NORTHERN PLANNER

You may have heard the phrase 'marginal gains'.

It's something folks in cycling use a lot, where you micro manage the detail, so lots of little changes add up to a whole lot of difference.

It's kind of like Pointillism of you like your metaphors – where the school of painting led by Pisarro etc created a style of painting where the imagery is created by painstakingly building up a series of dots (centuries before pixels).

I had this kind of thing going on when I was swimming, you would not believe the difference pointing your hand down, keeping it nice and stiff, makes when your hand enters the water on the freestyle stroke.

But it can work in reverse. I've had all sorts of problems in my knee after cycling thousands of miles with seat set forward about 10 mm too far. No impact over a few miles, but over the time, a little has become lot and the resulting left glute weakness (in relation to the right) has caused all sorts of problems. 10 mm, that's all.

Now, I'll talk to you about a little discussion I had with a creative over a press ad a few years back. I wouldn't back down over three minor points with the headline and the copy. Because it didn't make watertight sense.

The response I got was, "But people don't analyse ads the way we do, it doesn't matter". I was a bit shocked, as I have grown up with good creatives who pick up work, tear it to bits and shake it around until nothing loose falls out.

But anyway, he actually proved my point. People don't spend time with ads, if they don't feel right, they won't bother to work out why, they'll move on.

But I let it go. It was the first developed execution in a campaign. When they tried to work up the other scamps, they got into all sorts of mess, those little loose threads became gaping holes.

This is why best in class comms planning is essential. It's not good having amazing big ideas, if you haven't worked out what you need to do to bring them to life – the barriers to making it work, the key things that need to happen. Look at this to see what I mean http://www.slideshare.net/juliancole/what-is-comms-planning

It's why another way to get good ideas is to have lots of observations about things, then look for the links and try and recombine them. Ideas are really recombinations  of existing stuff. Big flashes of insight are hard, but hard work is actually easier.

I'm saying that big ideas are fine, but we should celebrate the people who make them actually work and make sure everything is watertight before we go too far.

Otherwise a little hole can become a gaping chasm.

I guess I'm saying the big ideas people are essential, but so are the details folk that br

My little children are getting into Star Wars. For someone who was brought up in the 70s and 80s this is an intense joy.

To misquote a couple of lines from Fever Pitch, there isn't anything that many people have loved for over thirty years as consistently as some people my age have loved Star Wars.

If anyone needs to learn how to earn disproportionate attention and measure of loyalty from people, looking at Star Wars is actually a good place to start. Both in terms of what to do do, and what not. Not to mention the things you shouldn't bother to attempt.

