NORTHERN PLANNER

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  • Brands are stories, the people who lead them need to be sure which one

    I used to know someone who went in-house for Nike. The person didn't last a long time as a non-athlete, because as soon as something was up for debate, they were simply asked 'And what record have you set'. 

    You might argue the business should be more welcoming, I reckon that commitment to actual sports is what set them apart (maybe today not so much). Nike did well because it got to the real emotional truth behind athletes.

    It's shouldn't be hard, but most brands live in a fantasy world.

    Most forget why they existed in the first place. 

    I was also close to a cycling brand, I knew a lot of the people there, both in leadership and on the ground.

    It was flying because it was run by cycling nuts who who did all they could to get more people into the sport they loved.

    The brand brought to life the human stories and rich history, while demystifying the complexity lots of elitists created to keep the plebs out. 

    While they made cycling clothes that actually looked and felt good – and all sorts of experiences that nodded to fashion and the culture surrounding cycling.

    Coffee, cafes, journalism, travel -a rich tapestry of ways to enjoy the sport they loved. 

    Now it's lost it's way because those people have gone and the hipsters who took over think its actually a fashion brand, not a cycling brand. 

     

    Now it wasn't for everyone and let's be honest, no brands should be, but people that bought it tended to love it.

    On a purely functional level, before it came along most cycling gear was truly horrible. It was badly fitting, itchy, sweaty and looked dreadful.

    It was quite a thing to have cycling clothes that were a joy to wear (yes I am fully aware that NO ONE truly looks good in cycling gear, especially off the bike, but let's go with it).

    On a brand level, while the cost made it exclusive, the overall approach made it very inclusive. A previously impenetrable sport, suddenly became a lot easier to understand, the rich stories behind it were brought to life, you didn't have to join a local club to feel like you belonged. 

    Most importantly, it was run by people who adored cycling. The business shut on Wednesday afternoons so staff could do a long group ride, they built up a community of friends to support and build, from bike fitter (people who adjust the bike so it's comfy to ride and won't injure you for life) to journalists, cafes, collaborations with Paul Smith (cycling nutcase)  and eventually even cycling teams. They even helped launch a beautifully written magazine that was a joy to read.

    All that love for cycling meant that while they made mistakes, the actual gear was amazing made by people who understood and loved the sport. 

    Now many of the folks who run it don't own a bike. 

    It's led by people who love fashion and it's lost it's way. The world you enter has gone from authentic and welcoming, to try-hard and elite. They'll killed some of the best loved cycling specific gear and replaced it with bad gym clothes. The actual fit is all over the place and some products just fall apart. 

    No one talks about the brand much anymore and when they do, it's about how they 'used to be good'.

     

    Every brand needs a clear idea of who they are and who they are for. 

    Of course, people move on and founders want to enjoy the results of the work they have put in.

    But brands are really just stories.

    They add to the story buyers tell themselves.

    But the people who own it need to keep their own story grounded in truth, not fiction.

    And they change it at their peril. 

  • Here’s to account handlers (not client service)

    I’m a failed account handler. Too shy, too disorganised and too easily bored to be successful suit, only surviving thanks to doing planning (yes planning, I still struggle to call it strategy) on the job without realising.

    I could write good briefs and coax great work out of creative people, even if I couldn’t get the invoices right. I was even told to get out the industry at one point, however one kind soul told me I was in the wrong department, otherwise I’d be a teacher, an academic or maybe a lawyer right now.

    My current colleagues probably wish I was a headmaster or human rights lawyer instead, sorry about that, but at least it means I respect great account handlers, in fact I’m in awe of them.

    But I mean account handlers, not client service. The ones who not only make things happen on time and make it look easy, they work in partnership with planners, they have an opinion on creative work, they make ideas people feel safe, make horrible people play nice. They won’t let creatives act like children, yet allow for them being wired differently. They won’t allow intellectual planner wank, but make space for brains to play.

