ability to compete head-on with
IBM while remaining true to its own design criteria. The new product would
sell only if Apple could convince users that IBM compatibility was not all that
important when a big enough company was behind the computer. 29
30
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William Hesketh LeverCommissioned to provide the advertising strategy for the Macintosh
launch was advertising agency Chiat/Day. The creative team
assembled in the ad shop's San Francisco office consisted of executive
vice president and creative director Lee Clow, vice president and
associate creative director Steve Hayden (who wrote the final spot),
vice president and associate creative director Brent Thomas (who
served as art director), and producer Richard O'Neill. These people
worked for more than a year—"65-hour weeks, without vacation,"
according to account director Paul Conhune—to produce what would
become one of the most talked-about spots in the history of
advertising. The spot, entitled "1984," began a six-day ran in January
1984 that concluded with its final airing during ABC's telecast of Super
Bowl XVIII. In foisting the elaborate "1984" on an unsuspecting public,
Apple was actually following a time-honoured rule of advertising—grab
the consumer's attention. The company was aware that whenever a
new product is introduced the first thing its maker must do is make
people aware of it and its brand name. The Apple ad did so in a
fashion quite innovative for its time.
Also part of the marketing strategy for the Macintosh was a partnership
with Microsoft, the Richmond, Washington-based personal computer
software company. On the same day Apple unveiled the computer,
Microsoft introduced five new programs for the Mac in ads in the Wall
Street Journal. "Apple's new baby has our best features," read the
copy. "It's called Macintosh. And it has our brains and a lot of our
personality." The one-time-only ad was created by Microsoft's ad
© All Rights Reserved Waqar RiazImage courtesy of Google Images, available at; http://www.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&sa=1&q=mac+mouse&meta=&aq=f&oq=&start=0 accessed on 13-11-2009
31 Robert Schnakenberg, Apple Computer, Inc.: 1984 campaign, Encyclopaedia of major marketing campaigns, Volume 1 2000
31
agency, Keye/Donna/Pearlstein (KDP), which worked in tandem with
Chiat/Day on the project. The ads went on to describe the five new
programs that Microsoft planned to release for the Macintosh over the
first few months of 1984.
As a result of “1984”, early sales of the Macintosh were brisk. Industry
sources estimated that in the first six hours on the product's launch day
200,000 consumers visited the country's 1,500 Apple dealers. The dealers
Thirdly, the communication strategy for the new Macintosh, which
insured the presentation of the machine as different as the company
representing it and as innovative as the product itself. From the
selection of media channels to the inspiration of creative theme from
controversial novelist George Orwell, it was made sure that nothing
looked, sounded or felt like anything people had experienced before.
The most fascinating thing of the story of “1984” is the consistency in the
overall transaction of Macintosh for the Apple Business i.e. from the
making of the product to its actual sale. Of course,
the credit of Macintosh success goes to many minds,
however, if I have to select the ‘Grand Strategist’
among those, then that would be, without a doubt,
the inventor, the strategist, the thinker, Steve Jobs.
Jobs didn’t just think of the product proposition to be
the machine ‘For the rest of Us’, but also carefully
built the brand world around the idea. As a Grand
Strategist, Steve Jobs made sure that everything went according to the
product idea, his focus was on building a long-term personality for the
Apple, by delivering consistent, innovative solutions for people in need,
than merely executing what technology was offering at that time.
The point which differentiated Macintosh from the rest of the
competition was its ability to have a balance combination of logic
and creativity. Without a doubt, Steve Jobs realised that it was
possible to defy convention and put forth a completely original
vision, and to create the machine that was designed to adapt to
the user (instead of the other way around).
reported selling $3.5 million worth of Macs and
accepted cash deposits for another $1 million. In the
first two months of the new computer's availability,
an additional $8 million in deposits was taken.
Fast forward to 2009, and you can’t name a single
thing used in “1984” that didn’t have the rules of
planning embedded in it.
First of all, the product was designed with the user and their needs in
mind. Thanks to Steve Jobs, intensive planning work took place in
actually creating and designing the machine. It featured a fast
processor powered by a Motorola 68,000 chip and had 128,000
characters of memory. No computer jargon was needed to operate the
machine. To carry out a particular function, the user simply moved a
pointer, or mouse, to a symbol on the screen and pushed a button. The
screen could also be broken up into windows, thus allowing several
functions to be handled at the same time.
Secondly, the penetration strategy adopted by the product. A smart
move of including Microsoft as a technology partner, which insured the
superiority of the machine, both in its looks and working.
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
William Hesketh Lever
The point is...Businesses and Brands need deeper logic and morecreativity to succeed amidst complexity.
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
William Hesketh Lever
Peter Fisk, in his book Marketing Genius wrote, ‘the blurring of
boundaries, of virtual and real worlds, and fusion of previously
unrelated industries, is a daunting challenge but also a
fantastic opportunity’.
With a doubt, the modernisation within the technology
discipline introduced countless opportunities to the business
world. Today, it’s possible for any brand to work with or against
any other. It’s no more about finding what the technology has
done, instead it’s about realising the potential it has for us. It’s
an open book, easily accessible to those who have the
dreams, brains, confidence and persistence to benefit from it.
Very similar to this was the realisation of Larry Page and Sergey
Brin back in 1995, when they created Google in their Stanford
University bedroom. What Google did was not a one off magic
performance, but a simply a case of focusing the business
around people, and not the other way around.
Within five years, Google had started to deal with 100 million
internet searches every day, and made Brin and Page multi-
billionaires in less than a decade. Similar to this is what Steve
Jobs did for the Apple brand. For Google their vision is simple, ‘
to be the perfect search engine’ or, ‘one that understands
exactly what you mean and gives you back exactly what you
want’.
In Google doing what it does, it truly understands the following;
• Customers: "They only want what they want."
• Advertisers: "They want low cost and low risk."
• Media/Publishers: "They need to engage customers and they
want to do so at a low cost and with low risk.
In a traditional world, for each to get what it wants, someone
has to sacrifice. If a publisher wants to make more money, an
advertiser has to pay more. If an advertiser wants lower risk and
still get out in front of customers, the customers may not get
what they want.
However, this is where Google differentiates itself from the rest
of the world, by coming up with a ‘Grand Solution’, something
which only the brains of Page and Brin could realise. In the
case of Google, the searcher types in a query; advertisers, in
advance, bid on a click because they assume a click
translates to interest; and, with each click, publishers
presumably make money. This model of working is something
all three want i.e. (People, Advertiser, Publisher): Something is
exchanged at a price that's market-determined.
© All Rights Reserved Waqar RiazImage courtesy of Google Images, available at; http://www.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&sa=1&q=google+logo&meta=&aq=f&oq=&start=0 on 28-11-2009
William Hesketh Lever
In reality, Google’s (search) model of working is extremely
simple (FIG 9). Google as a brand understands the value of
keeping the audience ‘on your side’. In all its operations what
Google sells ultimately is, ‘You’. You, ‘the audience’ that every
brand and publisher is looking for and Google makes it sure that
everybody gets what they really want. In simple words, Google
is the web’s library: archival, organized and oriented around
research.
Now you must be thinking, what on earth this all has to do with
Communications Planning? But if you look deeper, you will find
Google as the champion of planning. As planners we stand for
‘champions of people’, we celebrate the fact that it’s the end
user whose voice is heard and listened, at all levels in designing
a business proposition.
In whatever Google does, it’s always the ‘searcher’ who is given
utmost priority. Whether it’s an advertiser using Google
AdWords to promote its products and services on the web with
targeted advertising, or a website manager taking advantage
of the Google AdSense programme to deliver ads relevant to
the content of his website, the whole Google system works
around customer democracy. Google search rankings are
determined by the most popular sites amongst global internet
users, assisted by those sites that encourage more open
networking, linking one to another.
It’s no accident that Google’s New York office has more
humans than servers. This conviction in the power of people is
also truly reflected in how Google creates awareness for its
brand. Until recently, no one had experienced a traditional
piece of advertising from Google.
DIGITAL/ONLINE RESOURCES OF THE
WORLDGOOGLEUSER RECEIVING RELEVANT CONTENT
PUBLISHER ADVERTISER
FIG 9 – Google Search Model of Working
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
William Hesketh LeverIn terms of its value, Google stands at number one in the world,
above Coca Cola, Microsoft and many others who spend
millions of advertising dollars in creating their brand value. But
for Google, the case is different. Anyone who uses Google
products automatically becomes its advocate. And if my
memory serves me correctly, then it wasn’t very different when
Google revolutionised the e-mail world with the launch of
Gmail.
Okay, so how do you launch a global communications
campaign for a global brand, that caters to all cultures and
markets, whilst using the power of single idea and then
broadcast it to millions of people – with just one condition , that
you don’t have any advertising budget? It sounds
ridiculous, I know – tell it to an advertising agency and they will
think you are crazy, and would like to stay as far from you as
possible.
But then try asking Google, and they might tell you how
successfully they did it when they thought of promoting Gmail.
