NORTHERN PLANNER

There has never been so much choice when it comes to reading about brands, planning and stuff. There's the multitude of books and then there's even more blog type advice.

Of course, this is great, there's never been a better opportunity to plug into lots of great thinking, get inspired and do great things, no matter who you are, where you work or who you work for.

But like culture in general, to much info brings choice paralysis. It's not helpful that most of the things your read tend to be the agency or personal creds masquerading as the latest piece of thinking, rather than stuff that helps you learn about planning/brands etc.

I still think you should start with Eating the Big Fish, Truth Lies and Advertising, Perfect Pitch and maybe Herd and the Brand Innovation manifesto (can't be bothered to link, just look for them in Amazon).

Anything else is likely to confuse until you've got basics down. Get really good at them, then start inventing.

Doesn't matter if we're in a Brand 2.0, Web Enabled Consumer in Control world or not (we are).

It still boils down to telling true (at a pinch credible) stories about the product/brand and making them relevant/interesting/useful to the people you need – to their lives and interests, so they want to spend some time with it and even talk about it. Only real development is knowing when and where to show up rather than interruption (or at least interrupt with something worthwhile).

The only thing that's changed is that it's harder to get away with marketing being about the product/service people really want, rather than what's on offer…and even harder to get any traction with marketing that's less interesting than the culture it's competing with.

So if your working with TBWA's Disruption, WK's ''find the voice first', McCann's Demand Chain, Crispin Porter's 'Baked In' philosophy, Mother's 'Cultural fame' or even Dynamic Brand ideas, remember, it all boils down to the same principles – product truth, brand truth, consumer truth and category (hopefully cultural) engagement truth = great idea, then great execution.