Building Bridges

In interviews, I'm often asked what I'm looking for in a position. And amongst other things (a strategic plan to make it through the recession, open-mindedness about product innovation and business solutions in the place of/in conjunction with advertising as a solution, etc) I've been talking about collaboration. And I'm not just talking about a collaborative environment where planners want to talk to each other and work together. I want to know what creatives are working off of my brief, and have, if not an ongoing conversation with them, and open, healthy relationship. I feel that in a perfect world, planning would be considered the first part of the creative process and thus be an opportunity for collaboration. 

I recently had the chance to discuss this viewpoint with a copywriter, and though we disagreed on some points, we both agreed that the idea is king. I absolutely think that if a great idea communicates to our target and gets them thinking about our brand, it's successful, even if the brief had noted a different direction. (Of course, it must still meet the client's objectives, blah blah blah you get the idea). But what exactly that means to each of us is different. To me, it means that a creative idea could come feasibly from a planner, and that the strategic direction can inspire a creative as a jumping off point. For the copywriter, it means that when you get the brief you should use the facts given and consider the target, and use that as inspiration to begin the creative process. He feels the strategy is formed in the creative idea itself. They are a part of each other and inseparable. The role of the planner is to act as a sounding board and confirm that the idea can be backed by research and fit the client's needs. Now I'm sure some of our disagreement was caused by semantics but I think that generally speaking, our viewpoints are somewhat representative of our roles within the industry as a whole--there's definitely friction between planners and creatives in many agencies.

While speaking with Rod, a copywriter from Fallon's glory days, he brought up such a great point for mitigating interdepartmental friction that I had to write it down: Make it known that you're in it for the same thing. Sure, there's more at play--everyone wants to keep their job, save face, get promoted, win awards, etc. There's a number of motivations for the things we do, but if we can all recognize that we're in it for the same thing--to help our client's business and make great advertising--it will undoubtedly be a smoother road. Creatives will "back into" strategies that are more successful by leaps and bounds than what the planners suggested and us planners need to recognize that success and support the campaign. Planners will present great creative ideas that creatives will find they couldn't improve upon if they spent weeks trying, and they too need to celebrate that success. It's all a team effort. A client doesn't care who came up with the idea. To the client, we are The Agency and whatever The Agency presents is what they know. They don't know, or care, who came up with idea, just that The Agency stands behind it. Why shouldn't we all?

Remember this race? They needed just a few seconds of running together. That's all it takes. Instead Team USA failed to make a successful pass and they were unable to finish.

Now I know this post is probably  pretty clearly written from the planners point of view and there's probably a faux pas or two in here, but I wanted to get this idea across. We're hired to do one thing. Now let's do it, together. 

The Steak and The Sizzle

When I went to type my post title, the phrase "The walls are alive with the sound of vomit" automatically filled in. No idea where that came from.

Anyway, I found an intriguing side bit in the Star Tribune today that reminded me of part of a planner's job: make it interesting, and make it easy to understand.

I said in a recent post that we're supposed to make the complicated simple. Sometimes, that doesn't have to mean a loaded sentence of carefully selected words (and in fact, that doesn't seem like an appealing option in any circumstances.) In this case, the Star Trib discussed the topics brought up by each political party at the national conventions through simple visuals. I apologize for the poor quality of the scans, but I'm new to all this.

The point is, when you're presenting an idea, you need to account for more than just the bulk of the idea. You need to make it exciting, interesting, and easy to comprehend. You need to make people like hearing about your idea. I had a professor, Earl Cox, who called it "the steak and the sizzle," and it's something that I've been trying to work on. I give Star Trib a gold star for this little bit, because while there was a whole page article on the conventions, this managed to catch my attention.

On "planning"

Today while speaking with some folks at AKQA, the same topic came up a number of different ways--what is planning, what makes a good planner, and what should a planner do? There seems to be significant discord from one planner, agency, and school of thought to the next. I had been thinking about the role of the planner a lot lately and in fact was writing a bit about it just last night. Now seems as good a time as any to share (especially seeing as I did a fairly poor job of articulating it this afternoon). So here goes:

Strategy must be an actionable work plan that achieves the objectives through tactics that are true to the brand.

At the heart of it, a planner needs to be innately curious and driven to learn.

They need to enjoy planning because of the process of boiling down information into insights, and not only when they're working on something they're particularly inclined towards--to a planner, everything should be interesting in its own right.

They need to internally balance the analytical and the creative, and use both sides of the brain.

They should make the complicated simple, and turn insights into ideas.

They should have their own instincts and opinions.

They should talk with the creative and media folks, and not just at the briefing.

They should feel a responsibility and kinship to the brands they work on--we can't forget that we have a relationship with our clients. If you find out the brand's consumers are consistently upset about one aspect of the product, tell the client. Establish trust.

They should explore outside of the realm of the brands they work on, and see where pieces begin to tie into each other.

They should not post in their blogs when they're this tired. As for what planning is, well, I really think that depends on the agency. Hence the regular communication break-down that I've managed to experience far too many times. We've got far too many names for the same role, and yet at the same time, the same name for multiple roles. And I thought we were in communications.