The month was August, the date was 28th and the year was
2007. This was the day when Google broadcasted their Behind
the Scenes video on YouTube, which to date has received
5,634,302 views – not really a bad reach for an advertising piece
that lasts for two minutes and nineteen seconds. The video was
created by Gmail lovers from all around the world based on a
simple communications idea, ‘Help us imagine how an email
message travels around the world’. The execution platform was
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William Hesketh Lever
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William Hesketh Lever
even simpler, ‘Take a look at the collaborative video we started, and
then film what happens next. We'll rotate a selection of the clips we
receive on this page, and add the best ones to the video. The final
video will be featured on the Gmail homepage and seen by users
worldwide’. And there it was – all the world out with their video
cameras and letter ‘M’. Hats off to the thinking of Gmail Labs.
If we look at this activity from an advertising effectiveness point of view,
then we come across some amazing results. Thousands of blogs across
the world wide web, started to talk about Gmail’s clever stunt – it
reached a worldwide audience of millions, and represented the
multicultural, global outlook of the brand in its communications. All this
at apparently zero media, production and advertising budget.
It is indeed a very innovative case study, but also a bit scary at the
same time. If advertisers are able to produce such effective
communications on their own and then have the ability to execute
them successfully, then I wonder what need for an advertising/media
partner will they have in the future?
So, what was actually that thing which made people so interested in
doing what they did for Gmail? In my opinion a good product is a
‘product’ of focused thinking. Thinking, that is planned and actually
brings benefit to the people, is more effective for any business, than
selling people dreams and hopes, without a tangible benefit. Google
doesn’t sell dreams – it simply brings utility to all of us. And that’s why we
believe that whatever it does, it’s doing for our benefit.
The product ‘Gmail’ has been bombarded with utility, whilst using a
very commercially viable model – which again satisfies the three point
criteria that we discussed for Google Search earlier i.e.
• Customers: They only want what they want.
• Advertisers: They want low cost and low risk.
• Media/Publishers: They need to engage customers and they want to
do so at a low cost and with low risk.
The advertising within emails is targeted and focused, and there won’t
be any advertising displayed that is not relevant to the email text.
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William Hesketh Lever
Communications, on the other hand, is the end result of brand thinking,
and there’s no way on earth that can make that end result relevant to
what people are looking for, unless the business isn’t designed to work
in the way that people think.
I will discuss this point in detail in the later chapters. Nevertheless, the
challenge for the future brand planners is not fixing the creative brief.
Rather, it’s thinking of ways to increase the utility of a brand. This opens
a whole new paradigm for all of us because when we as brand
partners start thinking neutrally towards brands then the situations will
also demand to enhance our knowledge beyond traditional
approaches of working relationships. From supply-chain issues to retail
innovation, from financial strategies to product innovation, we must
prepare ourselves to deal with everything and anything. As strategists,
we should only have one objective – to make successful brands by
integrating our thinking across all processes, markets and channels of
business.
Google doesn’t say how many Gmail users there are, but comScore
estimates unique monthly visitors. According to the latest stats, the
number of people visiting Gmail grew 43 percent in 2008 to 29.6 million.
As Planners, it’s important for us to understand that we are moving
away from an era of monitoring to an age of engagement. If we don’t
realise this and start showing it in what we do, then soon brands might
not have any need for us as we now know that some brands are
actually very good in planning total solutions for their businesses.
Without a doubt, every planner must indulge in learning how to analyse
data about brands, the ways to use research usefully and how to bring
human insight into the communications process. However, if one stops
here, then everyone’s in trouble, because as a Grand Strategist, our job
is not to just create useful digital strategies, guide the creatives and
agency in developing television commercials, or introduce a cool way
to communicate over the mobile; most importantly it is to guide the
total brand experience that an audience gets from a company.
32 TechCrucnh, available at; http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/14/gmail-grew-43-percent-last-year-aol-mail-and-hotmail-need-to-start-worrying/, accessed on 20-11-2009
32
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
Brand Planning (digital,
traditional, direct or whatever)
should enhance your offering
appropriately, and not simply
be there as unnecessary
glitter.THE
POIN
T IS.
..
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
CHAPTER FOUR A PLANNING CASE & OTHERS
William Hesketh LeverEverybody is different, and that’s what keeps us all competitive
towards each other. It’s due to this difference, that we are able to
prove things right or wrong, better or worse. Similarly, different
groups and agencies have different points of view on different
topics. In the case of planning, this manifests itself in different
ways.
We studied the concepts of planning and its models.Now it’s time
for some great planning stories. Tales about the use of planning
amongst various communication agencies. The idea for the next
few pages is simple, ‘integrate what’s disconnected’.
Kevin Roberts, Worldwide CEO, Saatchi & Saatchi once said, ‘You
only get something new when you do something different’. So
true, almost. The thing is we don’t always need new. In
33 Image available at http://ohheyandreeuh.tumblr.com, accessed on 20th November 2009
fact, we need old things more– things which have sustained
evolution whilst enhancing utility, usability and value. For example,
laptops are big and net books are handy. They both belong to the
computer family. 2G is good, but 3G iPhones are perfect. Once
again, they share the same family (Apple).
There are thousands of examples of brands and products out there,
which are successful – not because they keep doing new things,
but because they never stop evolving their thinking.
The next few pages will help us understand how planning in
advertising is considered in JWT (in detail) and in some other
advertising agencies (briefly). We will then examine the definition
that they apply to it, and how they implement it.
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
William Hesketh Lever
ACCOUNT PLANNING
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
William Hesketh Lever
At JWT, Planning is not just limited to analysing focus groups,
writing creative briefs or studying research reports. They often try
to jump out from their traditional boundaries, to explore the
benefits that Planning as a subject can offer.
In 2007, when Guy Murphy, joined JWT as a Worldwide Planning
Director, planning at JWT went through a huge change. In
principle, for the first time in industry, JWT introduced a central
approach to planning, with the launch of JWT planning blog. The
blog serves as a central point for all planning communications,
which then helps planners to think at a much broader level.
According to Guy Murphy, the purpose of the blog is, ‘to provide
a greater sense of community and learning amongst our Planners.
It will contain a mixture of news, comment and opinion from me
about JWT Planning’.
At JWT, Planning has truly evolved with a global outlook in mind
which seems an appropriate step for a giant like JWT to take.
Stephen King’s ideas on planning are still very much alive. The
focus on theory and knowledge sharing is extremely critical at JWT
for the grooming of its planners. With these thoughts in mind, JWT
further launched the Stephen King Library, which is an online
portal for all the best practices, brand books, planning case
studies, planning models, pitch presentations, planning theories
and much more from accross the JWT world.
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
William Hesketh Lever
34 Steohen King, JWT Planning Guide, 1974, page 18
34
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
ARE WE GETTING THERE? Does the advertising achieve its
objectives and is the result effective? If an area test, which area
did it better?
In theory, the areas, Stephen King explained for the development
of planning thoughts, seems to be very effective, and we will
further explain it why?
The point which excites me about this process is that its not a
method, but a series of questions, which allows you to think
beyond limitations. The other interesting element is the
combination of logic and imagination – every question
encourages the person on task, to think both logically; using data
research etc. and also to think creatively; imagining the possible
myths the brand can have, to offer something new, interesting
and rewarding.
The approach is more like the one used by the philosophers,
scientists and mathematicians. Have you ever questioned how
Einstein came up with E=MC . I am certain that it was definitely
not a magical predetermined step-by-step logical method which
he used to came up with that, as if this were to be true, then
certainly he won’t be needing all the time he used, or someone
else would have done it, using that same step-by-step method.
In my opinion, most scientists, mathematicians, architects and
physicians, have certain feelings in advance about how things
work, or how they should work. That’s the area where they use
2
In recent chapters we have touched upon the area regarding the
team structure at JWT with Account Planner in mind i.e. Account
Director, Account Planner and Creative Head. We have also
discussed that how carefully JWT’s Planning thinking is web around
‘T’ Plan or Planning cycle, which helps JWT to materialises its
thinking around five key Questions. In explaining the role each
question plays, Stephen King, writes in one of his essays, ‘one way
to provide disciplines and controls for our advertising planning is to
establish a regular sequence of work and thought’. In principle,
JWT Planning revolves around five thoughts, which form the basis
for any further planning action;
WHERE ARE WE? Where does our brand stand now (compared to
competitors) in the market and in people’s minds? If a new brand,
where do the competitors or substitutes stand? Where have we
come from? In what direction are we going?
WHY ARE WE THERE? What factors have contributed to our
brand’s strengths and weaknesses?
WHERE COULD WE BE? Realistically, what could be the position of
our brand in the future? Is it a new position or maintaining our
present position?
HOW COULD WE GET THERE? What changes to what elements in
the marketing mix could achieve it? What role and objectives for
advertising? What campaigns could achieve the advertising
objectives?
William Hesketh Lever
creativity. However, they always tend to, when presenting the results of creativity, to neaten what actually happened and to suggest that it
has been a sensible, logical, step-by-step process – because that seems a more responsible and professional way of working.
In analysing the key questions coined by Stephen King, the chart below (FIG 8) clearly shows the benefits this combination of creativity and
logic brings to the advertising process.
