Now and again people offer me free stuff to trial, in the hope I’ll blog about it. I usually say no because I don’t want to be under pressure to write something, and I’d feel bad about cutting something to ribbons if it wasn’t any good. Also, I’m sort of bemused that anyone would think I have some sort of influence.
But I did accept trialling Papershow for a few weeks. Basically, you can connect a pen to your computer by USB and turn it into a whiteboard. I thought I might find it useful in workshops to scribble notes, and I did, but the real value was creating powerpoint slides that were a little more interesting. And it worked a treat.
Like this slide. And in fact, while we’re here, lets talk about this slide a bit.
Think about Just Do It – built around self motivation, empowerment and hero worship, this single call to arms, to get off your arse and make things happen has informed twenty years of advertising. I know I’ve got my order of events wrong, but that’s not the point. At some point they needed to crack tennis, re-engage with athletes who thought they’d lost their sporting edge,engage with women etc. The big brand voice enabled them to address their challenges and keep that all important consistent voice.
I’m not going to have a go at Brand Onions and stuff, it should be self explanatory by now, but look those charts again. See that big arrow in the middle? The thing that holds all those little ideas together?
It has an intent, a direction, a goal, and endgame. Nike didn’t know what they would have to do in the next twenty years, just like I don’t know what I’ll be doing in my fifties, I bet you don’t know what you’ll be up to in twenty years time either. That’s the thing about plans, they rarely work out.
In the 80’s the US army used to plan everything to death. Every single eventually was planned for, nothing was left to chance. Problem was, they found that every single engagement has one thing in common – nothing went to plan. And the rigidity of orders and planning meant that no one could use their initiative, adapt to the situation and make it work.
The general even had a saying for it, "No plan survives contact with the enemy". So over a number of years, they adapted their planning, with more emphasis on the end result. Everything is about the intent now, that’s the guide, the thing everyone works to. And being enables to adapt, gets them their.
I think brands are like that – the vision, manifesto is critical, but it shouldn’t handcuff what you need to do for right now, it should enrich it and hold all those ‘right now’ into a much bigger ‘one day’.
Hope that makes sense. Just wanted to share.
NORTHERN PLANNER 
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