NORTHERN PLANNER

It's common for folks in this industry to incrediby cynical and have a good moan.

A common source of conversation revolves around how things were better back in the day.

You know, the days before procurement, when life was simple and clients just wanted ads, everyone got to do TV, when creativity flourished, when everybody was paid squillions and Martin Sorrell was just an FD.

To be honest, it's a common symptom in life. The golden age, that happened to be the one you grew up in, the simple fact that the perfectly brilliant stuff in our everyday goes unnoticed, the truth that we take stuff for granted.

The truth is, there are lots of things now that are better than they were, in life and in this industry. Here's a few:

1. I'm (just) old enough to remember having to fax artwork and documents to clients,I can remember messing around with films and chromalins and what a ball ache it was getting stuff to the press and editing telly. All that pain is gone, everything can be shared and edited with a few clicks.
2. The hours are generally better. This will never be a 9-5 job, but the days when it was accepted everyone worked ball shattering hours no matter what they had on are going. It still varies by agency, but in general, if you want a more equitable work life balance, you can find one.
3. It's much less macho. There are more women at all levels, they are treated properly and they are great. It's fantastic for the culture you work in and the quality of the work, thanks to a generally more rounded point of view.
4. It's not just a young man's game anymore. Young people are always celebrated, and rightly so, they bring new thinking and ideas, but it seems that it's much less likely you'll be consigned to the dustbin when you hit forty. Experience and maturity is cherished more than it once was.
5. Variety. There are so many kinds of outfits now, you can always try something new, it's harder to get your head around everything, but there's a lot more to go at.
6. The rise of globalisation means you can work anywhere. Never has there been such scope to travel. If you have a decent track record, you can take it anywhere.
7. Agencies have had to grow up. They're not as indulged as they were. Thankfully, we'll always have colourful and interesting people, but bad behaviour, tolerated sexism and bullying and general indulgence of  prima donnas is a lot less than it once was.
8. Blogs, twitter and stuff. Never has there been more information available to so many to help them do the job better. Of course, if we're all looking at the same stuff, being better get's hard, but the other beauty of the internet is that there are far more places to fish.
9. The onset of digital and social media charlatans make it easier to look good if our okay at the job and have an ounce of common sense.
10. Emails and general digital stuff make is easier to work anywhere. This has never been a desk job and while the new office balls and chains might be feel constricting, the connectedness means you can get out and meet real people and work in other environments more often.
11. Laptops, the web, social media etc. It's distracting at times, but it's also easier to look like you're working when you're not.
12. The rise of all users not only knit cultures, they give people with little self awareness the opportunity to hang themselves in public. 
13. Emails also give folks who can't resist being nasty and talk behind people's backs on email the chance to crash their careers by clicking reply instead of send.
14. The end of company car removes the shame of being famous for being the worst driver in your agency (personal one that).
15. The erosion of agency drinking culture removes the real possibilty of career threatening dancing, too much honesty or romantic overtures.

AIR AND LIGHT AND TIME AND SPACE

”– you know, I’ve either had a family, a job,
something has always been in the
way
but now
I’ve sold my house, I’ve found this
place, a large studio, you should see the space and
the light.
for the first time in my life I’m going to have
a place and the time to
create.”

no baby, if you’re going to create
you’re going to create whether you work
16 hours a day in a coal mine
or
you’re going to create in a small room with 3 children
while you’re on
welfare,
you’re going to create with part of your mind and your body blown
away,
you’re going to create blind
crippled
demented,
you’re going to create with a cat crawling up your
back while
the whole city trembles in earthquake, bombardment,
flood and fire.

baby, air and light and time and space
have nothing to do with it
and don’t create anything
except maybe a longer life to find
new excuses
for"

It's not about wearing the right gear

It's rarely about inspiration

It's not about how funky your office is in

It's rarely about brainstorms

It's about grit

Hard work

In fact, having difficult stuff on, stuff to rub against only makes the chance of good stuff better

The more you have to think about, the more source material

But in the end, it comes down making something bad

FInding what's wrong with it

And making it better

Again

Again

And again

No amount of All Saints gear or the latest stuff from Urban Outfitters can replace honest hard work

It doesn't matter how much natural light can stop you falling in love with the first idea

The quality of your staff kitchen is irrelevant (but decent caffiene can fuel the work)

It's grit

 

 

 

Being from the North of England, where we like what we say and say what we bloody like, you could say that common sense runs in my veins.