    Even better, they ‘handle clients’ they don’t ‘serve’ them. This is no disrespect to clients, I couldn’t do their job either. By handling I mean not just saying yes externally and ‘the client won’t like it’ internally. They build a relationship, not a culture of subservience.

    The ones who nurture ideas through their building and then through the client building, not the ones who shut things down.

    The ones who partner clients, who look to deliver good advice and help them succeed, rather than the ones who simply say yes and make everything seem transactional.

    The ones with more than charm and charisma, they build trust.

    Increasingly, agencies have become a lot more about client service than client handling. There are many reasons for this of course, a big one being the increasingly competitive nature of our industry and growing cost pressures.

    Yet the agencies we tend to talk about and the work we tend to celebrate, don’t just serve clients they handle them. They make money from delivering ideas clients couldn’t do themselves, even in-house. Not just because of talent and craft, because of positive friction – working on anything for too long makes you snowblind, but outsiders you trust provide the spark you rarely get in house.

    Yes, there are great in-house teams, but the internal culture required for work that isn’t a box ticking exercise is the exception not the rule.

    And more client service has led to less proper account planning too.

    At their best, planners do a lot more than the ‘set-up’ for the creative work. They have a direct relationship with the client, a genuine partner with client services in the relationship.

    But that link is increasingly severed, which also severs the most important link of all, the link to the ‘consumer’.

    Planners are having less scope to go beyond primary research, to uncover the real truth and show clients possibility not of predictability. There is less of of planning as the first idea, more of planning as the first few slides.

    A couple of days to do the set-up for creative work, then not even able to nurture the work itself.

    As the relationship with client disappears (partly down to client services jealously guarding it as it becomes their only reason for being, but also because a transactional relationship makes the discipline nothing more than a powerpoint factory) there is more of just putting client research through a process, colouring in the client brief, or even just post rationalising creative work. Now let’s be honest, in many cases, post rationalising great ideas can be a good thing – but you need great ideas first and client service often doesn’t like them so they get filtered out. Or they allow mediocre creative to go unchallenged (but that’s another story).

    Strategy was invented to be bridge between research and ideas, it was valued part of the client relationship. If it isn’t this anymore what the hell is it for?

    So yes, here’s to account handlers, who do the most amazing job.

    I’m obviously grateful because they allow me to do actual account planning.

    I couldn’t do their job, but then again, neither could most client service.

  • It really ain’t what you do, it’s how you do it

    So called flashes of insight are nothing of the sort.

    Talent is only table stakes. Character and discomfort are the only safe bets. 

    A game changing idea, a revelation that reframes how you look at things.

    They actually happen gradually and all of a sudden. 

    They are really slow hunches. 

    Most leap forwards in any area, culture, the arts, science or whatever.

    Are the sum total of the input of other minds that contributed before.

    It's why Darwin and Wallace discovered evolution at the same time.

    They finished a discussion that has been collectively brewing for a very long time.

    Einstein and relativity, that wouldn't have happened without the trials and tribulations of others before.

    On the much less important world of brand ideas, and creativity as a whole (strategy is a creative act, deal with it). 

    The very best ideas actually emerge from lots of feedback and input.

    It's a lot more about incremental gains than Eureka. 

     

    That means teams and process allowing for lots of discussion from lots of people.

    Yes, that's messier, yes it's harder. Sorry. 

    It also means generosity towards each other.

    And humility in yourself. 

    Succeeding together rather than winning alone. 

    How much of that do you see where you work?

    Especially from creatives or leaders? 

     

    On your own, it's about patience, staying power and curiosity.

    Putting the work in to do all the reading.

    Getting ok, or just plain bad down.

    Then edit, precis distil until good emerges.

    Or BANG!

    A revelation emerges from the cacophony.

    Or do it quicker and talk through it with people you trust.

    Even spot something they say and have the lack of ego to move on it.