1. Create something totally jaw-droppingly different – the moment in a New Hope when the Star Destroyer first thunders onto the screen is not something they were ever able to repeat. The sheer shock and awe of it completely captured the imagination. It's the same with advertising these days, your first job is to get noticed.
2. But don't think you'll ever create a Star Destroyer moment. An Old Spice guy comes around once a blue moon. In fact, so does a Star Destroyer moment. Movies that really succeed seer themselves in the collective psyche. Ads that succeed manage to get noticed and remembered for something.
3. But stand on the shoulders of giants – George Lucas was smart and borrowed from World War 2 dog fights, Darth Vader's suits was based on Samurai armour.
4. But if you don't engage the heart, forget it – arguably, there was more action, more effects, more everything in the 'prequels' but they're hated by most original fans because they forgot to put any relatable humanity, let alone a sense of humour.
5. Never forget what you do best – because it was the characters that people loved. not just the shock and awe. The original characters were funny, has real relationships, you had Han Solo with a twinkle in his eye and feisty Princess Leia. Always build from what buyers already like about you, don't try and make it what YOU want it to be. A certain hair care brand I worked on desperately wanted people to love them as a fashion icon, when actually they loved as a brand that really understood women. By associating themselves with stick thin, sulky models they just put people off! If you are a brand and you lose your way, it's so much harder to come back. People were willing Star Wars to be good, no one REALLY wants a brand to reclaim it's former glory. That wasn't the case for WISPA before you mention it by the way, that was just a meme that took on a life of it's own.
6. But challenge your audience – The Empire Strikes Back threw the first film back in our faces and let the bad guys in, not to mention the ultimate curve ball and created one of the biggest entertainment surprises ever  -"Luke, I am your father".
7. Keep your core but move with the times – JJ Abrams maybe went a bit too far with this. On top of very human characters, some great humour and icons like the Falcon, X Wings Tie fighters and whatever, you still got the unknown character on desert planet thrown into a quest by accident. You got the planer sized weapon they had to destroy at the end. But then again, you had the strong female lead to reflect how we live today, the vulnerable conflicted male lead, even the sad older characters reflecting on loss and what might have been.
8. Don't be afraid to leave space for the audience – let's be clear, people want to work out who Rey's parents are, they don't want to work out what your ad is about, but the best work still let's the audience translate and work out stuff a little bit. We don't like culture spoon-fed anymore. No one really knew if Darth Vader was a robot or what in the first film, certainly in the first hour. It's more so these days – who the hell is Snoke? Where did Rey come from? How did Ren convert? La di dah.
9. Create different levels for different buyers. I have never read a Star Wars book, but I'm interested enough to have found out the background on Palpatine's origins. Others have read hundreds of books, commented on forums, gone to conventions. Most of the money comes from a long tail of people who just watch the films and buy a few toys for their kids. Other kids will only use Star Wars characters on Disney Infinity. I don't totally buy the Byron Sharpe stuff that growth just comes from light buyers and that it's weak awareness. I also think it's about intense emotion that gets encoded into the memory – triggers that come up from the subconscious at the right time. You can get people to buy more if their frequency is really low, if you build emotional presence. I can't tell you really why Nike is different, but I can tell you it feels different and has come from years of emotional build up. Anyway, in both cases, aim for mass popularity, but enable folks to go further. In the case of the Force Awakens, the geeks (and semi geeks) went to the first showing and that sense of 'the hardcore fans like it, so it must be good enough to bother' meant the rest followed. Most brands simply feel okay to buy, much of that these days comes from seeing other people buying and following suit.
10. Respect your audience. Let's be honest, lots of children liked the prequels, many liked Jar Jar Binks, but the overall discourse was that they weren't any good. George didn't care,"This is the story I want to tell". Sometimes when they say they want a faster horse, well, you should listen.
11. Remove reasons not to buy. Star Wars rebels the cartoon is great, my kids loves it (to Evie the new movie is 'Star Wars Rebels the Force Awakens). The latest Clone Wars series is amazing, and amazingly builds on the prequels. In both cases you've got Darth Maul, who fans actually loved. Star Wars doing TV well should have been a no brainer, the increased revenue, the increased presence. Just as McDonalds needed to do salads and chicken to defend against health foods and KFC. Just as soft drinks need to diversify into sugar free and more adult versions to keep market share.

Anyway.

If you haven't read John Steele's Perfect Pitch yet, you should. It's really good and there is something to learn for everyone.

But it has a fatal flaw, as do most marketing type books, it exists in the land of perfect.Or at least the land where you have three months and unlimited research budget. He's candid that process is a myth, and the killer idea comes out of the ether at some point.

But still, it's to get real. In a follow on from The Rules, here's the rules of pitching (tongue in cheek and of course).

An obvious one is get the detail right. You'll find typos in here, as usual, as you'll see from the lack of posting, I'm dead busy (pitching!).