And being on the outside of things certainly does give you the luxury to look at the industry twitter twatter with an 'emperor's new clothers' perspective. It can be frustrating not to be in the thick of it of course, but there really isn't much that changes about the job, just the tools that change from time to time and the culture at large we operate in.

With this in mind, let's look at the excitement over 'brand response' that's doing the rounds.

A sat in all agency, for a client you would have heard of, where the media agency described 'brand response' to the hushed room as if they'd just discovered time travel.

It was little like the scene in the IT crowd where they con Jen into showing a box – 'the internet'-  in an all staff meeting as a special treat, and got exasperated when no one laughed at her fuck wittedness. They looked at the black box in awestruck, religious solemnity.

 

Data that shows us 'brand response' is nearly as effective in the long term as 'pure brand advertising', and builds a sales spike nearly as big as pure tactical stuff, is really useful. 

But 'twas always thus.

All this talk of 'brand' v 'response' as the latest thing to save us all seems a bit, well planners and folk talking to themselves.

All advertising is about response, it's just that what that response needs to be will vary depending on business objectives.

'Brand' tends to mean freedom to not bother talking about the product, which allows all sorts of self indulgent stuff that doesn't shift units in the long or short term.

Just as direct response, or promotions lalways risk create the illusion if sales effect amongst people who would have bought anyway.

I remember a bloke from Honda saying they never used the word brand, sometimes it's more 'image up' sometimes it's more 'product up' but there is always a real story about what the company makes or how it makes it.

Simple.

Even simpler, to quote David Abbot, decades ago. 'Tell the truth about the product in a way that cannot be missed'.

Every generation thinks it's thought of everything new under the sun. It's rarely so.

The announcement of the WARC prize for the Philipinnes tourism campaign reminded me what an idiot I am.

Because I omitted it from that post about the work from Korean Adstars.

 

And it's great, really great. Anyone who has worked on stuff related to tourism can tell you that it's really, really hard to actually change behaviour. This work does it in spades.

Also, while many talk a good game about co-creation, social media and creating memes etc, the problem is that few achieve a decent level of scale.

The best of this kind of thing get's great PR, which is not bad thing, word of mouth brand fame and growth, but, to hit hard measures, behavioural change and stuff, that's a rare thing.

I remember in judging that it was unfortunate the case study didn't capture the scale of the achievement, how hard this task was, which meant there was a fair bit of debate about what it should win, and remember feeling it was under rewarded.

Which I guess is a big learning for creative folks, but shouldn't be. It's not what you're selling, it's how you sell it. Find a juicy challenge to overcome etc.

1. Creatives think they're scary, but they're nothing next to traffic

2. The world is divided into those who think planners are a necessary pain in the neck and those that think planners are a pain in the neck

3. Every year will see the predicted death of something that doesn't die

4. Every year will be the age of something that won't come of age

5. The size of client organisation is inversely proportioned to its collective intelligence

6. The head of cleint services in 'e' who isn't really management material, is mostly useless but has been an account director too long, has started getting in the way is, is given a pointless job. Apt in quite a few cases, pretty apt

7. Make the Chief Exec's PA your friend at all costs

8. Make traffic your friend. This is even more important

9. Make the people at the research agency your friend (friends close, enemies closer etc)

10. Admire account handlers. You couldn't do their job

11. If you're a planner, the best account handlers and creatives think they can do your job, they are right (bastards)

12. If you're a planner, the worst account handlers and creatives think they can do you're job because they haven't a clue what it is and don't care (bastards)

13. The best new business folk tend to have been incredible suits. They're great at making contacts and getting onto pitches but then know to step away. The worst have never done the day job, but think they can. And don't know when to step away. 