    Stategy might be your responsibility, but it works better when it's everyone's job. 

     

    In other words, dramatic success , of course, is about talent and experience.

    But it's also about character and embracing discomfort. 

    The less ego you have, the more successful you will be.

    The more you embrace discomfort and ambiguity, the easier results come.

    In an industry dominated by big egos, that still loves charisma over character.

    That sells a predictable process over the actual output.

    That's something to think about. 

     

  • You can’t get to great without pushing through average

     

    I go on about being an athlete a lot, sorry about that, but still

     

    I always hated to start to a new year when I was a swimmer

    Train for months, reach peak form

    Take a few weeks off, then you start all over again

     

    It always shocked me how quickly form disappeared

    You’d start again a shadow of the athlete you were a few weeks back

    And the hard truth was it would take weeks just to get back to average

    A place fit enough just to train at a quality level

    And then, when form comes, it’s just the end of the beginning

    That last ten percent is the hardest to come by

    But it’s the difference between winning and losing

    It doesn’t get easier, you’re just able to push harder

     

    Put another way, great only happens by pushing through average

     

    That’s my problem with AI

    Anything that saves time is, of course great

    And it can be great for average ideas you then finesse into gold

     

    But that approach will only get you so far

    Because great ideas require the subconscious to do some work

    It’s not just about creating average ideas to improve and re-combine

    The very act of doing them yourself feeds the brain

    It gives the subconscious the raw material it needs

    For a flash of insight happens slowly and all at once

     

    Great ideas don’t magically appear

    They are the result of purposeful hard work

    It’s not great news, but a shortcut from A to B is fine, but only that

    The actual journey dictates the manner of your arrival

    Sorry about that

  • Those who can’t read – pure ideas are hard, but combining them is easy

    Because I’m not very good at the job I read a lot.

    Mostly stuff that has little to do with planning, brands or marketing.

    Partly because everyone else reads the same industry books and such.

    Mostly because ideas are really re-combinations of existing things.

    So, the wider the raw material, the better chance of an idea.

    It’s like an atom smasher.

    The harder you push things together.

    The more you’ll find undiscovered things falling out.

    Soon you’ll find yourself avoiding quoting ‘How Brands Grow’.

    No need to go on about the IPA Databank.

    You can quote all sorts from real life, not the made up marketing one.

    It can be as simple as looking a little sideways at a brief, the category or the industry.

    Or having a massive mental scrap book to pull on.

    Looking at things way a planner or marketing folk don’t.

    For example, if you haven’t read ‘When’ by Daniel Pink you should.

    It’s a very well researched book on the power of timing.

    Some great stuff on the power of breaks and when you’re at your best in the day.

    For most of us, the difference in mental performance, between am and pm.

    Is like the difference between being sober and a little drunk.

    But a 12pm power nap can make all the difference.

    If I was Kit Kat, the ‘Break Brand’ I’d be campaigning for pm Power Naps.

    Power naps are even more powerful if you drink caffeine just before.

    You wake up like Popeye just after he’s eaten spinach.

    Nescafe could lean into this, or Nespresso.

    Instead of paid social that interrupts, it could be time targeted to go with life’s flow.

    Next thing Kit Kat or Nespresso target the lunch break scroll.

    But also, the brain needs time to wake up before your first coffee.

    If you leave it an hour after waking up, it makes a massive difference.

    So coffee brands could target the bleary eyed first phone surf.

    Imagine the cut-through telling people not to use you.

    Or drink decaf first.

    On the other hand, I read A Theory of Shopping by Daniel Miller years ago.

    An ethnographic study of a British supermarket.

    It should be obvious, but any shop isn’t really about the product.

    It’s the experience it gives – and the people that experience serves.

    So suddenly, retail, shopper and in fact anything you’re selling.

    Is about how it helps relationships and the role of the shopper in them.

    Even when you buy for yourself.

    Shaving for example is not the ‘Best a Man Can Get’.

