NORTHERN PLANNER

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  • Think Less, Sell More (or learn from the 1950s)

    The problem with paying people to think about brands is all they do it think about brands.

    It’s why I’ve always been nervous about brand consultants, they’ve been asked to look at every nook and cranny of something few people in the real world understand or care about.

    If you’ve ever had to execute a 100 page tone of voice guide you’ll know what I mean.

    It’s not just these practitioners though, marketing departments are paid to think about their brand day in, day out. They know every part of the business is the most minute detail and often fall into the trap of thinking normal folks would care as much as they do.

    And then we have agencies. Many of whom, focus on a clear message and take-out, more of whom ache over the smallest detail and actually believe they are making something that will compete in a busy culture with Eastenders, Tik-Tok creators or whatever.

    And then we have those who like to think that EVERYTHING has changed since such things as brands became a vehicle for business growth. It’s certainly fair to say that attention is more fragmented and there is even more choice, too much choice. We’re simply making too much of everything. Yet, brands were invented to help people not to think. The name comes from the brands that helped cowboys know which cow was which.

    For people choosing products. it used to be way of knowing which product was best without having to think about. Of course, today, it’s hard to buy something truly awful and there are too many options.

    Brands are simply a way to cut though the landfill of too much stuff to choose, even more than decades ago, they are a way of helping not to think.

    And even then, the brands they choose they don’t think very hard about, that’s the point. Most people who buy from any given company can’t really tell you why it’s different. When it’s search time or buy time, they dredge up a mess of fuzzy associations and memories, so they know what they will be getting without having to think about it….and if they think about much it’s actually the usage experience, more like how it felt than how it actually worked (we remember how we feel a lot longer).

    So what you ask?

    A reality check, no more no less. Stop asking dangerous questions of your brand. Stop asking dangerous questions of agency partners and, especially, stop asking dangerous questions of real people in research. Stop asking them what this brand means and why it’s different, sweating over the smallest detail. They’ll try and answer but it won’t be true or useful, because it’s not how things work in the real world.

    In the real world, it’s really building the right collection of fuzzy associations and memories to help people to (hopefully) buy you without thinking too hard. In many ways, like a soap opera with some sort of editorial theme and feel, key plot lines and recognisable characters, places and, sometimes moments.

    Soap Operas started in the 1950s, coincidentally sponsored by brands to build long lasting associations with potential buyers. Content strategy, branded content, whatever you want to call it, like a better way to think about brands these days. It was all done well decades ago. Funny that.

    So yes, think less, sell more.

  • Social is the same. Social is different.

    I’ve been a competitive swimmer. I’ve competed in a pool and in open water and I can tell you, getting it right in a lake or the sea is very different to a pool, and yet, and yet, it’s pretty much the same. The fundamentals of stroke, energy management and breathing are not that far apart.

    It’s the same with my new love, Pickleball. If you’re good at tennis, you’ll be good at this too. Different court, different rules, but still getting it over the net, landing between the lines, decent topspin, exceptional footwork. So ex-tennis pros have made the leap to the Pickleball circuit without too much trouble. Good with a bat and ball? You’re good to go.

    It’s really the same with disciplines and sub-categories in marketing communications if you’re a planner or strategy type. As long as you have the experience in the fundamentals: define the problem, find a clear way to overcome it, build a plan to do it, guide other practitioners to create activity, evaluate how you did it, you’ll fly.

    Along with years of other essential skills.

    Like working with others

    Being creative without pissing off creatives

    Being a trusted partner to clients

    Being able to apply creativity to business

    Being able to distinguish between insight and information

    Writing ‘decks’ that make sense

    Finding the spark to get others excited

    You know the drill (or I hope you do).

    Yet talk to many social specialists and they’ll say it’s different, how you need to have grown up as a digital native, how you need to get to grips with the latest TikTok formats.

    In reality, people newer to something can add untold value because they’re unfettered by dogma. Just as it’s truly daft in pitch RFIs they reject you for no category experience.