FIG 8 – Benefits of the Planning Cycle
Planning Cycle
Feedback
Continuous Cycle
FeedbackCreatively Free ComprehensiveDisciplined
Clear Roles for Research
A True Marketing Mix (Medium Free)
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
In order to better understand the five
commandments, it’s worth further exploring
the king’s questions. This time, we will look at
each question from the eyes of Stephen.
FIG 9 – Planning Cycle – Process Explained
Planning Cycle
Where are we?
Let’s investigate the thoughts he had in
mind for this process – the thoughts which
removed the barriers between creativity
and logic and opened a new era of
advertising.
Buying Patterns: Who buys the product type? Howoften? What sort of buying decision (compulsive V.Impulsive V. Routine)? Who influences buying? How andwhere bought?
Using Patterns: what are buyers’ / users’ needs wants,desires in product type? What motivates them to buy /use? What makes them discriminate between brands?What sort of language do they use about the producttype? What are the substitutes for the product type?What system of behaviour does the product type fit into(e.g. Washing powders into a clothes cleaning system)?
Background: Information as acontext in which to look atbrand’s competitive situation
Market Size & Nature: How big? Growing how fast?Containing how many brands? What sort ofmanufacturers? How profitable? Rate of technologicalChange/ External Issues (e.g. Legal, consumerist)?
Using Patterns: Who uses the product type? How? Forwhat purposes? How often? Relationship betweenbuyer and user (e.g. Giver/receiver, server/eater)?
Company Position: What are companies strengths inproduction/Services, Finance, R & D, Marketing?Weaknesses? Policies, hopes fears, aspirations?Constrictions (e.g. For individual brands in a multi-brandcompany)? Company style, personality? How do all thesecompare with key competitors?
Comparative Map: Against the background,check how the brand stands; in relation toselected competitors and substitutes
The Competition: Who really is the competition? Has itchanged? Is it major brands, private label, substitutes,social change, apathy? Who are the key competitorsfor the purpose of this analysis?
Marketing activities: Breakdown of marketingexpenditure? Sales force, size, character, methods?Advertising expenditure, media mix, creative content?Packaging structure, style, naming policy and practice?Direct V. Indirect contribution of advertising? Promotions,expenditure and type? How do our activities differ fromkey competitors?
Brand’s Market Position: Sales? Share? Distribution, typeand level? Prices, pricing policy? Number of rangevariants, line extensions? Regional variations?
Product: What does the product do? What is it madeof? What services it offers? Laboratory analysis v.Competitors?
Buyers’ / Users’ responses: How do people respond to our brand? Sensually –what do they notice about our brand, when buying, using, serving? Rationally– what do they beleive about our brand, its purpose, performance, contents?Emotionally – what do they feel towards our brand, its style and personality?How do all these responses differ from responses of competitive brands?
Market Size and nature: Shop Audit, consumer panel,published statistics, company reports.
Using patterns: ad hoc surveys, consumer diaries
Answering the Questions: the questions have to beconsidered in relation to key competitors, whether hardinformation is available or not
Research: The nature of contribution of research isdictated by the questions themselves. For instance;
Buying Patterns: Consumer panels, ad hoc surveys,observation research
Motivations: Large scale attitude research, plus smallscale qualitative research
Buyers/Users:: who buys, uses, knows about our brand?How do they differ from buyers / users of other brands?How often, how, where, under whose influence do theybuy our brand differently from other brands?
Buyers’ / Users’ responses:
Sensual: product tests (blind and named)Rational: Structured attitude researchEmotional: large and small scale attitude
and motivation research, brandpersonality research
FIG 9 – Planning Cycle – Process Explained
Planning Cycle
Why are we there?
Influencers: Which of the factors – either
under the business’s control or not – have
led to our brand’s and competitor’s
positions? Which are the most important
factors? How have they inter-related?
How has the balance between them
changed over time?
Answering the questions: There are two ways of
tackling the questions on the left and analysing the
most important factors affecting the brand’s current
position.
Possible causes:
-Products / services: formulation or
performance
-Packaging / design: structure, sizes, style
- naming: type, style
-Advertising: amount, media mix, content
-Distribution and display: amount, type, style
- Pricing
- Promotions: amount, type, style
- word of mouth: retailers or consumers
-Maker’s / providers policies or reputation:
real, assumed, influence of other brands
- history: past reputation (e.g. Orientation as
me-too brand)
-Competitors: activity or inactivity
- attitudes: gap between reputation and
reality
-Other associations: times, places,
surroundings, accomplishments
- Any combination of the above
Examination of trend data:
-What factors appear to have moved parallel with
success and failure?
- did our increase in market share coincide with the
change in our brand’s formulation or price?
- Is there a relationship between share of advertising
and share of market?
-Does the belief in one particular attribute of the
brand seem to go up and down in line with brand
share?
-What seem to have been the results over time of
specific marketing experiments?
Internal analysis of current data:
-What specific beliefs about our brand do the most
committed users or the most generally favourable
people have which the other do not?
- Do people who buy it at less price buy less
frequently than those who buy it at cut price?
- Are our current sales related to distribution levels?
- What do people think are the most important
factors that affect their buying?
FIG 9 – Planning Cycle – Process Explained
Planning Cycle
Where could we be?
This stage requires the first important act ofimagination. It starts with all the facts and the analysisof causes. It ends with a first statement of a proposedstrategy for the brand and a new or modified brandpositioning. But it’s not a deductive process. Thestrategy does not spring logically and inevitably formthe data. No analysis will directly reveal opportunities.
Key questions:
The basic question is: where could the brand be inrelation to its key competitors in the future? In exactlythose terms that were analysed at the Where arewe? Stage. The word “could” implies not only Wherewould it be desirable and profitable to be? But alsowhere is it realistic to expect to be? And when?
This gives birth to three main terms in which theanswer should be found:
Position in Market:
Where could our brand be in the market? Marketleader? Second brand? What share? In a differentsector? Opening up a new sector? More profitable?Less reliant on price cuts and promotions?
Buyers / Users: could it get existing users to use more?How much more? New users into the product field?How many? Hold onto existing users? Draw peopleaway from specific brands? Regain former users? Getpeople to use for a new purpose? Could people beattracted who are currently unaware of or indifferentto the brand? Which people?
Responses: where could the brand be repositioned inrelation to competitors? What difference in theresponses to the brand could we get? What mightpeople notice in the brand different from now? Whatnew beliefs might the hold about it? What newfeelings might they have towards it?
Role of Research:
Research is used in two entirely different ways at thisstage.
Research as Stimulus:
Any reasonable rich and detailedaudience/customer/buyer/user research (such as thequantitative research used up to this point) can be ameans of setting up a train of thought. It is mainly amatter of the frame of mind with which oneapproaches it – ideally with openness, curiosity andoptimism.
Research as hypothetico-deductive process::
This process evaluates the hypothesis of the brandstrategy against the research already done. Is thereanything in the previous research – buying patterns,brand loyalties, product experience, for instance –which invalidates the hypothesis? If, say, all theprevious research shows that no brand in the markethas ever had more than 10% of its users as solus users,then a brand strategy based on getting 60% of ourbrand’s users to use no other is very unlikely to bevalid.
FIG 9 – Planning Cycle – Process Explained
Planning Cycle
How could we get there?
This stage involves the main part of the creative workin an agency and most of the detailed planning. It isa continuous process of development, learning andadjustment. It gradually takes rough ideas to finishedform. There are four main elements in it.
1. Assessment of the means of achieving theobjectives: the basic question at this stage asks whatchanges are needed in the various stimuli under thebusiness’s control in order to get the proposed newresponses from the proposed target group?The changes could be in:Product – formulation, size, added features orservicesDesign – Structure, size or stylePriceDistribution and display – methods, type, style,amountAdvertising – expenditure, media, creative treatmentPromotions – expenditure, type, style
2. Deciding the role of advertisingand the creative strategy:
Direct Role: in the newcircumstances, at what stage inthe thinking about/ choosing/deciding/ buying/ using spectrumis advertising intended to have adirect effect? And how importantis this effect in relation to theindirect effect?
Indirect Role: which responses tothe brand from which peopleshould be changed in what wayby advertising in order tocontribute to the total brandstrategy.
3. Developing campaigns:The end product of this stage isadvertisements and media plans;this is where specific campaignsbegin to emerge.
Creative: it’s the true creativeprocess of starting with a definedchallenge: developing theories,ideas, hypothesis; taking them toexperiment form; judging themagainst known data; trying toinvalidate then by testing;modifying the ideas, and onthrough the cycle again.
Media: The media selection(inter-media) decision is in factpart of the whole campaignplanning process, and is affectedby three main factors;
- Creative/Media relationships- Coverage- Cost, size, length v. frequency
4. FeedbackThroughout this process ofcreative development there iscontinual modification, based oncommon sense, judgement andresearch. In principal there aretwo sorts of feedback;- Modifying the objectives, ifnecessary.- Aiming to invalidate the latestexperimental work against theobjectivesThe attempt to invalidate comesfrom both judgement and fromresearch.
Judgement: this mainly comesfrom;
- Account group as a whole.- People outside the project
group, who still haveknowledge of the brand andits objectives; most valuably,review boards.
Research: this is also used inmainly two ways;
- To stimulate ideas, particularlythrough creative people takingpart in or observing groupdiscussions among membersof the target group.