    It’s the best a man can be.

    Beyond obvious ‘don’t give your partner razor rash’.

    To being the best partner.

    Which oddly takes me to a book by CS Lewis on love.

    (Yes the Narnia bloke).

    If you take the religion bit out.

    It’s about your partner being the end, not the means.

    Not loving how they make you feel.

    Loving how you can make them feel.  

    Just as a great Dad is a nuts and bolts Dad.

    There to nurture and love their children as much as their partner.

    You teach your son to shave.

    But what else so you teach him?

    To be a good man?

    What else do you pass on?

    Which takes me to sanitary stuff.

    Thankfully showing menstrual blood isn’t taboo in ads anymore.

    But that first period is one of the first steps in becoming a woman.

    That parents need to help their daughter on.

    Imagine reframing the first period as the end of the beginning.

    I’ll stop going on.

    But these are the tensions and real needs people are buying to resolve.

    What is really going on beneath the surface.

    Anyway.

    So yes, when you’re an average planner at best, like me.

    Do above average reading.

    So you can connect thoughts rather than have them.

  • Be More Rebel, Less Empire

    You may know I love cycling, I’m a MAMIL (middle aged man in lycra)

    To the eternal dismay of the people I live with, I also watch it

    Tell you what, it’s in a bit of a golden age

    After years of the likes of Team Sky grinding other teams down

    With one boring strategy.

    Death Star teams winning through a repeated formula

    There’s a new breed of racer now who wins with panache

    You don’t know what they’ll do next

    They can win in all sorts of situations

    And the old-style big teams can’t beat them because they can only win one way

    To misquote Princess Leia

    The more they tighten their grip, the more races slip through their fingers

    It’s like that for brands and agencies now

    The more they tighten their grip, the more buyers slip through their fingers

    Now it’s getting harder and bludgeon folks with pre-tested TV

    We need more acts, less ads to avoid being filtered out

    As PR content, experience and digital become core, not an afterthought

    Brands need an in-house writer’s room more than an in house studio

    The dinosaurs look at the likes of Liquid Death

    And think, yeah, it’s easy when you’re a challenger

    Yet the only thing more obvious than agencies quoting Bryon Sharpe

    Is quoting Nike, who’ve worked this way for years

    It’s why you should take the likes of the IPA databank with a pinch of salt

    It’s aggregates average – and follows the agenda of ‘ads not acts’.

    When there's never been a better time to find your voice, tell your story

    Let the Death Star organisations still build marketing plans like it was the 80s

    Let behemoth agencies develop crafted messaged no one cares about

    Be one of the rebel strategists

    In world where the Empire is trying to tighten its grip

    All-rounders as good at PR as they are at broadcast

    Good enough at performance AND brand to not need to reinforce a divide

    With creative ideas ‘creatives’ hiding behind a mac can’t have

    Media ideas media folks obsessed with reach and frequency miss

    Less bothered about long term v short term

    Obsessed with removing what’s in the way for clients

    I’ve seen a lot of brands (bland) agencies

    Still with a weird sense of lead agency entitlement

    Who look down on the ‘not above the line’ folks

    Trying to develop digital first, social work like they do 30 second commercials

    They are easy to upstage, by simply just starting with real life, not just data

    Real culture, not the second-hand stuff in social listening

    Talking to real people, not AI

    You don’t have to be an ethnographer, just a human

    Able to have ideas people would actually thank you for making

    Caring about real people, not personas

    So, if you’re not an all-round planner, get some broader skills quick

    Get more interesting work by being interested

    Be more Rebel, less Empire

  • 50 small bits of advice forged by failure

    It's common for people turning 50 to share the fruits of their experience.

    I've just reached that milestone but I won't.

    Because I know I'm nothing special.

    Because most of these kind of posts are edited versions of the truth.

    (Like the case studies that help no one)

    Because failure is the greatest teacher.