    I worked with a really good media strategist who didn’t know what a TVR is. I was involved in making TV ads and still don’t really know what grading is – but I can tell you, if you’ve worked with a director and got the best out of them, ‘creators’ are a breeze (also if you’re going to select a director NEVER hire based on the treatment, only their reel).

    I’ve managed to move into media, digital, PR, shopper (and lots of social would you believe) and I can tell you that, with enthusiasm, dedication, open ears and patience, you can pick it up, each discipline is less special than they’d have you believe.

    But being a really good planner or strategist is not.

    What is harder to pick up is applying creativity, rigour and imagination to business problems, truly getting to truths about real people and getting clients to take you seriously about real challenges and opportunities.

    It’s fair to say we live in a complex world, and executing social requires specific knowledge and expertise. But ideas to power execution, thinking that build business, not just communities? They are about understanding people and business first.

    Social is different, social is the same.

  • The things they never tell you number1: case studies

    If you’ve read any of my rubbish, you’ll know I used to be a competive swimmer. What I didn’t say was that I was conned into it.

    My Mum took me to a training session on a Wednesday, to see if I liked it and I took to it like a duck to water (if you’ll forgive the pun). I said I’d go again, thinking every Wednesday wasn’t so bad. Only to find myself bundled into the car on the Friday to train again, and yet again the following Monday. Mum had left out the three days a week bit, which soon turned into getting up before 5am and back after school.

    Working in advertising is a bit like that, it’s really not like it seems. From both a cultural and craft perspective, there are the things you can get get from books, courses, case studies and company handbooks. Then there is how it really works and what really happens.

    Some of the hidden and unspoken parts of the job you just pick up as you go along. many you have to learn the hard way.

    Take case studies, the ones agencies put into RFIs or the ones beautifully written to win awards, or to impress folks visiting a website. They can be tremendously inspiring, but they are usually embroidered versions of what really happened at best, in many cases, they are works of fiction.

    There are numerous reasons for this.

    Sometimes, there is an illusion of some sort of linear process and a lightbulb moment built around the agency proprietary process. Why? Agencies like to appear different so they sell a unique process, even though every project works pretty much in the same way: controlled or uncontrolled chaos at the good places. A vice squeezing out ideas and imagination in others.

    Nothing happens in the first half of the project, the everyone panics that nothing has happened. This is not unique to agencies, it’s an iron law in virtually any kind of project in any business.

    Creativity is a risk to client business, so it pays to sell a predictable process, when the reality is very different.

    Other reasons are that awards juries do not award the best work. They like a good story, so a case study will have some jeapordy in there and crisis, even if there wasn’t one. Awards juries award what is fashionable, so there will an over-egging of ‘purpose’, use of AI, a universal human truth, or whatever is cool this week. What’s more, award entries tend to do better when they have a theme, or a moral of the story, something we can all learn from, not just bloody good work. So there a story made up to fit the theme.

    This is important if you’re still finding your way.

    Not only do you either need to get used to ambiguity and chaos quick, or understand following the process and the template matters more than the outcome.

    You need to get used to the real ebb and flow of projects. Prevarication, followed by panic, followed by a nail biting race to beat the deadline.

    You’ll need to be careful using most of the case studies out there as a guide, because they’re mostly really good stories. This is OK, we’re in the storytelling business, but I’d use them for inspiration rather than instruction. This can be really good, as following the same process over and over leads to the same kind of work (see above on process mattering more than work), so inject variety liberates ideas.

    But most cases studies show some sort of perfect world and the reality is rather different, sorry.

  • Memories are made of moments

    I have never worn a pair of Adidas; I always choose Nike (but don’t worry, this isn’t another uninformed take on what made Nike successful).

    I’m a Leeds United fan (football or soccer depending on where you are from); nothing will change this, even though I don’t watch football very often and couldn’t tell who most of their players are.

    Two very personal facts about me that actually tell us a lot about how great brands find their edge and get chosen over others that just follow the Byron Sharpe or System 1 playbooks (good as they are, and thank God they are here though).

    By creating magic moments, not just mundane ones.

