Northern Planner

Talking is good. In fact, it's critical.

I got an email from a creative group head today, asking me to give him a call. Naturally ignored him and went straight over to chat. Planners should never be too busy to talk to anyone.

Why? Any excuse to chat to a senior creative should be embraced. And because any chance to break out of the planning bubble should be grabbed with both hands. Let me explain.

If you're a planner it's always hard when you start at a new place, because we struggle for acceptance more than any other department or discipline. Creatives and suits managed quite happily before planners arrived on the scene and in many places they still do. Creatives tend to think they should own strategy while suits tend to think to same, or even worse, can't be bothered with it. 

I once worked somewhere where they were doing one of those pointless revamps of the creative brief format, so they did a quick series of interviews with the creatives to find what they wanted from planners and briefs in general. It became quite clear they wanted a say in strategy and in many cases, thought it was their job anyway. They didn't really didn't know what planners did, and to be honest, this is more common than you think.

So when you leave wherever you have worked, where you have hopefully won the respect of everyone and they WANT your input rather than avoid your interference, you have to do it all again when you start at your new place.

It's critical you get to know people quickly, learn what makes them tick and build relationships. It's easy for suits, their day job involves interacting with everyone. It's easy for creatives, their day job involves telling everyone to go away. It's easy for traffic or production, people have to talk to them or nothing gets done.

But planners tend to exist in their own little bubble or corner, quietly getting on with their intellectual (!) doings in splendid isolation. Even if you're lucky enough to sit in an integrated team with suits. planners are just a little more isolated.

So get off your arse and meet people. Find excuses for professional conversations with everyone, but have as many chats about anything as you can. And if you're in your first place, do it even more.

If you're starting out you should:

Make friends with traffic. They know everything that's going on and know everyone. They have to be evil bossy bastards to do their job, but usually, they're the nicest people in the world when they're not telling a suit they can't have it by yesterday. They can also help you find out what makes creatives tick and who to talk to.

Make friends with junior suits. If they're good, they'll rise through the ranks quickly and take you with them.

Creatives are a tough nut to crack. I've always started with bribery. Even as account exec plankton, creatives would talk to me if I was brandishing a tea pot or cafetiere. And include them as early as possible. Pretend you're stuck on a brief (or admit you are) and ask for their help. I guarantee that no creative will get testy over a brief they've had a hand in.

But never stop this. There does come a point when your seniority, or more subtle status, means you get involved by default. But there's nothing worse than losing touch with what's going on and, it doesn't matter what your job title is, the best work comes out of lots of collaborative conversations. I'm convinced the older, senior people lose their dynamism and originality because no one challenges them anymore and they just don't get enough in enough situations to be told something they didn't know.

Good morning

Fish madness

 

When Will is happy, I'm happy

( I don't put my kids on tinternet too often but he's reasonably oscure, visually at least)

38

I turned 38 yesterday. It's just a number. Like all sybols and signs, it's the context that brings meaning.

So here's some context.

My nephews came to stay this weekend. They roll their eyes when I go on about how all 'their music' is just a rip off of the stuff I liked in the 80's. Just like anybody who grew in the 60's tells me about the 80's.

Ten years ago there would have been lazing around in bed, after a heavy night out. Yesterday we took the kids to see the ducks, I got to do a bike ride AND read the paper from cover to cover.

I'm double the age I was when I started university

I look every single hour of those 38 years (if not more) but I'm just as confused and feckless as I was when I turned 18, 20 years ago.

 

 

 

 

 

 

What will the New Year bring? I don't know. Nor does anyone else.

So Happy New Year and stuff. You're probably bleary eyed and already facing a massive inbox and intray. That's the thing about New Years, by and large, they are not too different from old years. It's just part of the slow crawl of things gradually getting better.

Of course, another feature of this point in the calendar is the ubiquity of predictions telling us what to expect in the coming months. It's a shame they're all so useless.

Mostly this is because they're thinly disguised creds pieces. Seriously, look at the digital agencies looking to build social media clients and I bet you'll find some pressing things every client needs to do in social media. Give a man a hammer and all he sees is a nail (Mark Twain).

Also, we're rubbish at predicting the future because firstly, we base that on what we know now. Go back to 2004 ish and planning decks we're full of how brands need to get good at blogging because we all blogged and no one had a clue Facebook would get so big. Secondly, marketing is a branch of economics, both od which are based on thousands, no millions, of complex interaction between illogical, unpredictable human beings. We really don't know what will happen next.

