One of the things I talked about in my interview at W+K was the desire
to stay on a steep learning curve. The great thing about this industry
is that it has a restlessness to it. That's why I love it but it's
also something that needs to be carefully maintained and managed.
However, the trouble with staying on a steep learning curve is that
it's incredibly testing.
Over the past few months my approach to planning and strategy has
started to change in a some fundamental ways.
It's not been a smooth process but I'm sure it's going to be worthwhile.
No longer do I think planners should stand out. Nor should they be the
sole authors of the strategy.
They are collectors and curators of strategic conversations that
happen with clients, account people, in research and with creatives.
They're responsible for strategy but that doesn't mean they have to be
"the genius" behind the proposition. Their cleverness shouldn't be
expressed in the proposition but in understanding, simplifying and
articulating the problem at hand.
So rather than finding a clever way to write the proposition they
should find the simplest way to answer the problem.
In other words the most interesting part of a brief shouldn't be a
proposition but instead a new way of looking at the problem. A simple
proposition just falls out of this.
The planner's role isn't to lead the creative team to an executional
answer, it's to provide them with clarity about the task at hand and a
broad direction inspired by informed opinion.
The question though is how you do this.
I was reminded of all this by David Terry, our Planning Director who
has just got back from Ted. He talked us through the commonalities of
the most inspiring talks.
He listed out the following as being the key components:
1. Set-up a problem. The bigger and more fundamental the better.
2. Illustrate this with facts. Lots of them. This establishes you as an expert.
3. Explain what you've been doing to solve or understand the problem
and how you've uncovered new facts. Get personally and emotionally
involved. Truly live this.
4. Based on your findings ask a new provocative question. And if it
goes against received wisdom you're on to a winner.
5. Demonstrate and explain the implications of the answer to this new question.
That sounds like a pretty great approach to authoring an advertising strategy.
