Sorry, change of plan. It’s nearly ready, but it’s nor fair to set anyone loose on it until Rob has given given his feedback.
Soon as he’s done we’re on.
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Righto, we know what we’re doing on Thursday. Seems Simon’s come though for us and picked the Cotton House (directions here) which is a hop skip and jump away from Picadilly station.
People will start arriving from 7/7.30 ish. See you there.
By the way, while I promise to set the School of the Web project this week, there won’t be much else. My little one man department is struggling to make sense of it all this week. I’m sure you’re having more fun watching Cynic v Coleman anyway.
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I know it’s not much, but my ‘B’ grade in ‘A’ level economics is one of the things I’m most proud off. That’s because two thirds of the course was done without a teacher. Thankfully I was interested enough in it to read, read and read. I still am, so on with the geekery.
Most of the theory in economics books describes the movement of economies from one equilibrium (all things nice and stable) to another. For example, a big change like a tax rise means that everything has to adjust before it can settle down again.
There are two reasons why this is a serious problem- time and complexity.
It’s been calculated to take 100 years for systems to finally settle down after shocks.
I’ll say that again, relatively big shocks mean companies should expect a century of adjustment.
Just think about the last twenty years – Black Wednesday, The massive boom in house prices, the implications of the pensions crisis, the shift in the UK to service industries. Not only are they affecting what’s happening now, there are too many to ever take into account.
Ultimately, most of the economic theory you get in books is wrong. It assumes lots of nice static periods of stability, interspersed with a few adjustments. The truth of the matter is that companies are ALWAYS operating in a state of flux. Things are always moving, adjusting and resetting themselves.
Which brings me to the problem with brand theory.It makes a lot of sense to focus on a consistent framing for what you do and what you say, especially in the light of all those variables going on, but is there TOO MUCH rigidity. If everything is business is in constant flux, where’s the sense in sticking to a rigid set of guidelines? By definition, what’s right for right now will not be right for next time.
I’m not suggesting chucking out a consistent tone of voice and all that, not one bit, I am suggesting that ‘the way you go about things’ needs to constantly evolve and adjust too. Your very model (oh how I hate that word) needs to have change built into it. It needs to be ready for constant evolution.
Nature knows a thing or two. Like most ideas, Darwinism is beautifully simple, and it says that organisms survive by constantly adapting to their environment (by the way have you noticed that retail is mainly the environment adapting to the organism!). Those that adapt and move forward live. Those that don’t die.
Most companies fail, most brands too. Like those economics books, I wonder if the reason most of them die is this sticking doggedly to the same type of model you find in the books. Not allowing for the simple truth that things are always moving.
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Here’s a simple recipe for a quick, light and very tasty Greek meal. For one of those warm evenings when you don’t want much and you want it quick.
You need:
Large tub of good Greek yoghurt
2 cloves garlic
Half a large cucumber
Teaspoon of chopped dill or mint.
Pour the yohurt into a decent sized bowl. Crush the garlic (a handlheld machine gizmo is useful, otherwise press hard on a chopping board with the flat of a strong, big knife). Throw the garlic in the bowl.
Roughly grate all the cucumber, put on a piece of kitchen towel and squeeze all the moisture out.
Throw in the bowl with the dill/mint and stir vigourously until it all goes smooth and well mixed.
Chill in the freezer for 5 minutes – and it’s done. Washing is up is not very much at all.
It’s perfect with a salad (preferably with feta cheese crumbled in). Even better, toast some pitta bread and stuff it with a mixture of salad and tzatziki.
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You may have seen that Russell handed over the APSOTW recently.
(for those not from the UK and aged under 25, this is Mr Bronson, the nasty teacher from children’s TV classic Grange Hill, the same actor played Admiral Ozzel in the Empire Strikes Back, along with Hitler in Indiana Jones and Last Crusade)
It looks like Rob’s residency is almost over. Which means (I think) that it’s my turn next. Since I can’t match that, I’ll be asking you to do something competely different – and it will be have a fair bit in common with this.
I’ll be setting the task next week, Stuart will be helping me judge (he doesn’t know this yet, but since he accuses me of communicating primarilly through this blog he may as well find out this way).
