NORTHERN PLANNER

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. 

The worst thing you can do in research is ask people about your brand or product.

Because they really don't think or talk about it in real life.

Ask stupid questions, get stupid answers.

 

Just as when people can, and do, pay to avoid advertising.

Asking them to talk about it in research, is like asking them to define irony.

 

It's not new to say people don't care about brands, they care about life.

But how many of us really set out to research real life?

How many really care?

To make stuff people will actually thank you for making?

 

I saw a funny LinkedIn post about banned insights.

Like 'young people have it tough'.

Yet how many brands have you seen actually helping with this?

 

I LOVE this Travelodge campaign.

 

It deals with the obvious.

Staying in a low cost hotel is still a lot better than the alternatives.

Maybe boring is still better than chaos.

I bet it works because it remembers to actually sell, remember that?

And it gets to the heart of actual real life.

Oh, and I imagine it deals with a commercial problem.

A dip in bookings as people save money – then bitterly regret the consequences. 

 

Obvious insights are amazing to use when adland is too cool to use them. 

When you understand what is really going on, how you could fit in.

The possibilities are endless.

Even so called low interest categories become interesting.

 

The drumbeat of everyday conversations at a very surface level are full of tension right now.

Cost of living, tensions around the world, paying for heating now it's cold. 

These things sound obvious, but how is your brand really relevant to obvious real life?

You could make coffee a way to make tough days more bearable. 

You could make a chat over coffee a way for lonely men over 45 (a genuine real world problem) to make friends.

You could make cleaning the house a way to feel able in world that makes us feel powerless

 

When Daniel Craig became James Bond.

They realised men were a bit confused about their place in the world.

So made him a flawed confused character to reflect the world around him.

 

It shouldn't be a conversation about injecting humour into ads.

I heard a real client conversation about humour being a bit crass in serious times.

When a human being knows in serious times, we all look for ways to cheer ourselves up.

Trust me, parts of the 80s were miserable in the UK.

Unemployment, strikes and, well, Thatcher.

Did everyone stop watching Only Fools and Horses because real life wasn't funny for many?

Don't be a plonker Rodney. 

 

Final point.

Campaign Magazine is out.

With 10 key questions.

All the usual naval gazing stuff.

Do brands mean anything any more?

What do we do about AI?

Obviously, like a great white shark, we need move forward or die.

But the real question is relevance to the only folks that matters, real people who decide to buy things or not.

If can't remember to be relevant to them, we're fish food. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The biggest challenge with being a planning/strategy type is that everyone things they can do your job. 

But like many things, it's easy until you actually have to do it.

Let's be honest actually, it's not that hard to be an okay planner these days.

Since many places prefer a process being ticked, rather than brilliantly simple, informed ideas that change things.  

Being a great planner though, that takes great writing, sharp thinking and ideas. 

That is not easy, yet most of our workplace makes it harder.

 

Because doing your best work required you to be at your best.

Yet the actual work is often squeezed in between all the other stuff. 

Status meetings, check in meetings, lots of meetings, meetings about meetings. 

It's often the case you finally do deep work when you're tired out.

Come on.

How can you do your best work when you're brain dead from overlong status call? 

 

The very structure of the working day gets in the way.

Most people are far better in mornings than afternoons.

To the point where the difference in mental performance is as stark as being drunk or sober. 

Yet who gets to escape the Monday morning start the week meetings?

 

To be more precise, hard concentration is much better done in mornings.

But flashes of insight and out of the box ideas are better in the afternoon.

Because the rational brain is too tired to fight the absurd.

 

So in organisations that are supposed to deliver great thinking and fresh ideas.

Isn't it absurd how the working day is shaped to get in the way of the very thing that makes us money?

 

But then there is you.

The brain is a muscle.

When you require other muscles to work, you warm them up.

You leave the usual environments for places like gyms.

You pay over the odds for bits of polyester and plastic called 'kit'.

Cycling men even shave their legs to feel ready for battle.

 

Yet we sit in the same desks to deep work as we do for timesheets.

We click off emails and get straight into it.

The best work takes all we've got.

Yet we tie our own hands behind our backs.

 

We need to change WHEN we work.