14. Clients want to know if your work is any good and if they might like working with you. They don't care about the agency positioning

15. Clients want the pitch team to be the people who will work on the account (see point 13)

16. Be nice to everyone, this industry is too small

17. Take the time to be nice to junior people. You were them once, you know what it's like and one day, they may end up as your boss

18. Don't do the same thing for too long. Change the agency, change the clients. It's the only way to avoid becoming crap and, in the case of changing agencies, get a decent pay rise

19. But stick with people you trust, people you like and especially people who are more talented than you

20. Agency people are not like normal people. Make sure you hang around them too. It wilk make you better at your job, more importantly, a better human being

21. Everyone reads the same blogs and books as you do. Fish where others don't fish. But clients don't, so don't assume the 'lastest thing' means anything to them, and if you can't prove it will shift market share by 3% or whatever, they have a point

22. Most 'ad folk' don't really know what they're doing but got found out long ago

23. Most digital folk don't know what they're doing, but will get found out soon

24. Even more social folk and PR don't know what they're doing, but don't get measured on much that matters, so will get away with it

25. You can tell a lot about a place by the quality of its tea

26. Everyone wants to work at Wieden and Kennedy (including me)

27. Never talk about clients on trains

28.  Always check you've clicked 'forward' rather than reply

29. Creative directors should be surgically removed from layout pads

30. The job is too hard not to enjoy it. If you're not, do something about it

31. If you're a suit and good in creative reviews, writing briefs and stuff, but always turn up late, always have typos in the contact report and get lost on the way to client meetings, you're probably a planner

32. If you're a marketing graduate in your first agency job, you need to understand it really doesn't work like they taught you

33. There are two realities in agency life. The real one and the one in case studies and conference seminars

34. You get to work with the most interesting, kind and fun people on planet Earth.

35. There are exceptions

36. Take the blogs with a massive pinch of salt

37.By all means write a blog youself but don't mistake any level of readership for accomplishment in the job

38. How many creatives does it take to change a light bulb? None, they're not fucking changing anything

39. You know it's time to calm it at awards do's when you wake in a hotel broom cupboard

40. You will get fired or made redundant at least once unless you're very lucky. You will thank them one day

41. Shagging clients is never advisable

42. Some places work very long hours. Some don't. Some work long hours just because, others because they're determined and committed. Some work short hours because they're efficient and get on with stuff rather than talking about it, others just want stuff off their desks

43. Some people don't think the job is life or death. Appreciate them, they do the boring tasks you don't want to, and have a life outside the office, which probably makes them more interesting than you are

44. Avoid crashing into your biggest client's Merc

45. Don't turn up at the wrong hotel and faint in front of Amanda Holden and Piers Morgan

46. Kenneth Branagh is a good bloke

47. TV and photo shoots are really boring

48. Be nice

49. This is supposed to be fun

50. What we do really doesn't matter too much, as soon as you learn not to take it seriously, it's much better for all

51. What we do it 10% of what clients have to think about, once you get that, the relationship is much easier

52. A line is not an idea

53. If it's not good as a rough, it's not good

54. Powerpoint is not the point

55. Data is only as good as the person interpreting it

56. If you want to knit a group together, make them the pitch team

57. You can make any project interesting if you try. If you're a planner, that's kind of your job

58. No one cares about the creative brief half as much as its author

59. Absolutely no one cares about the 'brand essence' except for its authors and the people who funded it's development

60. A logo is not a brand

61. If you worked on something good, or at somewhere good a few years ago, stop telling people, they care about what you're doing now

62. Did I say be nice?