    Because it's useful to know that no matter how old or experienced you get, we all make it up as we go along. 

    So I'm going to share 50 hard lessons, forged in the furnace of failure and fuck up.

     

    Never crash into a the client CEO's car

    Never be more than two drinks behind a client in any situation

    Never click reply instead of forward to a client email

    Never ignore someone who says you'll never make it to account director  because your grasp of detail is shocking

    Never agree to lead the agency rebrand or positioning

    Never work in an agency where you are judged by how many hours you put in

    Never do an all nighter in a converted Church unless you have nerves of steel 

    Never join an agency with a bad reputation that tells you it's changing

    Never criticise someone else's work in an all agency

    Never use pretentious words to look clever, it makes you look dumb 

    Never write propositions like headlines, unless you want your brief to be ignored

    Never get cross in creative reviews

    Never get cross with people in LinkedIn

    In fact never get cross, store the energy to do something about it – change what what you can, endure what you can't

    Never speak first in a creative review – let others talk crap while you work our what you think

    Never speak first in any meeting if you can help it

    Never talk about a client on train, you never know who's listening (it lost someone I know a pitch)

    In fact don't talk about work on a train full stop

    Never stay in a job the moment you think you don't trust your boss

    Never write a strategy with an ad in mind

    Never write a great proposition, creative will automatically do the opposite – frame a problem instead

    Never fail to serve good tea or coffee to visitors – little things say it the loudest

    Never turn up to the wrong venue for a key client meeting

    Never work with your client's offspring

    Never question the research in the research presentation (kill it later)

    Never assume a few people liking your blog or LinkedIn content makes you any good at the actual job

    Never sell work with 'according to how brands grow'

    Never believe case studies, they are the Instagram version of what happens

    Never fail to actually try whatever you're being asked to sell

    Never fail to actually shop for what you're selling

    Never fail to meet your audience in real life (don't go to the zoo, go the jungle)

    Never defend a strategy because it's cool

    But never fail to persuade if you know when you believe in your work

    But then again, never fight a losing battle

    Never forget an idea that never made it, ideas are connections make it fit something else

    Never refuse to post rationalise creative if you like it, good work is hard to come by

    Never forget to be kind to junior suits,  they could end up as you boss, or a client

    Never allow people in your team who clearly don't care about the work

    Never do a job interview in lycra

    Never tolerate a bully (they are still around)

    Never fail to defend someone against a bully – one day it could be you

    Never criticise another agency's work on LinkedIn

    Never tell the client their pitch brief is wrong (let them discover how it inspired you)

    Never bother stressing over a pitch until you have wasted half the time (some things never change)

    Never write powerpoint without knowing what you want to say

    Never lend books to colleagues, yoy never get them back

    Never try and look smart – everyone hates smart arses

    Never reject the obvious, everyone else does too

    Never play contact sport with a client

    Never take anything we do seriously, it really isn't life or death 

     

  • The tortoise Won (or average happens quickly, great takes work, patience and time)

    Once upon a time I used to be a swimmer (I may have mentioned this once or twice).

    My biggest failing was controlling adrenalin.

    I used to start training sessions like a lunatic, crying in agony by at the end of two hours.

    Because I'd used my energy far too soon.

    I used to go all out at the start of races, then fade into losing misery before the end.

    Every body is only has so many bullets and I always used to fire mine too early.

    You could say I was a rabbit losing to smart tortoises. 

    I love cycling these days and I'm fascinated by time trials.

    Where the skill is to stay somewhere just above threshhold for the whole distance without blowing.

    It's basically a long, controlled scream.

    I won't mention the hares I've seen in agency Xmas do's who have to be sent home early.

    Smashed from too much free booze too early. 

    But agencies should try and be more tortoise outside of 'culture building' too. 

    Less creatives allowed to let rip without thinking first.

    Leading to a cacophony of first page ideas everyone is too tired to improve.