    If you focus on reaching as many buyers as possible while being consistent and recognizable, if you tie your efforts to key entry points in your category, ensuring you are recalled in various buying situations you’ll make it easy for consumers to think less and buy you.

    That’s only half the story of memory though. You can hack your category if you play with the rest of it.

    Just as life really does come down to a few moments, so does how we recall things.

    Life is too busy, we filter out most of it, mostly remembering the beginning, end, turning points and any highs and lows in between. There are plenty of these in real life and the more you find a way to be genuinely part of them, the more you find your edge in the battle for memory.

    When you’re asleep, and you’re in the rapid eye movement cycle, you’re brain us actually sorting your memory, what to lose into the subconscious and what to keep more ‘top of mind’. The more profound the experience, the more it provoked a strong emotional reaction, the less likely it will be jettisoned into the depths.

    Therapists actually help patients with trauma by getting to think of the event while following a signal guiding their eyes left to right. Best to avoid trauma though and evoke more positive associations!!

    Magic moments, profound moments pay back – and the more you’re attached to what people really care about, the more powerful the memories you create will be.

    Look at beginnings……

    Back to Nike and I. As a teenager, starting to play club tennis, feeling frustrated at all the white clothing rules, middle class cliques and general stuffiness, Nike, with Agassi and McEnroe, were shaking up the country club. After that, no other sports brand has ever felt right.

    Back to Leeds United. My Dad took me to first match as a child. I wasn’t bothered about football, but I was about time with my Dad. As John Lewis knows, sometimes men can’t express things together, football is way for many Dads and their sons to bond.

    Imagine a football sponsor helping families to take their kids to their first match, in a world where it costs so much and tickets are so hard to get.

    (or thinking about endings, grown up sons and daughters being able to take their ageing parents to see their beloved teams one last time).

    Many children starting out in football don’t have to worry about middle class stuffiness, in many cases little girls have to play in mixed teams but don’t get picked, or even spoken to by more, let’s say, traditional coaches. It can be intimidating for Mums in what can be very male environments too. There’s a big, important beginning someone can get involved in, not necessarily Nike.

    My beloved children love my beloved Yorkshire Tea because it was the first, and only brand I gave them. It’s how we start our day, made in the pot. Imagine a tea brand focusing on the morning ritual, or the cuppas you make as soon as you get to the office. Or doing everything you can when the kids BEGIN teenage years to establish rituals to do keep doing together as they start to want their own space.

    Years ago a hair care company only had a tickle at what to do when you first notice grey hairs. They called it FACE YOUR FIRST – asking if you would the colour fade or start colouring. I think if they’d committed this could have been really powerful.

    Just as my son is a Harrys loyalist because that’s what I gave hime when I showed him how to shave, one of the overlooked rites of passage, like when you start letting older teenagers try alcohol.

    Anyway, real lived reality is full of potentially powerful moments to be part of. They can rocket fuel campaign work, but the more you genuinely embed your brand in these real experiences, the more your brand can find it’s edge by creating genuine magic moments while the rest live in the mundane.

  • Don’t Fear the Imposter

    I’m sure you’re aware the Dunning Kruger effect, or if you like, the arrogance of ignorance. It’s been written about elsewhere of course, but worth just dwelling on it for a second, as the echo chamber if LinkedIn is perhaps making it worse then ever.

    That point when folks have just a little knowledge or experience and immediately believe they have nothing more to learn. Nowadays, the validation of other keyboard warriors, many of whom have never had to do the job, can lead to all sorts of scrapes for agencies and their clients.

    Just as ONE way of doing things, or one view on how it all works leads to average work all looking the same.

    It’s particularly a problem for planners and strategy types who, admittedly, need to persuade and inspire like they’re right sometimes, but listen like they’re wrong EVERY time.

    The best ideas (and strategy is simply informed ideas) come from relentless feedback and collaboration, as much spotting when someone has found something great, rather than needing to come up with it yourself.

    That’s why I hate it when folks call planners the brains in the room, or put them on some sort of pedestal. Not only are the best planners not particularly clever, they are just wired differently, so pressure to be look smart and get the answer makes them defensive at best, feeling they need to fight for their ideas, often missing something perfectly amazing in front of their nose.