- To cast doubt on or invalidatean advertising idea.
FIG 9 – Planning Cycle – Process Explained
Planning Cycle
Are we getting there?
The final stage in planning is really an extension of the
feedback process, which provides new information
for the cycle to begin all over again.
As campaigns are taken to a finished stage, with
detailed material produced and media schedules
built, there is a review of whether the advertising is
helping to achieve the brand’s objectives, before it
appears.
Then over a longer period, there is measurement of
how the marketing mix as a whole is performing, in
the market place.
1. Pre-Exposure:
In trying to answer “Are we getting there?” before the
campaign appears, what we would ideally like is to
measure accurately whether it will succeed in
achieving the objectives we have set for it.
Unfortunately, there are several reasons why this will
never be possible.
What we can do instead, is expose members of the
target group (in inevitably artificial circumstances) to
advertisements, and make the best judgements that
we can of the way in which they respond to them.
Research Questions:
- As a result of seeing these advertisements, did the
target group notice what we wanted them to notice
about the brand?
- Do they now believe what we wanted them to
believe?
- Do they feel towards the brand what we wanted them
to feel?
1. Post-Exposure:
After the campaign is exposed to public, what we
need is data directly comparable to that used in
answering the first question – Where are we? That is, a
new comparative map of the position of all brands in
the market and in people’s minds
Research Questions:
-Have the people that we specified changed their
responses to the brand as we hoped they would?
- If they have, has this resulted in the changes in
behaviour aimed at in the marketing plan?
- If the responses have changed but the behaviour has
not, are our brand and advertising strategies wrong?
- If the responses have not changed, is it because the
objectives were too ambitious?
- Or is it because the advertising is ineffective?
- Have we allowed long enough?
-If the advertising seems to have worked, precisely how
has it worked?
- What is the model of the process in the market?
- How does it relate to the role we set for advertising?
I think that it would be wise for me to stop here for the purpose of
highlighting some of the critical roles of a Grand Strategist.
Stephen King has already clearly explained and established the
important the role of a planner, and how it should be considered.
Stephen King thinking across the JWT network is something which
hasn’t truly been implemented. However, the focus of JWT on
planning and the value that it has given to subject since 1969
remains unchanged .
As time passes, it brings new challenges and evolution in
approaches. This occurred at JWT earlier this year when its London
office launched the new JWT Planning Model. Keeping in mind
the importance of Global ideas, channel opportunities and local
implementations.
In principle, the new JWT Planning Model is a simplified version of
King’s thinking. However, at the same time, the model emphasises
a lot on the importance of creative thinking in strategic processes.
The aim of the model is to bring back JWT’s leadership positioning
in brand building. Guy Murphy puts it, ‘We must regain our
leadership position in brand thinking and brand building’.
The highlights of the model are its focus on big thinking, ideas that
can inspire execution in many channels and provide coherence
to all the communications and markets, brand ideas versus
campaign ideas, and stimulus versus Response.
To me, the most interesting bit of the new planning model is its
linking with the creative development process. As it uses the
‘scorecard’ system to validate its ideas. The scorecard system was
launched in 2005, to help create better creative output, by
judging the initial creative work against a series of statements
ranging from one to ten. The system was developed in
accordance with JWT’s ‘Time is the New Currency’ philosophy
and positions JWT as agency which creates ideas that people
want to spend time with.
Image courtesy of Google Images, available at; http://www.google.co.uk/imghp?hl= on 28-11-2009
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
William Hesketh Lever
JWT Planning
James Webb Young – 5 step
process
Idea Card
Discoveries
FIG 10 – Planning at JWT© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
Despite of JWT’s efforts to make planning central to how they approach their business, sadly, it’s still very much fragmented. There are countless
tools, methods and approaches used by JWT planners across the world – there are more than 30 different formats just for their creative brief only.
We can still see JWT struggling with planning and its grand implementations. In explaining how JWT goes about its planning, Guy Murphy adds;
‘No clear or consistent answer to that at the moment.
Answers vary by country, office, and account. Worst case, we go about our Planning in the way our specific Client goes about their Planning.
Some will remember Thompson Way and Thompson Total Branding. Truly excellent systems of Planning for but now sporadically used.
So we have a fragmented and splintered answer’.
Despite the fact that how many tools, methods, approaches JWT uses for its planning worldwide (Fig 10), one thing is still very much there, and that
is its determination and passion for giving the true meaning to planning, as defined by King. I believe the ‘New JWT Planning Model’ will bring the
missing integration into the thinking. However, it’s a different story, whether the value of share price, financial pressures or senior level
management lets it do that or not.
William Hesketh Lever
Image courtesy of Google Images, available at; http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&source=hp&q=bbh&gbv=2&aq=f&oq= accessed on 28-11-2009
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
William Hesketh Lever
Of course, being one of the pioneers of Account Planning, JWT has a strong and long association with planning. However, at the same time, it
doesn’t necessarily means that this is the only way of how planners work, across the industry. Every agency has developed a slightly different
definition of planning to those of Stephen King and Stanley Pollitt.
For example, though at Bartle Bogle Hegarty, Planners work in a similar fashion to those at JWT. However, for BBH the skill set a planner should have is
apparently more like this:
BBH
BBH Planner
FIG 11 – Planners at BBH
Research:
Appreciating the
pros and cons of
research as a tool
Drive:
Continually leading
the debate
Strategic vision:
Appreciating the
central attributes,
definitions and
behaviour of client
brands, helping the
account team
understand them and
aiding the formation of
brand strategy.
Knowledge:
Understanding the
layout of the market, a
brand’s (and its
competitors’) position
within it and the state
of distribution and
trade relations. The
account team must be
made aware of any
information which
could improve
performance.
Relationship
management:
Generating confidence in
colleagues and keeping
the account team
motivated.
Creative vision:
Improving the likelihood of producing high-
quality advertising by focusing the account
team’s thinking so that it is relevant and
useful to the creatives. Planners must be
creative catalysts.
Communication:
Conveying ideas clearly,
constructing reasoned and
well-supported arguments
and listening to others.
36 Figure 11, The Anatomy of Account Planning, Henrik Habberstad, Page 29
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
William Hesketh Lever
Another interesting element of Planning at BBH, is its integration into the complete agency system. For example, the UK chairman of BHH, Jim
Carroll, is from planning background. Planning involved at the management level, clearly shows that how important, planners are considered
across BBH network.
The point which inspires me about Planning at BBH, is the definition it enjoys. For BBH, planning at a senior level, actually contributes in the
development of the agency structure. And it’s due to planning and its grand implementations, that BBH has managed to develop such a strong
independent communications network (FIG 12). Despite of the agreement fact, BBH is also investing in opening specialised fields of planning, and
the recent efforts include Engagement Planning, Innovation Planning. For example, in order to reach effective solutions in innovation planning, BBH
uses ‘Brand Compass (Fig 13)’.
37 Figure 12, WAQAR RIAZ presentation to Jim Carroll, Chairman BBH UK, March 2009
ENGAGEMENT PLANNING
BBH AGENCY BBH RETAIL ZAG
INNOVATION PLANNING
BBH LABSBBH SECOND LIFE LEAP MUSIC
FIG 12 – BBH Grand Structure
FIG 13 – Brand Compass
Brand Idea
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
William Hesketh Lever
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
For TBWA, Planning is all about creating stories, challenging the norms
and triggering positive “disruptions” for the brands. Warren Berger, in
his book, Disruption Stories says, ‘The story of a brand should never
become stale or static. It should not dwell only on heritage and history
and it should not repeat itself. Unfortunately, brand advertising is often
used in a limited manner – to reinforce the status quo. But the reality is
that every brand is in transition, or should be. As the world changes,
and as markets change, and companies change, so, too must a
brand and its “story” must evolve. From time to time, the very essence
and meaning of a brand must be re-examined, in the context of a
changing world. Everything must be questioned, all assumptions
challenged. After which, the brand’s story must be told – with new
twists and unexpected turns. If the story is big enough, important
enough, groundbreaking, relevant and powerful enough, then the
result can be... Disruption’.
In further explaining how disruption occurs, Berger writes, ‘Disruption
does not result from mere slogans, nor from anything that doesn’t
resonate as true. We found that what was required was harder and
more complex: it involved helping a client to unearth and rediscover
the essence of their own company and brand, the deep, hidden
truths that make it unique’.
I can’t help myself from appreciating TBWA for not keeping all this
‘Disruptive’ philosophy close to their chests. In fact, if you are smart
enough, you can find the information on Disruption, the tools TBWA
uses to master it, and a lot more, by simply Googling the right words.
38
38 Disruption Stories, Warren Berger, 2004, Disruption Introduction
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
For example, ‘Connections Zone’ is one tool through which disruption
can be achieved. It also gives birth to ‘Connections Planning’ a term
coined by TBWA. According to TBWA, ‘connections planning
determines the most relevant, cost-effective and advantageous
points of contact between clients and their existing or potential
customers; then arrives at the best possible mix, use, and order of
connections to change consumer behaviour to achieve the agreed
business objectives, through the use of results-based, multidisciplinary
planning’.
In defining connections planning, TBWA puts it as, ‘a new discipline,
designed to inspire, amplify and leverage total communication
ideas’.