We need to change HOW we work. 

But let's be honest, even though they should, most places will not abandon the current situation.

Here's what I do. I hack the system, I hack myself. 

I have to, I'm not naturally very good at this job, I have to work harder at it.

But even if you're naturally brilliant, imagine how much better you could be if you have yourself the chance? 

1. Have a morning routine. I get outside for at least 10 minutes (at least), HiiT exercise for at least 7 minutes, 10 minutes meditation (or just Wim How breathing techniques). All before I start work -and yes, I have children, I just get up earlier. All this gets me warmed up and energised to work well. If you commute, make sure you power walk for some of it, medicate on the train, don't doom scroll. 
2. Consider fasting in mornings, it clears brain fog (coffee reduces appetite).
3. Start work at least an hour before everyone else, in many cases, even earlier. Do the hard jobs that matter first.
4. Do everything you can to avoid morning meetings, put one and two hour blocks in my diary for proper hard work.
5. Work 25 minutes on, 5 minutes off. Little breaks, maximum effort.
6. Block social media, internet and most phone stuff in mornings so my brain is doing one things and getting into flow state.
7. Power nap around lunchtime just 20 minutes, then espresso and 5 minutes exercise -which mitigates a lot of afternoon crapness (naps in an office are tough culturally, a walk is not)
8. But I will have left most admin and low level tasks for afternoons, most meetings will be happening now if I have anything to do with it.
9. If I'm remote working, which I get to do a lot, I'll do an hour's hard exercise – mostly cycling. I have the time because I haven't wasted time. 
10. Then I'll try and re-look at projects when I've done lots of hard work already, but it's just not there yet –  the subconscious will have done lots of work for me, now I let it come out while I'm too tired to fight it. Get it all out, leave the tough work to turn it into gold for later.
11. I'll get a second wind late afternoon, early evening. I have kids, I have a life, but I often have another run at things.
12. I have thinking place and a doing place – just like the act of putting on Nike's to run, I'll sit in a thinking chair – and in an open plan office, switch seats to think rather than do. It's obvious, but it works, just as Bruce Wayne puts on the Batsuit yet doesn't gain any actual superpowers.

Much of this works for me because I'm me, other things will work better for you, but most is based on real science on what works for most people.

It doesn't require more time, just smarter use of it.

It's easy because it's building habits, and habits are what gets us through most days, we just need good ones.

Two final thoughts:

We all use QWERTY keypads. They were designed for old style typewriters to slow people DOWN so the mechanical action wouldn't jam. But we still use it simply because we always have. The 9-5 routine, a rough splodge of activity is like that. But you can hack the system and hack youself. 

It's amazing how much time you have, and how good you are,  when you put your phone away.

 

The title is a poor bastardisation of that famous line. Sorry, I'm not David Abbot. 

'A poor workman always blames his tools'.

The idea that it's the skills, craft and effort of the person that makes or breaks a project.

This is true, up to a point. 

But while tools can't cover up lack of talent or experience, they can enhance them. 

 

I work on a high end cookware brand.

It doesn't make someone a better cook logically.

But the history, craft and sheer stories behind the brand.

Mean that when you use it, you feel you're part of a tribe of capable cooks.

I've seen eyes light up, shoulders straighten and kitchen tasks just flow.

Because when people FEEL capable, they become capable.

 

I worked on a hair straighter brand that was built on female empowerment.

I saw women in qual research, miming running a straighter through their hair like it was a magic wand. 

Women walking out of salons like titans.

No conflict between beauty and brains, beauty makes one feel more powerful.

And there's nothing more powerful than  being underestimated.

 

I layout pad and sharpie doesn't think of ideas for me.

Yet is makes me feel I can have ideas. 

 

I'll let you into a secret. 

I moved from account handling to planning while I was at a small independent agency.

It took a while for others to take the ex-account handler seriously.

It took a while for me to take myself seriously too, despite 'doing planning' was the only way I survived as a suit!!!

But when stole things like the McCann Brand Footprint (still useful by the way).

When I wrote briefs in the same style as W+K Honda briefs I got hold off.

When I thieved the BBH brief structure.

When I mimicked the story of some case studies.