Until then…….
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Next Northern Planning catch up is Thursday 5th July in Manchester. Simon’s going to arrange the venue and will update us in due course – he’s currently sulking after Rob criticised his efforts last time we did Manchester. I’m sure he’ll do better, and since he shaved his head, he looks well hard so – SIMON I WAS PERFECTLY HAPPY. IT’S ROB COMPLAINING NOT ME.
The usual crowd will be there, (if Simon doesn’t cock it up) along with Simon’s Love cronies, plus Lorna’s coming along, and promises to drag some other planning types with her.
If you’re around that evening, it will be nice to see you.
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It was really nice in the pub after Interesting to meet some people. You all know who you are, but I’m just going to talk about Adrian Gunn Wilson right now.
He manfully ignored the fact he spoke first and taught us all how to chop a log. He works for Howies and his talk really embodied their philisophy.
Since I’m a fan I couldn’t help bring this up when we chatted in the pub. And you know what? His face lit up and couldn’t stop talking about it – it wasn’t talking about his job, it was just what he DID.
I was telling him how nice the girls were on the phone and he promised to tell them. They need it, since they’re nice, they take nasty phonecall to heart. That’s the downside of being charming and friendly, but they won’t change.
What I found particularly inspiring was the no compromise commitment to his (and their beliefs). They want to get big, they don’t want to be a niche brand – it’s only when you get big that you get to influence people, that you get to preach to more then the converted. It reminded me why number ones matter – they have power to shape and influence us all. Scale can be a good thing if it’s used wisely. It takes conviction and it looks like they have that in spades.
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Don’t fall asleep! This is the bit of the planning basics when we start to talk about quant. It’s something you can’t avoid as planner, but as far as I’m concerned, if you treat numbers right, they can be you’re friend.
This is not a quant masterclass by the way, it’s some useful starts. No more no less.
First up, here are some initial principles……
Starting with WHEN to use it.The accepted way to do research is to start with lots of qualitative, in depth, discursive research. Once you’ve learned something you can use, you use quant to prove what you think you know, with a big sample answering the same questions. This is fine, but you can do a lot more than that. For a start, it MAY be useful to do more quant up front if you have the kind of client that deals only in fact. That doesn’t mean you leave out innovation or inspiration, you just have to know how to use the numbers.
Quant is useful because it helps you get closer to clients – numbers are their key performance measure, so getting to grips with the discipline allows you to join in the debate. If you’re REALLY going to show you know their business and customers, it’s useful to do it through stats.
But it’s pretty useful anyway. Here are the ways it can be used:
FRAMING THE PROBLEM. It’s really useful for showing you what the communications TASK is. For example, Skoda wasn’t selling enough cars, despite the fact people seemed to like the brand. They found that they were getting on people’s initial consideration lists, but the numbers were showing they were not following through to the final shortlist and purchase. The numbers framed the problem – AND the solution. The task was to show why the cars were good AS WELL as the brand
Data is the ONLY way to prove your campaign has been effective. This comes back to the the very real need for you and your clients to know you really are affecting profits… and you won’t win an effectiveness award with focus groups.
Now unless you’re very lucky, you’re not likely to have a quant research in-house, it may be the case that you have the type of c lient who does their research independent of the agency, or you might have the sole responsibility of organising a research company to do the job. In all cases, you need to have input into the research brief and you need to understand the methodology they’ll use.
Like any brief, what you get out is directly related to what you put in. The innovation starts here. If the research is your responsibility, that speaks for itself, but if the client has hired someone, you’ll want to have input into the brief. Not only because you want to make sure there’s something worthwhile coming out the other end, but also it’s down to the fact that independently hired research companies make conclusions and recommendations. That’s a chance to cut planning out of the process. You don’t want that, so have input from the start, get them uncovering what YOU think is important. Otherwise you’ll end up with very expensive, very useless information, or you’ll have the strategy done for you.
So make the researcher your friend. I can’t recommend this enough. And if you have the choice of who to hire, pick someone who’s used to working with agencies – you need someone who knows where research end and planning starts.