In a broader sense, Connections Planning informs the selection, use
and construction for clients’ communications across all marketing
disciplines: public relations, direct marketing, advertising, action
marketing (events and promotions), design and original content.
In essence, Connections Planning is the combination of scientific
calculation, creative deduction, and technological expertise to arrive
at the best possible mix, use, and construction of connections to
achieve the client’s business objectives across all target audiences.
To achieve the desired disruptions, by establishing useful connections,
TBWA practices several methods i.e. Connections Wheel, Brand Audit
Wheel, Brand Audit Clock, Customer Relationship Migration Matrix,
Connections Scenario and Persuasion Sequence.
For example, Connections Wheel is used as a symbol of connections
planning theory. It represents all connections that communicate a
brand’s reputation, relationship or identity to the consumer.
CONNECTIONS ZONE
39
39 Connection Wheel, Image available at; http://brandpalace.typepad.com; accessed on 25-11-09
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
William Hesketh Lever
I guess, we can spend ages in discussing planning definitions and
different methods, in use at various advertising agencies. However, I
believe, that would be getting off the track, so, let’s rewind... and go
back to what we were discussing in the earlier pages. Let’s open our
eyes and ears to the philosophy of King and Pollitt, who (despite of
their differences in the approaches they took) realised the
importance of planning in communications design. However, in
recent years, we as an industry, totally split their thinking and the
meanings of their efforts. We imagined, as if, it was a cool thing to
introduce something new back in 1960’s, and started to put our
efforts on creating new forms of planning, rather than understanding
what King and Pollitt were trying to communicate.
In recent chapters we have discussed, how successful planning was
for other industries (i.e. Pyramid of Djoser, World War II, lever Brothers
‘Unilever’ 1880s – 1920s ) and how it helped them in gaining a
competitive advantage. However, Unfortunately, today we are
repeating the same mistakes, which were part of communications
curriculum back in 1930s – we are not taking planning as seriously as
we should. It’s time that we stop confusing our clients with a new
name for Planning everyday, and stick to the original ‘Planning’.
In its true essence, whatever we have discussed about planning from
the point of views of various agencies, are the fundamental standards
of planning. Without a doubt, planning should deliver engagement,
connections, values, research, creativity, innovation , disruption and a
lot more.
However, every day we are trying to come up with a new form of
planning. I fear a lot about the future of planning. It’s time for us to stop
thinking of planning, as merely a selling tool, which sounds cool in pitch
presentations, and take it as a subject which can bring us a whole new
world of opportunities across all communication disciplines.
It’s time for us to look at planning from the eyes of Clausewitz,
Imoteph, William Lever and Steve Jobs. And that is; designing business
processes around the value of planning and not inserting parts of
planning within individual business disciplines. Planning in its true form,
must answer all the business challenges and therefore create a
sustainable connection between people, organisations, markets and
channels. Unfortunately, this is not what’s happening today and Figure
14 clearly shows how unkindly we have disabled the subject to work
ineffectively.Images sourced from the earlier part of the dissertation
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
William Hesketh Lever
FIG 14 – The Disintegrated Model of Planning
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
William Hesketh Lever
I will end this chapter with a classic example of disintegration by Stephen king and leave the rest for you to imagine.
In his essay ‘What is a Brand?’ King wrote; ‘Sharpening up on planning methods is going to be necessary too in improving a going brand or developing a new one. It can be like the sad parable of the man rich enough to have an entirely custom-made car. He decided that nothing but the best would do, so he went to the best people regardless of expense. He himself was very keen on spending up the M6, so he went to Jaguar for the engine.
He knew his wife would found parking a bit of problem, so Fiat seemed the best people to go for the chassis.
And he felt that Volvo could deal best with accommodating his three children, two retrievers, au pair girl and beagle in the back; so they did the bodywork.
The curious thing was that when the car was assembled, it never seemed to work very well. And when in the end he decided to sell it, he had quite a lot of trouble of finding a buyer at all’.
Image courtesy and story of Stephen King, available inside the chapter What is a Brand - 1971?
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
‘Planning’ is a universalsubject (by nature). Itworks best when its valueis delivered at the heartof a business and itsoutcomes are not treatedindividually for differentbusiness scenarios.
THE POIN
T IS...
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CHAPTER FIVEIDENTIFYING THE OPPORTUNITY
If you have managed to getsomeone’s attention you can’tafford to waste it.
Simon Andrews
And believe you me, I am certainly not planning to lose
yours (if I still have it). Before we move forward, I want to
admit something – a realisation on my part, or a success of
our collaborative effort;
From researching through all these great inspiration stories
and the working style of extraordinary people, I think I am
beginning to learn something new. For example, when I
mapped out the content chart for this primer, I categorised
this chapter as “Identification of the Problem”. However,
having travelled on this research journey, I realised it’s not
worth looking at the world with evil eyes. Instead, it’s worth
exploring potential for opportunity in everything. For now, I
know for certain that every situation (good or bad) brings a
world of exciting opportunities with it. Usually these
opportunities are ordinary changes / modifications /
improvements to things and concepts we already have.
However, sometimes the next big thing is the result of a
change, that is so small in scale and implementation that
we tend not to believe it, except those who have the
brains and the desire to keep challenging the world with
‘simple logic’ like Lever, Jobs, King and Serge.
The reason for taking you through this chapter is extremely
critical, as it is here that we will make an attempt to
understand the opportunity that the current situation of
communications offers us for the subject, ‘Planning’.
“ “40 Quote: Simon Andrews, Branded Utility Essay, Published on WARC, accessed on 25-11-09
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When I lose the sense of motivation and thesense of to prove something as a basketballplayer, it’s time for me to move away fromthe basketball.“ “
Michael Jordan
41 Image courtesy of Google Images; available at; http://shoeminx.com/nike-air-jordans-turn-23-is-his-airness-finally-ready-for-some-hang-time accessed on 26-11-09
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So, let’s move away from planning for a little while and focus on
marketing / advertising in general and maybe it will help us to
understand the underlying opportunity.
Niall Fitzgerald, Unilever Co-Chairman, once said, ‘if somebody
asked me rather than one of my distinguished predecessors, which
half of my advertising was wasted, I would probably say 90 per
cent of my advertising was wasted but I don’t know which 90
percent. Our marketing advertising and marketing support budget
is over £4billion. It is by far the biggest of costs in this business’.
And that is so true, as most advertising agencies would have their
clients believe when selling them their creative and unique ideas.
They make them believe, one way or another, that it is their
expensive magic bullet they need, which can spur renewed
demand, whilst generating incremental sales. Otherwise, how on
earth could all these agencies have made so much money? For
example, it was recorded in 2008 that the value of AMV BBDO
London was £386.1 Million, McCann Erikson London £287.1 Million,
M&C Saatchi London £262.8 Million, BBH London £259.4 Million and
JWT London £256.8 Million. And these figures are only for London –
you can imagine what would it be like for New York or the
advertising world at large.
Without a doubt, marketing is increasingly adding more cost than
value to producers and users alike. At every pitch, the marketing
agencies convince the clients that they will generate the
maximum return on their investment. They try inspiring them with
great personas of the audience or a piece of research.
Sometimes they try shaking up the boardroom with an inspiring
creative idea. Beneath this façade, however, most of them are
selling either an expensive media plan, a super-big retainer fee,
or an extraordinarily overcharged hourly rates. The story doesn’t
end here – big ideas are sold with extremely complex creative
executions to increase production budgets. And of course, as
all advertising agencies know very well, there is a lot more
money in producing a television commercial than making an
iPhone app or launching a video on YouTube.
What all marketers need to understand, and it’s extremely
important that they should is that advertising is not an art, it’s just
a business like many others. More important than that, is the shift
in people’s attitudes. Today, people demand utility and
usefulness over anything else. They want creativity in the
product and not how the product is been advertised. We are
now moving from an age of entertainment to an age of
engagement and usefulness.
We have analysed in the recent chapters that products can be
advertised with extreme success without the use of expensive
marketing campaigns, if the focus is on adding creativity to the
product and its design. Gmail, YouTube, Google Search are just
42
42 Alan Mitchell, Right Side up, Chapter 4, Page 41, 200243 Campaign, available at; http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/news/785296/Top-10-ad-agencies-2008 accessed on 26-11-09
43
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
a few examples. The point for the brands to realise is critical,
people no longer want to perceive the product creatively; they
are more interested in knowing what they can do with it. This is
the age of information and no one can control the audience,
just by sharing creative stories. In marketing, we are moving
away from the age of entertainment to an age of
engagement, productivity, sharing and utility.
In Fig 16, Of course, all the blame for this declining brand value
can’t go to the advertising dinosaurs, but at the same time, it is
important to understand that advertising has hardly moved
away from thinking of attractive communications. In my very
own personal opinion, the job of a communication partner
should be to increase brand value, not by testing one creative
advertising idea after another, but by analysing the client’s
Brand Value
Agency Value
v.
FIG 15 – My Imagination of the big London agencies FIG 16 – Brand Value V. Agency value
business and the challenges it faces beyond marketing. This
could even be an issue of staff training. But why would
agencies do that when they don’t see their economy beyond
media or creative earnings?