I felt like a real planner, so I actually became a real planner.

Just as cooking with a the cast iron favourite of a generations of great cooks makes you feel like one too.

 

Now, obviously don't confuse a process or framework with actual thinking.

They are useful tool to make the chaos and uncertainty of ideas look predictable to clients. 

Just don't let a process become the point.

 

But while everything you need is already inside.

The right tools bring it out.

Gives great ideas hooks to hang on. 

Form to fog. 

 

So that original quote was right – don't rely on tools, you make it happen.

But tools can be a conduit to get the best out of yourself.

A way to overcome the tyranny of the blank page.

The conduit for ideas that cut through the chaos.

 

You are enough.

But with tools used wisely, you can be more. 

 

I was in a pitch recently, it went well.

Some of that was the thinking, the work and the things you might expect.

Most of it was down to the conversation.

From the first minute, the meeting was a conversation punctuated by conversation starters, also known as 'slides'. 

Chemistry magically emerged from positive friction.

Now, we've all been in those odd meetings when no one says a word and you almost feel as if you're talking to yourself.

In rare cases, that's the way it is, in others, to get people to talk you only need to give them something to talk about and the room to do it. 

Plan for a series of conversations rather than a monologue. 

 

There are very good reasons to discuss rather than dictate.

I don't know if you've been pitched to, but I can tell you it's intimidating.

A team throwing their best work at you, usually with lots of key points to think about.

It can be hard to take in and too much to respond to in one go.

Yet everyone needs to give some sort of feedback.

On something new, that they haven't got their head around yet.

Which means thoughts will be half formed and not well thought out.

(which is why you should always try and speak last in a creative review, give yourself time to work out what you think). 

But as soon as they have to comment, they won't devoid from that point in order to save face.

Better to take them on journey, building together.

 

Which brings me to the other point – The Ikea Effect.

Conversation makes them feel they are part of making the solution.

And we all love things we've built ourselves.

Agencies are supposed to be the fun bit, so make it fun. 

 

It means you have to think on your feet, which in turn  means being uber prepared.

But it also means looking for connection and agreement.

Rather than  bending people to your will. 

I won't lie, in the meeting I'm talking about, right at the start,  there was a wobble when the client wasn't going to align with our main points.

But there was a turning point when we reframed our direction to align with their thinking and thanked them for the input.

 

So yes, discuss, don't dictate.

Just be clear on the key things that really matter.

In a pitch, clients need to know they can work with you, not just if you're any good.

And no one likes likes working with a smart arse. 

When I was growing up, people used to say "I loved that ad for whatsisname"
No matter how good the ad was, it really wasn't good if didn't build the brand
Yes, I know, low involvement processing etc
But that always struck me as a lazy excuse to not make the logo bigger
Content, PR and social strategists should consider this
It should be obvious that followers and likes and are mostly vanity
That you're most likely reaching people who would buy you anyway
But we're seeing lots of evidence that digital stuff can build brands
It just needs to be good enough to hold attention for a few secs
Not rocket science is it?
Even so, attention is a waste if you don't remember the brand
Then again, if it looks like advertising, it will be ignored
So what to do?
Think more like a media owner and less like a brand
Where a worldview and mindset comes through every piece
You know what to expect when you watch Channel 4
And watching Channel 4 makes you know what to expect
The Guardian, Fox News, The New Yorker
Lots of writers and creators all contributing the same point of view of the world
The collective voice of your audience
Think like an editor and less like a marketer
Be more Channel 4

Obviously, in good restaurants, the food is great because of the craft skills of the chef and the quality of the ingredients.

However, when I was a graduate working in pretty decent kitchen, the head chef was humbly honest.

She said it tasted better because they add levels of salt and butter few dare to at home.

That's a little like strategy. 

You can't do the job without decent ingredients or craft skills. 

Deep knowledge of market, brand, product, audience, context, culture (in my opinion) solving a well honed problem.

All put into a key task, sanded down so it gleams. 

But without lashings of butter and salt: imagination, an idea not a process you have ticked.

Without the seasoning that gets everyone excited.

You have correct, but unremarkable blandness.

People won't care.