1. Don't finish 'the deck' until the latest moment possible. It doesn't matter how long you have to do the pitch, you'll still be fiddling with powerpoint at midnight the night before. There are two possible reasons. The first is the most common, no one really does much of value on a pitch until the moment (a couple of days before mostly) when you realise you've done nothing of value and you're screwed unless you pull a couple of all nighters. The other, extremely devious, is that some bright spark knows that the more time, plus the more people, available for tinkering with a deck, the more it will suffer death of a thousand cuts and end up nothing like it should have..until someone changes it all back at 11.48pm. That's right, you're here at the witching hour because you're totally disorganised, or you are more cunning than a fox and understand the destructive nature of constant meddling.
2. Read the bloody brief. Let's be clear, pitch briefs are not worth the paper they're written on. Usually ten pages long, you'll think the only thing of worth is the box at the end titled 'budget'. Your first instinct will be to ignore the brief, but this is the road to abject failure. Someone has spent hours writing something with some killer information and then tried to be really helpful and giving you acres of more detail – burying the real brief by accident. It's a bit that quote from Sliding Doors,"I'm not going to tell you what I want, but I reserve the right to eviscerate you if don't get it".
3. Planners get the pizza. When the actual work starts, two days prior to the pitch, there will be one individuals who everyone hates the most. Yep, it's the strategist. After two weeks failing to get an internal brief signed off, thanks to 'input' from the usual pitch committee and the fact no one liked the first three drafts, everyone is blaming you for hell they're currently living. What's making it worse is the fact you don't have much to do now. You've interfered in the creative a bit, or really annoyed the TV planners by asking for a groovy spot partnership they really don't want to do. You've even managed to do your strategy charts in 5 slides without a single graph. So now you're twiddling your thumbs, watching everyone work. So get the pizza in, it's the only thing that can save your relationships. Unless you win the pitch that is.
4. Make yourself teflon. You might be 'a team' but when you lose someone will get the blame. Make sure it isn't you. This the only use of senior agency folk. At the right time that is. Show them the strategy as late as possible, leave in a glaring error, let them correct you and think they thought of the whole thing themselves. Show them the deck as late as possible, with another error. Same tactic. The response of the whole team can then be "The CEO signed off on the whole thing". Of course, the CEO will say they took a helicopter view and didn't look at the detail. So you'll need a Plan B. Step forward the internal workshop……
5. Use the internal workshop defensively (time for the dark arts of planning) . This is the planners best chance of avoiding the firing line if things go wrong and being the golden child if you win. We all work in agencies now where planning isn't a job title, we're all planners apparently. So do an internal strategy workshop. Don't bother doing any strategy work first, just go through the brief and some early thoughts. If you do some thinking, everyone will shoot it down, because we're all planners now. So draw out all the bad thinking, write a strategy that's good and make it look like it came from the session…and pick the fall guy who will have 'nailed the big thinking' if you lose the pitch. If you win, take credit for everything. Win, win.
6. Find out how boring you are. The problem with all those internal reviews and rehearsals is that you're preaching to the converted. The kind of people that are happy to listen to someone talking about brand onions v wheels for twenty minutes, the kind who love to chat about the difference between a bottom up plan or top down. This is not your client.  Present to your Mum, wife, partner whatever, or at least someone who isn't involved, see if they get it, how bored they are and how you sound in your head while you're doing it. Trust me, you'll make it shorter and cut out a mountain of rubbish.
7. Everyone does the same stuff. Everyone does store visits, every one does some extra research. Everyone is pretty good at what they do. All the agency decks will be variations on the same theme. How on earth will get their attention and win them over? Start by making it shorter. Don't create the deck that makes you really clever, start with the story that will win hearts and minds.
8. Winning can mean losing. Sometimes you're so desperate to win, you'll promise the earth. sometimes there are clients that get taken in by a glitzy presentation. Just remember, they'll expect you to follow through, and when you let them down, they won't forgive you. There are plenty of agencies who are great at winning pitches but rubbish at keeping clients. Don't be one of them.
9. Bribery always fails in the end. There's always an agency that will undercut the other. Some will even do it for free for a year or something. Imagine the respect people will have for people who value what they do so little they're afraid of charging for it. It's not even worth the brief glow of PR – not when you lose it and it makes a bigger splash then.
10. Ignore every other pitch you've done. Look, it's hard enough managing the conflicting enthusiasms of the pitch team, when folks inevitably start firing presentations from the past that went okay, it really isn't helpful. What worked there will not work here. Different client, different organisation, different team. And, let's face it, it won't have been the 'deck' what won it, it will have been some chemistry between the team and the client and massive piece of luck. One pitch I was part of was successful purely because we picked a fantastic piece of music for the TV.
11. Don't get too full of yourself. That's right, most pitches are a lottery. So don't get all excited when you win and don't throw around your big win on the next pitch, it will count for next to nothing,
12. Leave stuff out. If you want to create a conversation on the day (and you should) leave out the data or the evidence. Just tell them how it is and when they pull you up on it, thank them for asking you and proceed to discuss the facts you have remembered, or noted down. They'll think you know what you're talking about, and won't be numbed by graph after graph. Win, win. 
13. Shut the hell up. You're throwing your best stuff at folks. You want to impress them. You're nervous. So you talk fast, project with confidence and leave no time for people to keep up. Leave space for your big points. Leave space for conversation. Try and create it.
14. Never press for feedback. I lost a pitch because we pressed the kind of organisation for their early thoughts at the end of the meeting. They hadn't any chance to collect their thoughts. Three people were complimentary and gave general pointers about what they liked. Someone else spend 10 minutes going through a ton of small points, stuff he was saying for something to say, he got every else talking, they got more and more negative and you could see them talking themselves out working with us in front of your eyes.
15. Avoid tissue meetings. They're the devil. What fool invented these? Probably someone who hated agencies. You have to turn up with a half baked set of ideas, plans, concepts, strategic directions. You can't go full gas, or you'll have nothing to reveal on the big day. You can't show nothing, or they'll be underwhelmed. Somehow you need to reveal stuff and also keep it back. While giving yourself the chance of getting a bum steer and getting it wrong from a client who will change their mind, even worse, you're making yourself to the work too early, now, not only have you ages for meddling CEO's and the like to change lots of stuff, you've given the client the chance – because loads of tissue sessions don't have the organ grinder, just the monkey. Same with Q&A sessions. If you're not meeting the authority to buy, don't bother.
16. Pick a team that like each other. Hopefully you can put together a group of people that get along . Harder than it sounds in some places I know (and accept no one will like the planner). Clients buy teams, if they get a good vibe,it can outweigh everything else. If you can't get a bunch of people together that don't despise each other, rehearse to death so it looks like they do.
17. Ban the CEO who says 'enjoy it' . As the troops go off into battle, there is always some fool who will say, "Just enjoy it". If you enjoy a pitch presentation, you're either insane or complacent, probably  both. It's stressful, it's pressured, you need to be on top of your game. It is many things, enjoyable is not one of them.
18. Always go to the pub after. It's just what you do. Remember you're short of sleep and knackered, the drink will go to your head. There's nothing worse than winning pitch and then getting fired for telling your bosses what you really think of them because you drank your beer too quick.
19. Observe correct casting. Every pitch needs a pitch leader, someone who can make decisions, a benign dictator – not someone who can only dictate. The people who actually implement stuff – the creative folks, the TV buyer for example, make sure they have to go. These people can be quite glacial, especially when they know the pressure is on you. Tell them they're coming and they'll melt like warm Nutella, and also work that little bit harder. Now isn't the time to be nice thought, if someone can't present, don't let them come.
20. No bullet points. You don't want them to read stuff, you want them to be looking at you and your team. Charts should illustrate what you're saying, not get in the way.
21. Lots of pictures, less words. Pitches are done by committee.You will argue over words, even A WORD. It's harder to dismiss a picture that can carry a few general points.
22. No one cares about the agenda. Don't bother with one.
23. Make sure you can work the laptop. You'd be surprised.