Of course, some are right, because they're based on the obvious. People are spending less because they're worried about the future for example. We're enjoying and looking for bigger things to come together around because of this (X FActor, Strictly etc, but I argue we've always wanted this, the programmers just forgot. Otherwise how do you explain the incredible success big family cinema like Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter which was pre-recession? Apart from big stories different ages could enjoy together?). They just add ridiculous names to it. Seriously, we all know that more people's lives are lived in bigger cities and this will affect all sorts of habits. Some bright spark has decided to call this Citysumers. Somehow, fusing two words into one counts as insight. But these predictions are not much use because it's stuff other brands know about and are doing something about. The trick is to provide a different answer.

 I always use this Chrysler example, sorry. But that's because it doesn't just join into some kind of austerity narrative like the rest which might lead to cutting price, justifying price premium or agreeing how bad stuff is. It provides a relevant answer - hard work, which feels like a new take on luxury, rather than joining in with the 'trends' like 'conspicuous experience' etc.

 

It doesn't matter if it's at the level of brand commication, product development or long term business planning, there is no point following, while it's suicidal to stay still. As Paul Ormerod persuasively argues in this book,

the only was to survive long term is to continuously innovate. Provide new answers.

 

Cultural Strategy

 The thing about planning is that every agency and some invidusals have their own process or schtick that's the answer to all the world's ills. That's great for creds and selling to clients but pretty useless to anyone trying to learn on the job because, to be honest, their is far more than one way of going about it.

All that matters is what works for you and whatever you happen to working on. If the outcomes is great, who cares how you got there?

In that spirit, I firmly believe that cultural strategy matters more now than ever, but that doesn't mean that the approach in the Account Planning School of the Web is the only way. If you haven't read Heather Lefevre's presentation on starting a cultural movement, you should. It's insanely helpful.

One thing to bare in mind in both cases though.

Great communications ideas tend to relieve tension in culture, they address real problems in people's lives. This matters of course, it gets you somewhere good since the real long term value of advertising in all its forms is to build distinctiveness and create strong and deep memory structures. In other words, it needs to make the brand stand out in a very cluttered world.

But that's only half the story. In the short to medium term, their should always be a 'hard' objective to solve. The IPA databank shows that campaigns that work to hard targets are far more successful than those with 'soft targets' like brand consideration, salience or, God forbid, awareness.

Therefore, whatever your doing, make sure you have a clear business issue and tightly defined communications task that will solve it first.

For example:

BUSINESS CHALLENGE Grow penetration by encouraging more people to consciously switch from buying standard fresh milk to Cravendale.
CREATIVE CHALLENGE Jolt people out of their milk-buying inertia. Create love and fame for the brand that gets people talking, buying and believing Cravendale’s milk is superior.

 

 

BUSINESS CHALLENGE IKEA can drive 24% increases in kitchen-related visitation by improving
awareness of IKEA kitchens by 10%. We hace to first make IKEA kitchens famous to get them to be considered

CREATIVE CHALLENGE The kitchen is the room, outside of the bedroom, where we spend the most time - it's the heart of the home.A common belief is that you always end up in the kitchen at parties. We need to dramatise this is the most culturally sticky way we can

 

(both taken from the respective APG case studies)

 

New Year Resolution (again)

Every year I make the same promise to myself and every year fail ingloriously.

(picture courtesy of Andy Smith)

That promise it to procrastinate less and be on time more.

It has become an unquestioned cliche that agencies tend to work late. Usually justified by the claim that it's a creative process, you need to let ideas ferment by themselves, we've too much to do and so on and so forth.

It's, yes, we're busy and usually have lots on.Yes clients' brief late and demand early. We need time to think, develop and shake things about.

But it's also true to say your not Dali, Mahler, Kubrik or Plath. You're just late.

taking a break see you in new year

Kids are there for us too

I had quite an October all in all. The birth of second child, moved house. It didn't all go swimmingly, not least because baby Evie spent her first week in hospital, the week we were moving house. Of course, in the grand scheme of things, it's not that tough really, but it seemed so at the time. When they say they need to scan your baby for brain damage,it's not something you feel very calm and rational about.

It meant that Mrs Northern was in hospital with Evie for that week too, which meant I was in full charge of my two year boy. I'm lucky, we've always had a close relationship, but something happened that week and we've become even closer. Which is all good, I've often been a little jealous of Juliette having more time with him than I do, even thuough, thankfully, I'm able to be more than a weekend Dad. That one week when it was just myself and him was pretty special amidst the chaos.

It also taught me that parenting isn't all about being there for your kids, in a very fundamental way, you're kids are there for you. They don't support you with kind words, good advice or a cup of warm cocoa or anything, they do it just by being alive. There's nothing that feels like home more than your little boy coming over and giving you a cuddle, or pleading with you to put up his train track.

Not even tea does that.