(Don’t forget much of this is from a smaller agency Up North perspective, other experiences may be different. If that’s the case please add your point of view in the comments)
Now none of these ‘basics posts’ can make MAKE any good at planning (assuming they make any sense in the first place), so you won’t become a quant wizard over night, that needs learning by doing. But we’re going to cover the basics of:
1. How to go about developing a questionnaire and methodology to develop a new strategic direction.
2. How to go about quantitative pre-testing.
3. How to go about testing effectiveness.
It will be from the perspective of a planner working with a research agency, and while it may involve some of the things you’d like to do the least, you can’t avoid this cropping up, so you may as well grasp the nettle.
First bit next week.
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Or at least thoughts on Interesting.
I wont’ go on about the speakers individually, since other people are doing it far better than I could, and the videos will be up soon anyway. Everyone told me something new, and while it wasn’t officially a day about work, having my head that full of new stuff is the best possible thing I can do for my job, whatever the day was officially for.
I learned that being ‘good at presentations’ doesn’t matter as much as being interested in what you’re talking about, and being yourself.
I learned that the British don’t have to be ironic and diffident, sometimes they can be enthusiastic and sharing, and maybe that’sthis little island (and beyond) at it’s best.
I learned that it’s easy to forget how brilliant people that organise things are – from the people that make a computer link to a projector properly, to the ones that make hot water for tea appear as if by magic.
And I also learned that you have to force yourself to do things once in a while. Talking in front a few clients about work isn’t easy, but going up in front of 300 peers is quite something else. I didn’t want to doit , but it was fun when it actually happened, and it sort of went ok.
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I’m kicking myself right now, as I seem to have misplaced my notes. So I’ll muddle through this last bit and hope parts 1 and 2 make up for it.
First up after lunch was Jeremy Ettinghausen on how Penguin innovated their traditional brand for a digital age. I really liked this talk, especially the way Penguin understood the problem wasn’t reading being out of date, it was the way the industry presented itself. In the end, I think he was saying that it’s all about great content delivered on your customers’ terms.
Dan Hon from Mind Candy was next. His talk about gaming was one of the highlights of the day. He opened my eyes to not only what’s possible technology wise, but how bespoke experiential games can become a really useful part of a brand experience.
Ian Tate was maybe THE highlight of the day. He spoke on why digital agencies are better than advertising. This was largely tongue in cheek of course, but not only was it fun, engaging and entertaining, it drove the message home that while old agencies are maybe better at the art of communication, digital agencies are getting to grips with things they haven’t thought of, they can move quicker, adapt better and maybe it’s simply more interesting.
I’m ashamed to say I went out for coffee for the Can planners be the new creatives? session. I know the people speaking know better than me, but personally it’s such a dud question. Planners do what they’re best at, creatives do what they do well too. You either work in place that works on positive conflict, or somewhere that encourages you to work together. More planner want to work with creatives than the other way around, and curiously, it’s the planners (or some of them) who seem less conservative than creatives. In the end, people should do what they’re good at and they’ll always be a blur.
Hugh McLeod showed us how a wine brand can harness the social aspect of web 2.0
Martin Cole gave us some food for thought on Visual Business. His argument was that humans have always used images to navigate around their world – and the rise of the city and Web 2.0 actually means we’re becoming more visual. So we should use the fact that we’re really good at visual stuff more – it’s the one thing clients who are getting OK at agencies do can never replicate.
The in was Russell, George Parker, Stan Stainaker and Johnny Vulkan to discuss the future role of the marketing industry. I took two things out. First, and this was shown all day by the small, nimble companies that had spoken – big agencies, and maybe big companies find it really hard to do anything new. The people doing the most interesting stuff tend to be small, and don’t specialise in advertising.
Second, and inevitably it’s a Russell quote, "It’s not as if most agencies were ever any good". In other words, they enjoyed a brief spell when advertising agencies sat at the top table, but they got away with murder – and now they’re getting found out. If you work hard, do your stuff well, you’ll be alright. Amen to that.
It was a lovely, useful day. As I mentioned before, I think I learned that there’s lots of interesting stuff going on, big it’s more likely to be smaller, less advertising focused people doing it. I also learned that it’s easy to make something look hard by overcomplicating it and giving it funny names – but that’s the Northerner in me.
NORTHERN PLANNER 