    At worse, they believe the hype, which isn’t great for experienced practitioners and potentially crippling for more junior folks still finding their voice, and losing the drive to discover it.

    It’s also why I’ve found many of the best planning types have not always been a planner. They may have been a suit, maybe a researcher, but the need to prove yourself when you switch into the role never fully leaves you, the fear of not being able to reach excellence, perversely means your more likely to find it.

    What I’m saying is that Imposter Syndrome, like anxiety itself, can be a difficult malaise, it can paralyse you and wear you out. On the other hand, the best performers, in any shape or form, actually use the fear and adrenalin rush to push them to be at their best when it matters. Fear is energy when you are able to channel it.

    That nagging doubt though, not on only does is drive you to continuously move forward because you’re incapable of fully thinking you know best – it opens you up to embrace the support, ideas and feedback of others.

    Put another way, the more you see intelligence as mental flexibility and curiosity, rather than just knowledge as power, the more you are able to think everything you know might be wrong, and the better planner you’ll be.

  • The Northern Planner lives here now

    Hello again

  • Forget youth as a guarantee of originality, rely on variety and progress

    If you haven't read Originals you probably should. It's not a strategy book, it's how to survive /how to become an original thinker..which is actually what the job is about, so maybe it is a work book after all. 

    There's lots in here, from a winning pitch by admitting what's wrong with, it to the virtues of procrastination (the tortoise usually wins).

    As one of the older people in my industry I especially liked thoughts on late bloomers (or sustained) v brief, young intense genius. It speaks to a long held prejudice that this industry should favour the young, suck dry their limited window of originality and then cast them out.

    A prejudice that's total bollocks.

    Young supernovas like Einstein, Hawking or Mozart tend to have a blinding flash of inspiration, or hit on a rich vein of creativity. Then struggle to ever repeat it because they try and repeat that burst of magic. Like Einstein said himself, doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result is madness.

    Slower burning red suns continually evolve, experiment and try different ways of doing things. They have the benefit of experience and the flexibility to continually change it up. They sustain a level of continuous originality and creativity because they never stand still or try to repeat what was, essentially, a lightning bolt of serendipity. 

    This why I get nervous about a fixed process or proprietary model, or even a fixed creative brief structure. You end up with the same kind of work, but increasingly less good. 

    It's why I'm afraid of younger people in senior positions who haven't lived enough yet to understand the thing they did that was good won't happen in the same way again. Just as I'm afraid of older folks who ignore the young turks, missing the opportunity to change it up.

    You'll have your own way around it, mine is based on a love of sport. 

    I always loved the story of the actor who had to play Roger Bannister, and actually ran a lot faster when he had to pretend to be him. 

    So much of sport is about pretending. When you step into another's shoes, the brain is tricked into thinking you're better. When I played tennis, my forehand was so much better when I copied Lendl. When I returned to swimming after a long break, my freestyle was modelled on Phelps and improved in amazing ways. When I cycle, I copy Van Der Poel's position and peddle style.

    Adopt a different style you admire and what follows will be different and better.

    It's the same with strategy. Find some work you liked, and agency or a person you admire. Adopt the approach for your next project and you'll find it easier to get going, with work different to what you did before.

    Then do it different next time. 

    Like a great white shark, keep moving or die – just keep changing things a little bit and you'll never stand still.

    Forget those who say old folks are past it, creativity is an endless well if you keep filling in. 

  • A Quiet Place, The Return

    Hello how are you? If you're reading this, you're part of an even smaller minority than when blogs by planner types was a thing. 

    If was a lovely time that felt like a little community of oddballs, which is pretty much what it feels like to be in a planning department when you think of it. Back then, you had to look over your shoulder a little, as what you were writing would come under a certain level of scrutiny and it was important to make sure you didn't put your employers (and therefore yourself) in a difficult position. 

    Of course, these days, everyone is on LinkedIn and blogs feel like a relic of bygone age, so it's exactly the right time to start blogging again.

