NORTHERN PLANNER

"We all have a tendency to think that the world must conform to our prejudices. The opposite view involves some effort or thought, and most people would die sooner that think – in fact they do so"

Bertrand Russell

Read the usual stuff in The New Scientist about how us, 'The Thinking Ape' have all been honed by years of evolution to not think that much, you know, cognitive short-cuts and all that. 

You'll be bored of planning types applying this to selling to the people who buy the brands we peddle,  but, as the condition sort of predicts, we're not that good to applying it to ourselves.

Not only do we all buy stuff we don't need (you don't think so? how many pair of trainers have you got and how did you choose them?), we don't apply it to how we go about the job.

Here's the list of shame, how agency types can't help thinking along the path of least resistance..

We see life as a zero sum game. Early in our evolution, with finite resources, my loss was your gain, end of story. That small piece of land we fought over for example. It's built in that we see everything as win lose, not win win.  So partner agencies fight over core strategy and fall out. Clients and agencies fall out over the success or failure of a campaign rather than what worked and what didn't. Brand babblers can't see the point of response, shopper agencies talk down brand building, when both are right and both are wrong. Brands need a purpose and nothing else and so on. 

Folk Knowledge. The stories we were told as kids, the rituals we followed, they stick with us. The nonsense kids pick up about animals who are think and talk like people, we can't totally shake it, any more than we have a little reverence in a Church even if we're atheists. Is there more folk knowledge in any industry like there is is in marketing land.  Being brought up on rational buyers and the importance of single minded messages, or even young folks instinctively thinking that TV ads are old hat next to native or pre-rolls, this stuff is hard to shake. Hello proprietary planning processes! 

Stereotyping. It's also impossible to not pigeonhole people. We evolved to judge all living things by how they look, so we knew if they eat us. Just as we judge others to quickly know if they're a threat to our status, if they'll make good baby making partners. This also means we expect planners to be a bit quiet and awkward, creatives bad tempered and temperamental and of course, UK advertising still thinks UK Mums are put upon but wily and resourceful while Dads are bumbling and useless, but their heart is in the right place. Not to mention dismissing the over 40s. What is worse, we conform to the stereotypes to fit in, creating a massive echo chamber where everyone knows their place. 

Sycophancy. We're suckers for celebrity. We love status. Because back when we were monkeys, or in tribes, we deferred to the alphas and because they were the most succesful, copied what they were doing. Let's be clear, no one knows what they're doing in this business, but we have to pretend something totally unpredictable (it is because its a part of economics, can you think of an economic prediction that turned out to be true?). So we defer to our bosses and listen to rockstar planners, creatives and other gurus, who don't know what's going on, but their very success depends on looking like they do. The blind leading the blind. 

The Status Quo. We've evolved to hate change. As our lives have got busier, this has only increased, we need reliable every day habits and and predictability to get through as complex world. which is why, despite what they like to peddle, agencies are horribly conservative. Coupled with the folklore we've already discussed, in many ways, it doesn't matter if it's the right or wrong answer, only that it was arrived at in the usual way. 

Religion. It's the most successful social idea ever, far older than capitalism. Big groups need some sort of higher purpose to keep them together and deliver a moral compass. There's a God shaped hole in all of our brains, it's just that without God to fill it these days, we need something else, On a social level, arguably that's Brexit. On a marketing level, the Kool Aid of Disruption and Media Arts springs to mind, Maybe, Byron Sharpe is the equivalent of The God Delusion. 

Next time you're on a project and in full swing as yourself, are you thinking or just telling yourself you are!!!