44 FIG 15 – Image available at http://dinosauria.tripod.com/Allosaurus.html accessed on 26-11-0945 FIG 16 – Data Sources Milward Brown Optimar 2007, top 100 Brands
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However, it doesn’t mean at all that advertising has always
been ineffective. I guess that’s not the point here either. The
point is that advertising has been working as the sales window
at the train station, selling expensive tickets to the people at
the counter and not encouraging them to book over the
phone or online to save costs. Though giving the same service
in a much more basic manner way would mean one paying
much lower price, it would be in a much nicer way otherwise.
If we look deep into this marketing regime we find even more
concealed evils. The whole system has been designed in a
way to support the mighty. For example, in order to prove to
the clients and marketing industry at large that advertising
actually produces effectiveness, the industry created an
official body by the name of IPA. IPA introduced effectiveness
awards to establish and argue the effective side of
advertising. Every year, the IPA issues case studies of the best
brands and how advertising agencies turned their fortune
around. It all looks very nice – so long as we don’t use our
mind. Did you know that Thinkbox UK TV advertising body is
the main sponsor of IPA Effectiveness awards? If we delve
deeper, the face of evil reveals that in 2008 seven IPA
Effectiveness awards winners (including the Gold Winner)
were those who used TV as their main medium of advertising.
In total 80 per cent of all submissions used TV as the main
medium. Or put it like this, 80 per cent of the advertising
agencies that participated in the 2008 IPA Effectiveness
Awards encouraged their clients to spend on TV, the most
expensive medium of advertising. To prove the clients that
they are doing the right thing, IPA awarded them with the so-
called most prestigious award in advertising.46
46 Laura James, The four key media trends from the 2008 IPA Effectiveness Awards, WARC Online47 Images courtesy of Google Images available at http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&rlz=1T4GGLL_enGB353GB353&um=1&ei=upIOS-bMNsnp-
QbcjLyrCA&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=ipa+effectiveness+awards+logo&spell=1&start=0 & http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&rlz=1T4GGLL_enGB353GB353&um=1&sa=1&q=UK+TV+Thinkbox+logo&aq=f&oq=&start=0 ; accessed on 26-11-09
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This system is just perfect for everyone; the jury judging the
awards, the body sponsoring the awards, the agency getting
the award and the marketing director approving the
campaign as it makes them all happy and prosperous on
individual level. Except the brand, that pays them all (directly
or indirectly). After a couple of years, the brand realises, it
was not just the magic bullet of TV that brought them this
newfound prosperity, as there has to be a reason for its
declining sales problem five years later, in another IPA case
study, when it was using the same channels and an even
bigger ad spend on communications. Perhaps all that TV did
was just to create awareness. Now I would ask, that in the
age of Web 2.0 when people spend more time in front of
online consoles and building online communities than
anything else, is it worth spending millions of pounds on TV, just
to create awareness? Please don’t imagine that I am trying to
establish TV as a medium that is not useful anymore. However,
the point I am trying to make is that the new shift in the
behaviours of people necessitate new ways for brands to
engage people. For example in the 18th Century, the wealthiest
of all men bought the best of all horse breeds for travelling.
However, in the 21st Century, the same man would probably
buy the best car and keep the horse for his stable. The reason
for this 21st Century man buying the best of all cars in 21st
Century is not that the horse is not useful for him anymore.
Instead it symbolises that the horse is more effective for use in
country lanes and fields, and the car for travelling within city.
Unfortunately, in advertising we are still using the same formulas,
practices and techniques which are too old to be effective.
48 Images courtesy of Google Images available at http://akumono.deviantart.com/art/Rolce-Royce-Phantom-Drophead-81009885 & http://www.nakasendoway.com/178thtra.xhtml accessed on 26-11-09
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Apparently, most o f the times the answer seems to be the
latter, and it all makes sense for the agencies. It’s quick,
pleasurable, and without any long-term commitment or
responsibilities. On the other hand, having a relationship
means something, as relationships demand going through
tough times to get to the good times . They seek
understanding and love – relationships are connections
beyond reason.
Without a doubt, agencies are realising the shift of control to
the people. However, instead of actually understanding this
new state-of-mind of the people, brands and agencies have
started to use it as another selling technique. Unfortunately,
they don’t understand that the customer has all grown up –
they know how unkindly communications have betrayed
and ripped them off in the past. They can actually spot the
difference between advertising slogans ‘positioned on you’
and companies actually working for them.
It’s quite funny, when brands and agencies start to
communicate as though the customer is a baby who will
listen to them no matter what they say. Times have
changed, people have changed and it’s important for our
attitudes as marketers to change too. It’s not enough to
communicate pleasing statements to the people unless we
don’t mean them. Because, you know what? People know
about mass manipulation.
Recently, I have been observing some rather depressing
advertising examples. Every other brand holding the ply
card showing ‘you (customer) are the king’.
For example, the new campaign by Yahoo, focusing on the
fact ‘You’. The $100 Million campaign as described by
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Are agencies interested in having arelationship with brands and people or justsex?
Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz is something like this, ‘What we want
to do is show (people) what the new Yahoo is about so they
come (to the site) all the time’. All this powered by the
unique advertising bullets expressed in the form of images
and taglines “It’s time to get personal” and “The new Yahoo
lets you do it your way every day.” “The Internet is under
new management. Yours,” “Now the Internet has a
personality. Yours.” The television film heaves with images of
dancers, Dalmatians, soccer and kids blowing bubbles, and
highlights Yahoo’s array of services and customization
options.
In further explaining the campaign’s philosophy Carol Bartz
adds, ‘Yahoo is an asset to our users out there, and Yahoo
wants to be a tremendous asset to all of you,” she said. “The
‘You’ is also you.”
Now hang on for a second and let’s focus on what this $100
Million campaign is actually trying to communicate. To my
understanding, all it is doing is pretty straightforward, ‘pleasing
the audience’, by making statements which communicate
Yahoo as a company designed around people. But hey, do
you actually need to say that to people if you are working for
them? Advertising agencies and brands, please try to
understand, if you are working for the people, they will know
it. You won’t need to tell them by wasting millions of dollars.
Learn something from Google - they do useful things for
people, rather than just saying so all the time. Google doesn’t
49 The Wall Street Journal Blogs, available at http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/09/22/yahoo-debuts-its-you-marketing-campaign accessed on 30-11-200950 Images courtesy of Google Images, available at ; http://trak.in/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/YahooYouCampaignAd.jpg accessed on 30-11-2009
49
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
waste all its money on telling people that it’s useful for them.
Instead, it focuses on improving its product and when
people use it, they automatically know the difference. This
simple focus on work and not emotional lies is what makes
Google the world’s number one brand in terms of its value.
Yes, there was a time, when it was possible for companies to
create perceptions about brands which actually were not
included in the offering. But this is a different age. People
can now cross check the utility of the products and services
with the Whole Wide World. The communication between
user groups have immensely increased, and what was
before the opinion of a few people on a product or service
has now become the sharing between thousands of people.
Today, it’s practically impossible for brands to win people’s
hearts, without bringing utility into their products and a
change beyond just advertising.
How great would that be if Yahoo’s communication partner
had used that $100 Million dollars to think, create and
communicate what people find useful, rather than telling
them how they should feel about the brand?
51 Images courtesy of Google Images, available at ; http://images.ientrymail.com/webpronews/article_pics/you-and-yahoo.jpg accessed on 30-11-2009
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Of course, the ‘prosumer’ challenge faced by brands today
demands a change of thinking from client’s as well as from
the agency’s side. It is fundamental for all the brands to
change the way they plan and execute their processes. This
makes the job of a Planner more interesting and even more
challenging, as the planner of the future has to be an expert
thinker of every link between the Brand, Audience and the
Agency. Russell Marsh, Group Digital Strategy Director at
Rapp London while explaining the role of a planner of
tomorrow says, ‘The planners of the future now have too
many options to plan all of the possibilities and so now have
to find ways to use data and probability to map the future –
The future is going to look more like the stock market with
automated systems and traders predicting market changes
based on data rather than a paper plan based on 6 month
old insights’. On the other hand Lorna Hawtin, ‘Disruption
Director’ at TBWA, while discussing the future of advertising
agency business models replied, ‘I think planners have a
massive role to play in creation of value’.
Jim Carroll, Chairman of BBH London carefully explains the
hardships of past, ‘I think we knew fundamentally that most
events were precipitated by complex systemic pressures and
relationships. But our limited power to disentangle the many
elements in one system reduced us to characterising most
strategic problems in rather monochrome ways’.