    Because I can write as if no one was looking or cared (and mostly they don't).

    Because it can be be what blogging was for me, a place to work things out.

    Because blogs were a wonderful place where people who knew what they were doing shared knowledge, and people like me could get helped.

    A little different to LinkedIn today when people who often don't know what they're doing will tell you anyway and the algorithm favours shock value of thoughtfulness.

    Let me be clear, I still don't know what I'm doing, but I'm going to quietly work out some stuff in public, maybe sometimes, someone starting out will find it helpful.

    There will be rubbish about tea, swimming and other bits and bobs but there you go. 

  • GOD HELP ME WORKSHOP MORE (BUT TO LAND IDEAS, NOT CREATE THEM)

    I never thought I’d write that headline ever.

    When I joined an agency a long a while back I was a little at sea, because of the obsession and process for workshops and brainstorms.

    Let’s be clear, I was fairly experienced in planning and running them, but I was unused to a mentality where no one was allowed to have ideas alone, everything had to come out of a crowded room.To make things worse, every session was meticulously planned on a spreadsheet to the very last second.

    It did worked well to involve everyone in the process and bond. Clients felt involved and internally, you get to take certain people with you. However, not a single good idea came out of any of it.

    All the research shows my experience isn’t unique. Most workshops are breeding grounds for average ideas.

    Because we’re afraid to contradict senior people.

    Because introverts keep quiet.

    Because groupthink makes us agree even with what we know isn’t that good.

    Because great ideas are usually from refining average ones.

     

    In other words, the point of workshops is really politics.

     

    And yet……..

    It’s been proven time after time that if you warm up the creative side of the mind, it becomes much more receptive to creative or original ideas. Brainstorms are not for generating  ideas, they are for landing the ones you're about to share. 

    Obviously…

    Before a creative review.

    Before a strategy review (assuming you have opened up new possibility).

    But also..

    It’s a way to win a pitch.

    To help ideas to land with clients and partners.

    Or to persuade a risk averse agency leadership team.

    Basically, any situation you want to land new thinking.

    Nothing ground-breaking, just a few minutes generating a few ideas.

     

    Workshops are powerful tool for landing ideas, not just politics. Who knew? 

    Of course, if your ideas are not any good in the first place, no amount of cunning workshop ploys can help. Sometimes it’s not your audience, it’s you.

  • GOD HELP ME WORKSHOP MORE (BUT TO LAND IDEAS, NOT CREATE THEM)

    I never thought I’d write that headline ever.

    When I joined an agency a long a while back I was a little at sea, because of the obsession and process for workshops and brainstorms.

    Let’s be clear, I was fairly experienced in planning and running them, but I was unused to a mentality where no one was allowed to have ideas alone, everything had to come out of a crowded room.To make things worse, every session was meticulously planned on a spreadsheet to the very last second.

    It did worked well to involve everyone in the process and bond. Clients felt involved and internally, you get to take certain people with you. However, not a single good idea came out of any of it.

    All the research shows my experience isn’t unique. Most workshops are breeding grounds for average ideas.

    Because we’re afraid to contradict senior people.

    Because introverts keep quiet.

    Because groupthink makes us agree even with what we know isn’t that good.

    Because great ideas are usually from refining average ones.

     

    In other words, the point of workshops is really politics.

     

    And yet……..

    It’s been proven time after time that if you warm up the creative side of the mind, it becomes much more receptive to creative or original ideas. Brainstorms are not for generating  ideas, they are for landing the ones you're about to share. 

    Obviously…

    Before a creative review.

    Before a strategy review (assuming you have opened up new possibility).

    But also..

    It’s a way to win a pitch.

    To help ideas to land with clients and partners.

    Or to persuade a risk averse agency leadership team.

    Basically, any situation you want to land new thinking.

    Nothing ground-breaking, just a few minutes generating a few ideas.

     

    Workshops are powerful tool for landing ideas, not just politics. Who knew? 

    Of course, if your ideas are not any good in the first place, no amount of cunning workshop ploys can help. Sometimes it’s not your audience, it’s you.