Not your colleagues or clients, who decide on emotion, whatever they tell themselves.

Not real people out in the world filtering out most of what they see and experience.

Who buy on feelings more than facts. 

Salt gets the blood pressure up, it gets the heart racing.

Butter adds richness and depth. 

That's not so great for long term health in cooking.

For long term brand health, it's essential. 

Warren Buffet is a man to be admired. He's obviously a good investor and manages to be a good bloke. 

He's pretty good at the odd turn of phrase like this one, "Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful".

It mostly means don't follow the herd, there is huge competitive advantage in not following the trends. 

 

Yet, despite advice from the the man who know to make money better than most.

Most agencies and brands do the opposite. 

Put up pictures of most ads in a category, they all look the same.

Then again, so many briefs seek to 'Disrupt' and shock people into being interested. 

So much work follows the same trends everyone has read.

So the same cool shit becomes wallpaper. 

When life at the moment is more interesting (euphemism) than ever.

Brands have forgotten to be interested in real life.

 

Planners too.

 

Relying on a social listening and masses of data to get a proxy of people.

Instead of seeing the whites of their eyes. 

It shouldn't take this, very important work from Saatchi and Saatchi on Meet the 85% to know how they feel right now. 

Scared, confused, frustrated, knackered. 

Life is full of tension and new habits and attitudes, yet most don't see it.

Betting on Metaverses rather than life. . 

 

Right now the truth is awkward and myths are easy.

Myths that people ever cared about brands rather than real life.

That anyone knows what's going on right now, when it's really chaos. 

That distinctive assets are the way to win rather than making people care. 

That approaching marketing in the same way as the 1950s when economics, media and culture are all different will work. 

That we don't need to understand people anymore, just target then precisely.

That social media followers mean commercial success. 

That 'Gen Z' is a useful audience strategy.

 

But when the the truth is awkward and myths are easy.

It's a great time to be a planner with both old craft skills and new media skills.

With imagination and logic. 

Who's able to get to the real truth about what a client really means in real  life rather than a pen portrait.

Who's brave enough to want to solve business problems instead of brand problems (or drive performance metrics).

 

When best practice has become anything but, and myths and process matters more than truth.

Let's get to work. 

I love cycling, glued to the Tour de France this month.

Most think winning the Tour is a feat of individual endurance and it is.

But no can win without a team shield shielding them from the wind for most of the race.

 

When I was a competitive swimmer, it was incredibly hard. 

5 hours training a day, 7 years when my shoulders constantly ached.

I could never have done it without the people I trained with.

The friendship, support and simple feeling of not going through it alone. 

 

Which is why, when I  read Fortitude, a book that puncture's the myth of resilience, it made immediate sense. 

In a nutshell, extraordinary performers are driven by a trauma in earlier life.

It makes them winners in their fields but losers in real life, too focused on winning at all costs.

Many incredibly successful  but empty inside. 

Real, healthy ability to perform and deal with problems comes from connection to others. 

And having a purpose you care about. 

Living out of your comfort zone, but never so far the elastic snaps. 

 

Unfortunately, my early experiences of agencies was not like my experiences of swimming.

No one buoyed you up, it was sink or  swim (see when I did there).

I'll be honest, I started out in client services and failed. 

I was never going to make it because I'm too disorganised and honest to a fault.

But the culture back then didn't help, bullying was rife, blame was a weapon, survive or die. 

You could say it was a trauma, so you learned to be tough, to be 'resilient'.

I still shudder to think about some of the senior people I used to work for, but now I think I understand.

They had gone through exactly the same and didn't know any other way. 

They were still proving something to themselves.

Not knowing how to live, still fighting to survive.

Abusers were once the abused. 

 

I feel sorry for many of them now. 

I'm not totally immune though. 

I can still overpromise, stressing alone rather than admit weakness, because once you couldn't say no. 

I push too hard for excellence because once upon a time, nothing was good enough. 

I still get that sinking feeling when a stressful pitch is over. 

And feel more relieved at winning than elated. 

These, thankfully are exceptions, not  rules. 

 

Now I work like. used to swim.   

Working out of my comfort zone, but not too far.