What to do when 'product' story is a mandatory

It's all well and good having wonderful proof that messaging and product benefity type stuff gets in the way of effective brand communication, how not even 'emotional' stuff does as well as 'fame', stuff like this, this or, if you forgive the self promotion this School of the Web project. Not to mention, banging on about cultural strategy and exploding category when so many (most) of client briefs insist on having the exact opposite as mandatory.

Yep, the reality is that most briefs insist on telling people why the product is better, and making sure it's grounded in what is familiar within the category.

Despite the fact that the real challenge for most advertising and stuff is making anybody care in the first place, cutting the default response to try and ignore advertising and, most critically, insert something in the long term memory (the specifics of how the brain remembers and what how we make decisions means this needs to be rooted in feelings and associations, while the Fame stuff can be boiled down to the fact that if people are talking you, they assume you're leading the category, so they naturally assume you're better, in fact, because brand choice is part if identity construction, they WANT to believe you're better and humans naturally justify every intuitive decision they make).

So what do you do when, not if, a brief like this arrives? There's no point telling the client they don't get how brands work, nobody persuades anyone towards their line of thinking by telling them they're wrong and implying they're stupid.

Nope, you find a way to talk about the product in way that's culturally provocative plus tonally and emotionally relevant to how  people feel about the brand, or could be credibly made to feel (ASDA will never be cool, Converse will never be sensible).

In fact, to be honest, you should be doing this anyway. Too much work tries to do the fame/culture thing but forgets to make it credible to the brand. Looking to bring the product to life in a way people will care about isn't just a good place to start, it's the best.

When you look at the forensic data shared in Byron Sharp's How Brands Grow. Much of how advertising  works is based on building clear brand links and memory structures. In other word's, get people to think about a brand and give them clear triggers in long term memory when they get anywhere near making some sort of choice. That mean consistency of feel (Honda and optimism, Coke and happiness), developing memorable long term cues (McDonalds Golden Arches, Coke's ribbon) and let people know what the product looks like.

 

 

A great example of achieving a leap forward AND keeping long term cues is Mother's Stella Artois 4. It's still based in a sophisticated Gaulic world (continuing the massive artistic licence of Belgium not being anywhere near France), but it takes it to a place more relevant to today's young men for whom beer is a badge. The badge is now 'smoothness' which is linked directly to the main product attribute.

That brings me to option 1. Don't fight against the product story, embrace it. But don't just dramatise it in a way that can't be missed (but of course that's a start), link it to something in culture that really matters to it's audience.Like Stella 4.

Also like Old Spice. Yes, it's got masses going on about male identity and relationships between men and women, but at it's heart, it's relevant to the brand's experienced, masculine heritage (Axe wouldn't be credible doing this) and it's really about the key product attribute - it smells manly. Not to mention the big fat pack shot.

 

This is also a useful way to get around the 'category relevance' question. You just need to prove to the client that people don't respond to the same images and cues, what they really care about when they think about the category isxxxx. For example, every fucking hair commercial out has glassy eyed models swishing their hair, and because they do, clients asks for more. When actually, hair is tied up with self confidence, belief about your capabilities and all sorts of feminist issues. That's the category rule, not fake science and fake women. Limitations to what you can do with hair inhibit what you think YOU can do.

 

Option 2 is where you dramatise the product, but don't provide an answer to some sort of tension in culture, you tap into something people are already interested in.

 

Coke Zero here communicates that it tastes exactly like the original, tapping into the vogue for ironic, deadpan, slightly uncomfortable mockumentaries.

 

 

Fox's biscuits implies premium and attention to detail, while tapping into the ever present fascination with mob culture AND ironic characters that don't know they're being funny, Alan Partridge etc.

 

Cravendale dramatises superior taste and amplifies the youtube craze for funny cat videos.

Then there is option 3. The riskiest and most commercially debatable - dramatise product in a way that is pure, original entertainment, made to make people stand up and pay attention. Of course, the very best examples work incredibly well, but the failure rate is high. Also, I'd question the absolute long term benefit. People might talk about the advertising rather than the brand, which, MIGHT, generate short term sales, but not the long term memory cues that are advertising's real benefit.

 

These Curry's ads create impact of course.They tell you something about the product service. But it doesn't make me feel anything about Curry's. There is not relevance to Star Wars, apart from a brand raiding my childhood in search of sales (in my opinion). I don't see them seeping into popular culture. Maybe because it all feels a bit forced.

I always liked this Nokia stuff, but it while it dramatised the product attribute brilliantly, it never made me feel anything about Nokia and seemed to clash with some deep, fuzzy 'Nokianess'.

 

 

These commercials for Tesco told people that the range was much better and more diverse than they thought it was, but it did it with pure entertainment. They were so funny, people loved them with no discernable 'cultural' resonance.

 

 

And then of course, there's Honda, but notice how 'brand up' this is. I'm not saying pure entertainment isn't a viable route, but perhaps the most risk free approach is making sure it works from the brand out.