Let's face it, communications briefs are very brand biased.

I like this questioning I saw:

"The brand will be a very small part of the target customers' lives. What's the rest of it like?"

"Where does the brand fit in? Where could the brand fit in?"

At least it's realistic about the role of brands. But it doesn't really reflect how people buy stuff, or that's what I think.

People still buy products, brands are a much values short-cut to choosing. But people care about them much less than we tend to think.

I'm not going to beat anyone around the head with Byron Sharpe, but let's just dwell on the fact that most buyers couldn't tell you why the brand they buy is different and buy others anyway.

I think the focal point of any brief is knowing how or why people buy the category. What goes through their mind when they're buying it?

For example. if you're selling cars, are you selling sports cars? If so, you need to know how people who are not buyers view the product and brand. A sports car is mostly a badge, you need to know what that badge says to others.

While an MPV buyer is probably looking for a trade off between space and something that doesn't feel like a bus to drive. They'll divide between those who don't give a monkeys what others think and those that don't want to look like they've 'given up' on life beyond parenting.

With sportscars, you'll probably be looking for 'positive wastage' and getting the product in front of folks who won't buy but will judge.

With MPV's you're talking to the practical person a lot more. Maybe.

If you're selling soft drinks, brands are huge of course, but belief in taste, increasingly sugar levels and what it might go with (food for example) matter also. You can have a well loved soft drinks brand with sales falling because folks believe it will make them fat and think the sugar free option tastes rubbish.

So maybe briefs and stuff should be a little less brand obsessed.

"What's the business problem"

"What does that look like from a buyer perspective"

"What can we do to change this"

"When and where is the best for this to happen"

"Why would people care?"