Never letting others down, but learning to say no. 

Demanding the best from others, but knowing the best comes from happy people, not zombies.

Riding into the wind for others sometimes, sometimes letting them do it too. 

Looking for ways to collectively improve, not blame. 

 

There are still many out there who are brutal on themselves and others.

Who think you need to bleed at the cutting edge. 

Don't let them pass on what they have learned.

Help them get off their masochistic treadmill. 

For their wellbeing and yours. 

You are not you're job. 

You're enough. 

I did pitch recently, it was the usual chaos, it always is.

Nothing much happens at first, around half way through, things actually began to happen.

Until, finally, the day before when all the things that could have been done weeks ago get done (someone reads the brief). 

 

It's not just pitches, it's people.

A study looked at a wide variety of industries and projects and found that, no matter the type, little get's done until after half way.

Then momentum builds towards a final panic/rush of activity/push of productivity, confusion or whatever you want to call it.

 

Of course, part of me thinks, great, I'll put my feet up until everyone else wakes up half way.

The Tour De France is on, what better excuse?

 

Except I'm just as bad at projects working alone. I suspect we all are. 

Stare at a brief, make post it notes to pretend I'm mind mapping, research that's really putting off thinking.

Then halfway, the fear of having nothing, the relief of a direction, the stress of making it watertight. 

So what to do?

 

With team projects, either purposeful procrastination or bootcamp.

Bootcamp is simple. Do the project and nothing else in two days – just put an insane deadline in.

The problem with this is working against how the brain performs best. 

The subconscious is genius and works through all sorts in the background – as long as you feed it, that's where flashes of insight come from.

They are not bolts from the blue, they're connections the subconscious clicks into place.

Ideas happen slowly and all of a sudden. 

 

So I say use the time wisely.

Relax, read, find reference, talk about it, write the odd note, read things that might be a parallel.

Don't sit on your arse, feed the subconscious. 

Then when half way comes, it will oblige you with gold. 

 

Then again, sometimes you're up against it and you need quick  as well as quality.

Here are some ways to jump start, jolt the brain into action and out of it's comfort zone, mostly by shaking up the process.

Most are useful workshop techniques – don't shout, a workshop on yourself just means not having to endure groupthink.

Or 'there are no bad ideas'. There are. 

So…

Write down the wrong thing to do, then try and make it work.

Write down the wrong thing to do, then do the opposite.

Write down the obvious solution, pick your favourite film – develop the the obvious based on the film..

(get people to drink more instant coffee instead of posh ground beans inspired by the hunger games – either reframe posh coffee culture as a conspiracy to get you paying more for stuff that doesn't taste different, or portray daily life as daily hunger games for instant drinkers who get shit done rather than poncing around  - you could even have a content series where team instant competes with team beans. None of this is good but I only had a minute). 

Put your brand with something it shouldn't be with, then make it work. 

Find what you admire in the target audience, where does that take you?

What would really piss off the competition?

Write what the competition could do to stop you reaching the objective. What will you do about it? 

Read something odd and outside your comfort zone – why is it interesting? How could it help solve the brief? 

What is the competition's strength? How do you turn it into a weakness.

My favourite – what is the real emotional truth in the category or the problem?…….

Few companies really understand what they mean, or what they could mean in real life, they forget to make people care.

All Nike does is show how sport can make anyone feel better about life, no matter how average of miserable they are.

Most countries tense about immigration would stop working without it (UK racists love a good Indian takeaway, a German supermarket took away all imported or non-traditional German food to proved the point). 

Dove know that beauty is supposed to make women feel good, not bad. 

Coffee makes the daily grind more bearable.

Ikea in the UK knows it's the little things that make the biggest difference to our daily lives.

They knew that Christmas is a stress because your private home is on show.

Men buy women flowers to pretend to be thoughtful (so Interflora should coach them to BE thoughtful in real life too).

More and more men do extreme sports to feel they have some agency in a world that leaves them feeling powerless.

Men like football because they wouldn't be able to talk to each other otherwise.

Anyway.

 

Starting is hard.

Work with the halfway rule, not against it.

But when you need to start, jolt your brain by workshopping on yourself.

Hope it helps.