All of these insights leads us to a point of understanding that
the change in our environments, necessitates a change in our
thinking as well. However, it’s not necessary that the change
has to be a product of something entirely new or a set of new
crazy proprietary tools. The change mentioned here refers to
bringing capabilities in one’s thinking which are more
appropriate to the situation in hand. In my journey of the
world one thing has emerged quite clearly. That is that
everything is a by-product of something else – there’s nothing
new in this world. Therefore, success comes to those who
evolve their thinking not by status, but by need. Sometimes, in
order to bring about change we simply have to go back to
something pre-existing, as is the case in fashion. Nick Kendall,52 Images cortesy of Google Images available at http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&rlz=1T4GGLL_enGB353GB353&um=1&sa=1&q=russell+marsh+rapp&aq=f&oq=&start=0 accessed on 2-12-200953 Discussions and interviews with Lorna Hawtin and Russell Marsh – August 2009 and November 2009
52
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54 Interviews with Jim Carroll and Nick Kendall, BBH, March 200955 Jim Carroll’s view on the changing role of advertising – interview March 2009
Group Planning Director, BBH, in a reply to how we should
tackle brand planning and communications in the future
said, ‘So... we have to reverse the process’. Thirty minutes
after that discussion, an email popped up in my inbox,
containing ‘Soap Wars’ from ‘The King of Sunlight’.
In understanding this wave of change, it’s fundamental that
we also consider the changing role of advertising agencies.
There was a time when the role of advertising agency was to
take the client's brief through the available communication
choices within the advertising funnel. However, this has
changed in recent years. The situation now demands from
54
FIG 17 – Changing role of advertising agencies
us to think beyond client briefing and sit at the end of the
advertising funnel and instead of creating solutions that suit
desired advertising choices. Our job is now to create ideas
big enough to engage the audience (employees, vendors,
partners, users, buyers, management) against any business
challenge. This modified role of advertising demands
extraordinary people who can think logically and implement
creatively, whilst considering and strengthening the growth
for the agency’s and the client’s businesses. Figure 17,
above, presents Jim Carroll’s view of the changing role of
advertising (as he sketched it) and further strengthens the
argument.55
CB A
Past Present
BIA
RM
TV
D
P&P
Etc.
The age of broadcasting
is over and the era of
engagement and value
has begun.
THE
POIN
T IS.
..
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If you can dream it, you can do it.“
“56 Peter Fisk, Marketing Genius, Page 257, 2004
57 Image courtesy of Google images available ; http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_tEZc1tH3HdU/SduLV__YReI/AAAAAAAAABQ/YkYShN5H3a4/s400/walt-disney-logo.jpg accessed on 1-12-2004
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
Richard Branson is the epitome of an entrepreneur, thinker,
planner, best known for the Virgin brand that he founded
and still leads. Born in 1950, he has never lost his love of
adventure and innovation, his curiosity of what might be,
and his passion to make new things happen.
While other leaders might care most about finances and
governance, Branson focuses on the customer, a walking
incarnation of his brand, working with people across his
many businesses to engender the same entrepreneurial spirit
and brand values that have served him so well.
His passion is for the customers, much more than the
financial, ‘I never get the accountants in before I start a
business. It’s done on gut feeling, especially if I can see that
they are taking the Mickey out of the customer’.
He first reached notoriety with Virgin Records, a record label
that started out with the unusual Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfield
and then introduced bands like the Sex Pistols and Culture
Club to the world. Known for his wacky exploits used to
promote his businesses, Branson is keen on playful
antagonisms, exemplified by his ‘mine is bigger than yours’
slogans that marked the arrival of Virgin Atlantic’s new Airbus
A340-600 planes.
58 Images courtesy of Google Images, available at ; http://www.virginlifecare.co.za/assets/images/AboutVirginLogo.jpgaccessed on 30-11-2009
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On a Virgin America flight, a passengerTweeted about not receiving a meal they hadordered. Virgin America saw this Tweet andcalled the cockpit to have a flight attendantbring the meal.60
59 Image courtesy of Google Images, http://www.therefinishingtouch.com/blog/uploaded_images/Virgin-Atlantic-Plane_March-16-732829.jpg accessed on 30-11-200960 Story available at http://brandtwist.com/?p=982 accessed on 1-12-2009
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He is famed for his heroic failures as well as successes,
having made several unsuccessful attempts to fly in a hot air
balloon around the world. ‘Virgin Atlantic Flyer’ was the first
hot air balloon ever to cross the Atlantic Ocean, and was
the largest ever flown. Such escapades almost cost him his
life on more than one occasion. Yet the PR value was
immeasurable.
He became Sir Richard Branson when he was knighted by
the Queen in 1999 for his business prowess and contribution
to UK society. Meanwhile, he has guest starred, playing
himself, on several television shows, including Friends,
Baywatch and Only Fools and Horses. He was also the star of
a reality television show called The Rebel Billionaire where
sixteen contestants were tested for their entrepreneurship and
their sense of adventure.
61 Images courtesy of Google Images, available at ; http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&rlz=1T4GGLL_enGB353GB353&um=1&sa=1&q=Virgin+brands+logo&aq=f&oq=&start=0 accessed on 30-11-200962 Peter Fisk, marketing Genius, Page 400 – 401, 2004
59
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What is your role as a planner, strategist, creative
planner, digital strategist or innovation planner?
Indeed, what is the role of Imagination with that of
implementation?
THE POINT IS...
1. What’s the essence of your role?
Clarify the added value of the Planner, accountabilities and how personally adds value to collective performance
2. What are your goals and metrics?
Make time to set transparent goals and metrics for the benefit of yourself and team, as much as your audience
3. How can you inspire people with your vision?
Thinkers inspire; individuals follow... Inspire your team , audience and the business with your personal vision
4. How can you connect best ideas together?
Add value by connecting ideas from across business disciplines, and other business functions
5. How can you best support your client, agency and the audience?
Engage and enable people, taking on a coaching more than directing role, building capabilities and confidence
6. How can you champion great thinking?
Be the champion of great ideas and thinking in your team, business, and market. Build respect and reputation by delivering on your promises
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
Inspired. I feel like thinking planning now, which agencies
usually find pretty interesting for selling their creative stuff.
They consider it as a ‘thing’ to shut their client up, and make
them sell their ideas easily and consistently. Unfortunately,
this attitude of agencies has put limitations on the role of
planning – and the sad part is, that even our expectations
from it are limited. Jon steel, Planning Director for WPP, in
one of his papers published on WARC mentioned, ‘“So what
exactly do you do?” I recently asked the same question of
the planning director of one of America's most famous
creative agencies. (I knew the agency's founder had a
deep, unflinching loathing of account planning and
research.) He told me it was his job to “look cool, be smart,
and hang out with the creative department”’. How sad
would it be for people like lever to imagine that.
63 Jon Steel, Jon Steel on planning – The last of the handloom weavers, Published on WARC in November 2009
Planning is beyond supporting creativesales – it must encourage growth in the totalbusiness environment.
I remember reading in the chapter two , ‘planning has no
limits’. I also remember studying the lives and businesses of
great planners or Grand Strategists i.e. Lever, Jobs, Branson,
King, Pollitt, Serge, Imoteph, Clausewitz. of course the
following were very obvious in all that;
- They never restricted their thinking.
- They never confused their thoughts between left and right
sides of their brains.
- Their thinking was totally integrated with their actions and
imaginations.
I believe that unless we integrate our thinking into our
agency’s and client’s ‘total business’, it’s hard for us to see
planning that can last for decades and centuries which can
actually bring value for everyone.49
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© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
It is important for brands as well as agencies to consider
planning as a central point for all of their business activities.
Instead of having dozens of communications partners –
strategic planning must come from a single point, whether
the brand is facing an issue in ATL, BTL, product
penetration, packaging, production, retailing, digital or
whatever. It is also very important to differentiate the role of
Grand Strategist from that of a Management Consultant.
The management consultants only show the directions, but
Grand Strategists must excel themselves to set directions
and implement and execute solutions.
For brands and agencies in order to reach from point A to
point B of their business lifecycle, they need integrated
Grand Strategist
BrandPeople
Business / World in general
Agency
FIG 18 – Opportunities for a Grand Strategist
individuals (Grand Strategists) – who can think solutions and
create experiences with an unbiased approach to the
given challenge.
For us as planners, the journey to our ‘Grand Strategist’ is an
ongoing and continuous process. It is vital that we never
stop challenging what has never been challenged before.
We have to become more effective by understanding all
the different touch points between any business and its
audience whilst developing specialisation in determining
and identifying the opportunities for all. Figure 18 illustrates
the area of opportunities for a Grand Strategist.
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
The challenging role of the Grand Strategist
(discussed on the previous page) demands a
new working structure within advertising
agencies. The old model of creative teams,
account management and planning cycle is
too old to cope with the needs of modern
times.
The current way of working within advertising
agencies is not very different from that of King
and Pollitt purposed back in 60s. Few agencies
such as Mother have tried to evolve the
advertising model and they have eliminated
account handling from their advertising
process.
However, where it is important that the
thinking of brands is single minded and not
divided between dozens of communication
partners, it’s also inevitably necessary for the
origin of that thinking to be single minded. The
reason for introducing this new model of
working is obvious. The traditional structure of
advertising doesn’t allow the freedom a
Grand Strategist should have. Roles are
New
challenges
demand
modified
solutions
defined and limited, for example, account
management has to favour managing and
growing agency’s business and maintaining
relationships , creative teams to execute the
best thinking based on the brief they receive
and Planning to bring the audience and
brand into the advertising subject to make
communications more effective and
relevant. This way of working only focuses on
one side of a client business, ‘Marketing’. It
doesn’t support value input in the brand’s
overall business environment.