    Strategy types who immediately feel they have the answer and won't budge even when the overnight test suggests otherwise.

    Average happens fast, you have to get through it to get to great.

    Most great ideas actually come from relentless improvement of average.

    You start, you find little things to correct and improve and greatness emerges.

    You could say it appears gradually and all of a sudden.

    Yet so many expend all their energy overdoing average.

    Too tired to get to great.

    So think about two kinds of enthusiasm, cold and hot.

    Starting with hot gets you to lots of stuff quick, but you run cold quick.

    Cold enthusiasm is a lot more clinical.

    Cold knows it needs to get average out the way before working on great.

    Cold always holds something back today to ensure tomorrow is possible.

    Cold doesn't get defensive about average, cold encourages good.

    Cold manages energy levels.

    Cold goes home on time and takes breaks.

    Cold has a life outside work.

    It's been well researched that working over 40 hours or so REDUCES PRODUCTIVITY.

    In other words, the tortoise wins.

    Be more tortoise. 

  • All the gear, no idea

    I hate gyms, I 'd rather be outside or in water, but I have been in them from time to time.

    One of the species of gym bunny I used to find amusing was all the all the gear no idea types.

    You know, high on expensive kit, light on actual exercise – usually doing groovy new faddy workouts with little effect.

    I see the same species out on the road when I'm cycling.

    The most advanced bike, the most technical kit, not able to actually climb a hill.

    I see it in all sorts of diet fads based on pseudo science, so people can feel good about not actually doing much.

    And if you look around, you can see it everywhere in marketing.

    Soothing new evaluation models to get out of having to sell anything.

    Amazing brand babbling theory to get out having to grow a business.

    Lots of Purpose to avoid marketing having an actionable goal.

    Clicks instead of creativity.

    It's never been easier to run to stand still.

    On the other hand, there's never been a better time to know what you're doing.

     

     

  • The rage against the fading of the light and embracing average

    If you read this blog more than once a year you're probably sick of me telling you I used to be swimmer and cycle a lot.

    When I was a teenager being an athlete used to define me, maybe too much  if I'm honest.

    But when I swam I felt powerful and capable, I felt special.

    When I cycled in latter years, I could put the power the down to feel anything but average.

    I never lost the addiction of the deep joy of doing something well.

    It's why I love planning, though I may be well below the best in the business.

    Because few can really do this job even well, and some have said I can do that at least.

    Planners can make magic come out of the seemingly mundane, it's alchemy really.

    To me the rush is at intense as a runner's (swimmer's) high – the feeling of pure joy also known as flow.

     

    But when it comes to sport.

    I'm not young anymore and for the first time, I can feel my body slowing down.

    The times I used to do are further out of reach.

    My shoulders ache more after a swim.

    Hills feel steeper. 

    And I hate it.

     

    It's tempting to deny it and just push harder, but that's putting off the inevitable.

    And making myself ill. 

     

    Raging against the fading of the light doesn't alter the fact my body is older.

    And it's part of a deeper problem.

    I'm not special and neither are you.

    No matter what the task or skill and most people believe they better than most.

    Even though, by definition, most people are not the best- they are average. 

     

    And once you accept you are not special at what you do, or because of what you do.

    You're liberated to simply enjoy it.

    So I'm learning to be more present in just enjoying doing sport.

    Rather than competing against others, or myself.

    In the job, I'm beginning to love doing it, not worrying what peers think.

    Learning to take the pressure off.

    And oddly, when you're less tense about doing your best work.

    The best work comes.

    Who knew? 

     

    Adland as a whole could remember this too.

    Because we're paid to connect brands with real people.

    To make them popular and sell.

    Yet 'selling things' gives many the ice.

    Work most people enjoy feels like 'dumbing down' to many.

    People are not stupid, but they can't be arses to work out what point you're trying to make.

    So take the pressure off and enjoy making your clients popular. 

    Loosen your grip and see what happens.