Unless you're sure you have something like this:

 

Or this

 

(but I might argue that the feeling of freedom and release in the increasingly oppressive big city is a cultural hotspot, but this might too implicit)

Every product has some sort of story. It usually isn't better than something else, but if you tell it in a way that taps into something people REALLY care about, or deliver in a way that adds to what they're interested in, or, big ask, makes them talk so much it becomes culture, which is VERY hard to pull of these days, you can still create ads and stuff that have real, long term value.

Isn't she lovely?

My little girl is 6 weeks old. She's just started smiling this week.

Push button for tea

Found by the Tea Appreciation Society

A post about escapism v grim reality, 'the third way' men and shaving

I liked this article from The Observer to how entertainment culture in the US is responding to difficult times- basically, escapism or wallow in the situation with grim reality. 

Not only can this found in the UK, on many levels, including brand ones: thrift culture/back to basics v escapism and nostalgia, actually all dramatised to wonderful effect in this:

 

It's accross westerb culture in general.

Actually, you can see the wallowing or denial approach in all sorts of stuff. In the ageing population phenomenon in the western world, people of a certain age get frustrated at the way culture ignores them. They respond either with total denial and escapism, trying to fit in with the culture shutting them out, going for the mutton dressed as lamb approach:

Or wallow in it, with the grumpy old fogey, rebellious, sod the lot of you approach:

 Increasingly though, there is the emerging third way, where individuals decide lifestage is irrelevant and choose to defined by attitude rather than age. They embrace the opportunities that good health, decent money and freedom give them:

It reminds me of all those King of Shaves discussion from the APSOTW project, about the male reaction to their loss of status and uncertain role in the world. Much of culture and the ads and stuff that reflect take the this way or that way approach:

The wallowing, reactionary rebellion:

 

 

#

Or going the other way:

But, like the Helen Mirren example for baby boomers, there is a third way. Both for austere times and for men. Instead of giving in to one cultural pressure or the other, brands can relieve tension with another answer, rather than following the behaviour already there.

I'm suprised we're not seeing more examples of the 'man of action', and I wonder what the modern version of that might be.

Back in the 1930's Superman worked as both independent hero, outside of the system who got things done, in a time when men felt emasculated, helpless and resentful of authority and institutions that restricted their freedom but didn't deliver on the other part of that deal - security and prosperity. 

Marlboro man is another great example, as was the empowering, self motivated rallying cry of 'Just Do It' back in the late 80's early 90's when individual responsibility and merit were standards few felt they could live up to.

 

Of course, the idea of an earnest serious superhero probably isn't right for these ironic cynical times - or hold on, maybe it is?...., with the possible exception of the -  tongue firmly in cheek -  Iron Man, the string of comic book adaptations are pretty earnest and gritty. Not mention modern day hero icons without super powers:

Or even better, what about anti-heroes. Like Omar Little from the Wire, Christopher Nolan's Batman, Tony Soprano, Nucky Thompson from Boardwalk Empire or even Don Draper. Men who step outside the rules of the game to alter the status quo. They're morally ambiguous and contradictory, but they don't wait for permission, they don't worry for too long. They ACT. Something that isn't just an answer for masculine identity conflicts, but the helplessness we feel as the world around us collapses. Something that rubs against some of todays cultural norms, from the get rich quick for doing nothing of use myth that applies equally to the bankers, Peter Andre and sleb culture, to challenging the ruling elite that looked after each other while they fucked us all over. It challenges the convention of make sulking, while the world leaves them behind and champions men who..erm, act.

 On the other hand, it doesn't have to get so serious. I wonder what someone like KOS could do with the subculture of real life superheroes. Not only would they be a vehicle to convey all sorts of angles on the above stuff, it could drip in irony, avoiding the blood curdling earnestness of the category and be, well, rather funny and maverick. Something that category badly needs. Something that would cut through. Something that implies, rather than tells.

Imagine tapping into the rich love for slightly uncomfortable mockumentaries where people don't know how funny they are, like The Office etc. Let's face it, these guys are already doing it.........

  

 

 

Anyway.

 

WARC Planning 3.0 prize

WARC are calling for essays to tell us what the future of planning might be.

Picture thieved from Russell Davies

I'm in two minds about this prize, since I get impatient with planning intellectually talking to itself, rather than reaching out beyond it's faux academic walled gardens and engaging with the real world out there.

But on the other hand, the more people put in fresh points of view, the better we'll all be for it. I love planners and our enthusiasm for stuff other people can't be bothered with, it's a great skill to make dull things interesting for others, even if one of those things is planning itself.

So do have a go, especially you Young Turks, shake up the smug establishment. I dare you.

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