Brands and agencies, in order to truly benefit
from Planning need to consider it as the
starting point for all of their business
movements. This approach puts planners at
the top of the thinking process with a pool of
solution resources available to them use
when, where and how the businesses need
them. Figures 19 and 20 explain the
difference between the current and
purposed method of working structures.
FIG 19 – Current advertising team structure
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InteractiveDigital Media Production Research Etc.
Key benefits:- Financially sensible- long-term and sustainable- Rewarding for everyone
Traditional
Fig 20 – Developed with the help and input of Nick Kendall, Group Planning Director, BBH and Stephen Maccrron, Planning Director, JWT Manchester, meeting took place at the JWT Manchester & BBH London offices in March and August 2009
© All Rights Reserved Waqar Riaz
FIG 20 – Purposed Model of Working
Grand Strategist
AccessSolutions Support Pool
A fusion of business, logic and creativity
Brand Agency
Business solutions
Supply chain
solutions
Retail strategies
Product/ service
InnovationPricing
Strategies
Retail comms
TV, Press, Radio
Third party
relations
Experience Digital, social, Mobile
Any other relevant solutions
When I presented the concept of ‘Grand Strategist’ to the Planning Director of
one of London’s big agencies (that recently got famous for putting animals in
cute costumes), she questioned, ‘And where will you find these super humans?’.
Without a doubt the question was very interesting. I spent weeks upon weeks
searching for the answer with no results, until I met Stephen, Planning Director for
JWT Manchester. He made a very simple point but resolved a very complex
problem. In his opinion the best way to make sense of the ‘Grand Strategist’
thinking was to imagine the role of an Architect. Once he said that, it all started to
make sense.
An Architect has no technical skills in sewerage control,
electrical wiring, fixtures and fittings, making of pillars and
other things that are needed in the construction of any
building. Nevertheless, it’s impossible for labourers,
electricians, engineers to do anything without the
instructions from Architect. What an Architect needs in
order to be the master in his subject is the knowledge of
everything that connects with his subject whilst having a
being able to specialise in designing architecture.
Similarly, the job of a ‘Grand Strategist’ is to design
solutions whilst using the resource pool for the execution
of the recommended strategies.
61
64 Images courtesy of Google Images; available at http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&rlz=1T4GGLL_enGB353GB353&um=1&q=blueprint+of+a+building&sa=N&start=18&ndsp=18 accessed on 3-12-200965 Stephen Maccrron, Planning Director, JWT Manchester, meeting took place at the JWT Manchester office in August 2009
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and the fifth to the senior started to control the indicators.
If brands and agencies don’t change the way they think, then it would be like the tale of five people, who all were the perfect
drivers on planet earth. One fine day, they received an invitation to a motoring exhibition. They all decided to use one car to reach
the destination. However, once they made themselves comfortable inside the vehicle, they all wanted to show off their knowledge
of driving.
After a long and heated debate about who should drive the car, they all decided to split the driving between them. So it was
decided;
The senior of them all took the steering wheel,
the second to the senior controlled the accelerator,
the third to the senior took charge of the brake pedals,
the fourth to the senior was made responsible for keeping eyes on the road,
Sadly, it took them ages to get to where they wanted to and the worst of all they never made to their destination, as none of them
could understand what the other was shouting. Finally, on a turning sharp and steep they all ended up driving down from a cliff
thousands of feet high – and that’s how they all disappeared with a ‘CAR’ strong and magnificent.
It wasn’t their driving skills that got them killed and the car destroyed. Instead, it was the car designed to driven by one person. They
lacked a single mind, able to take responsibility for all the procedures and techniques to drive the vehicle from Point A to Point B.
With this example, I will end this chapter and paper here. However, it doesn’t mean that I am also
ending the discussion we started and the areas we highlighted before starting our journey.
Consider this abrupt end an academic limitation which I have to respect. Nevertheless, there are
three more episodes still waiting to be explored. We still have to explain what makes a ‘Grand
Strategist’ so important for everyone, by sharing one person; one brand world model. We also
have to analyse the job areas, responsibilities and the necessary training methods one would
need to apply Grand Thinking. Last but not least we yet have to investigate the world of a ‘Grand
Strategist’ and the monetary, competitive and utility benefits it can offer to the brands, agencies
and the audience.
Good luck with our thinking and stay in touch!
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We are witnessing a breathtakingevolution of new forms of challenges.More than witnessing, we are facilitatingthem. All of this is unfolding so quicklythat we do not have time to pause andreflect on what is happening.
Instead of having integrated systems, it’stime we have integrated people whocan seize opportunities for all of us, whilstthinking deeply, broadly, creatively andlogically.
THE
POIN
TS A
RE...
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The King of Sunlight – Adam Macqueen, Corgi Books; New edition (2 May 2005)
A Master class in Brand Planning – The Timeless work of Stephen King , Judie Lanon, John Wiley & Sons (26 Oct 2007)
The Invention of Air – Steven Johnson, Penguin (29 Oct 2009)
No Logo - Naomi Klein, Flamingo; New Ed edition (15 Jan 2001)
Ads to Icons – Paul Springer, Kogan Page; 2nd Edition (3 Aug 2009)
The Anatomy of Account Planning – Henrik Habberstad , White paper, 2004
Politt on Planning – Stanley Politt, Paul Fledwick , NTC Publications (29 Feb 2000)
Hitting the sweet spot – Lisa Fortini, Copy Workshop (April 1992)
Lovemarks – Kevin Roberts, Powerhouse Cultural Entertainment Books; Revised edition (2 Feb 2006)
Right Side Up – Alan Mitchell, HarperCollins Business (20 Feb 2001)
Action Research – Peter Reason and Hillary Bradbury, Sage Publications Ltd; Concise ed edition (13 Dec 2005)
Truth, Lies and Advertising – John Steel, John Wiley & Sons (16 Mar 1998)
Operational research – T.A. Burley and G. Sullivan, Palgrave Macmillan (15 Aug 1986)
The Advertising Budget – Simon Broadbent, NTC Publications (May 1989)
The visual display of Quantitative Information – Edward R. Tufte, Graphics Press USA; 2nd edition (31 Jan 2001)
Marketing Genius, Peter Fisk, Capstone (24 Feb 2006)
Michael Jackson -Life of a legend, Michael Heatley, Headline (17 Jul 2009)
A Guide to Creating Great Ads, Luke Sullivan, John Wiley & Sons; 2nd Edition (15 April 2003)
The Lovemarks Effect, Kevin Roberts, Powerhouse Cultural Entertainment Books; illustrated edition (8 Mar 2006)
Creative Advertising, Mario Pricken, Thames & Hudson; Revised edition (26 May 2008)
The Story of Philosophy, Will Durant, Simon & Schuster; Revised edition (20 Jan 1999)
The Online Advertising Playbook, Joe Plummer, Steve Rappaport, Taddy Hall, Robert Barocci, John Wiley & Sons (18 May 2007)
Account of Sources: Reading / Text
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Guy Murphy – Worldwide Planning Director, JWT
Nick Kendall – Bartle Bogle Hegarty - Director Strategy BBH Group
Martin Runnacles – Former Marketing Director BMW and now Managing Director Ultegra Consulting
Jim Carroll – Chairman, Bartle Bogle Hegarty
Stephen Maccron – Planning Director, JWT Manchester
Amelia Torode – Director Planning, VCCP
Rik Haslam – Group Creative Architect, RAPP
Ian Haworth – Global Creative Director, RAPP
Russell Marsh – Group Digital Strategy Director, RAPP
Lorna Hawtin – Disruption Director, TBWA
Andrew Hovells – Planner, TBWA
Sarah Tate – Strategist, Mother London
Account of Sources: Interviews / discussions
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Russell Davies Blog - http://russelldavies.typepad.com/
The Account Planning Group - http://www.apg.org.uk/
Google – www.google.com
Amelia Torode Blog - http://ameliatorode.typepad.com/
Planning Sphere - http://plannersphere.pbwiki.com/
IPA - http://www.ipa.co.uk/
Fallon Trend Point Blog - http://fallontrendpoint.blogspot.com/
Planning Blog - http://www.planningblog.com/
Account Planning Net - http://www.accountplanning.net
Another Planning Blog - http://www.simon-law.com/
Gareth Kay Brand New Blog - http://garethkay.typepad.com/
Adliterate Blog - http://www.adliterate.com/
The Staufenberger Repository - http://staufenberger.typepad.com/
WARC – http://www.warc.com
Contagious Magazine – www.contagiousmagazine.com
Premier Mintel – www. Premier.mintel.com
What the trend? – www. Whatthetrend.com
BBH Labs – www.bbh-labs.com
RAPP Blog – www.livinginadigitalworld.com
Twitter – www. Twitter.com
Google – www.google.com
Slideshare – www.slideshare.com
Admap – www.admapmagazine.com
Punk Planning - http://www.charlesfrith.com
Account of Sources: Webography
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BBH London – February 2009
AKQA London – March 2009
EHS Brann London – March 2009
M & C Saatchi London - April 2009
Mother London – August 2009
AMV BBDO – August 2009
Rapp London – August 2009
London 2012 Olympics – March 2009
Account of Sources: Industry Presentations - Workshops
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