NORTHERN PLANNER

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  • Meeting new clients

    Next on the self obsessed quest to write down one thing that went well yesterday..

    Everything's new when you start a job.When you present to a new client, it's not just them you're presenting to, you're being sized up by the new people you work with. A planner needs an account director to trust him/her, to feel comfortable putting you in front of their clients, I guess, in the end, they need to know you'll make them look good. It's not fair, but suits,clients and creatives can get along just fine without planners if they want. We have to earn our place in a room.

    And yesterday went fine. Both in terms of doing a double hander with the account directing person from work and discussion with the client. Not perfect, but okay. Felt like I'd be invited back.

    The day before, I was in charge of the cooking for Mothers Day. I bit off more than I could chew, deciding to cook three dishes I hadn't done before – proper Indian food, grinding spices, the lot. An hour before people arrived it was very apparent I needed to do at least three things at once. But we just about got there and everyone seemed to like it. Felt good to have managed it. Always a pleasure to see people enjoying the fruits of your labours, both from a vanity point of view and 'giving'.

    That'll do for self congratulation, now lets move on to counting some blessings…

  • New Diet Coke ad by Mother

    Good riddance Duffy.

     

    Hello Marionettes. From taking a break from being what others want you to be, to taking a break from being serious. More importantly, from a trite, spiritual, worthy tone, to, well, lightening up. I suspect they were trying to do the same thing with Duffy – it's a complicated world, times are serious, escape it for a bit, but just shows how tone is at least important as message (and what the hell were those awful blue tights?)

     

     

  • Want went well today? 2

    So it's day two of the writing down things that went well thingy.

    Yesterday I had a  a really good conversation with a creative about some work and managed to not only have one or two ideas to build on his, he quite liked them too.

    Persuading creatives to let anyone esle have idead is always tricky, when you're new it's doubly so.

  • Personally, I’d go with Carousel

    Which Sterling Cooper idea would you rate the highest?

  • Getting happy by giving and counting your blessings

    I mentioned I'm reading Richard Wiseman's 59 Seconds. Mostly in the cause of learning about brevity and some psychology quirks to log for a brief one day. However, lots of it seems quite useful.

    There's stuff you already know, like performing small acts of kindness can make you really happy – I'm well up on that score with the amount of tea I make but I'm sure I can do better.

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    One thing I like is getting into the habit of counting your blessings. Taking the time to appreciate the perfectly brilliant things in your life that get taken for granted.

    For example, it amazes me how wer'e becoming used to things appearing in our lives that seem almost beyond science fiction and pure magery. My Ipod not only stores most of my over-large CD collection, I can get to any track in two seconds, I can create any playlist for any mood, I can even shoot a quick video and share it with the world in 15 minutes.

    I grew up with cassette tapes and vinyl, even 10 years ago, what I can do now would have seemed pure fantasy.

    And then there's moving jobs. Every day I have at least an extra two hours, for more swimming, more Will

    Will
     

    and anything else I want. Yet I'm already getting used to it and moaning about having no time.

    And then there's making the effort to write down thing that went well in your day, every day for a week. Think I might have a go at that.

    So here's the first episode.

    This morning I got up at just after 6 and went swimming. It was one of those mornings when I really wanted to just sleep in, but managed to haul myself to the pool. Only to find the fast lane dominated by a huge, twenty something powerhouse who looked very, very fast. Being slightly competitive, I hate swimming with people who are much faster than me, and I don't like getting in people's way.

    But when I got in, I found that while I wasn't quite keeping up, he wasn't quite pulling ahead much either. It was little victory of age over beauty, but to be honest, it was just nice to know that I'm faster than I think I am.

    Not to mention I did 1,500 meters in 20 minutes. That's the fastest yet this year, and, to be honest, the fastest I've gone since I was 20, mostly down to the fact I didn't do 1,500's if I could help it, but also because my body's beginning to do what it's told.

    Wonder what will go well tomorrow?

  • Spicy coconut and vegetable soup

    This will serve four generously.

    Heat 2 tblsp of olive oil in a large pan and fry two chopped onions, I peeled, diced carrot, 2 sprigs of thyme over a medium heat for 4 minutes.

    Add two peeled and diced sweet potatoes, a can of chopped tomatoes and can of coconut milk, 250ml of vegetable stock and a bay leaf.

    Add a teaspoon of west indian hot pepper sauce, bring to the boil, then cover and simmer for half an hour. 20 minutes into simmering time, add a drained can of black eyed peas.

    Then serve.

    For thicker soup, blitz half in blender once it's cooked.

    It's ready to serve.

  • Coke Zero by Crispin Porter

    Why do the Americans get these great Coke Zero ads and we get utter dross?

     

     

    No macho rubbish, just plenty of wit, story and characters all based around a truth (that came out research), Coke Zero tastes like the original. It might borrow from Orange Gold spots but who cares?

    Next tells you 'do a brand ad' show them this. There is no good reason not to start with product/brand truth, hopefully a truth about how real people use/think about/feel about the product/brand and work outwards. Failure to do this is either down weak thinking, weak product or silly thought processes.

     

     

     

     Of course, these will generate all sort of brand equity scores etc, but they engage and entertain you into believing that Coke Zero tastes the same as Coke original. And feel a world apart from the macho antics of other brands (and Coke Zero in the UK)

     

    We're men and drink Pepsi max, it's not diet drink for fairies.

    And?

  • Suppressing pictures of men in Tutu’s

    The more you try not to think about a problem, the more it gets lodged in your brain. Here's an experiment. Don't picture Rob Campbell in a Tutu, Don't think about it, don't imagine the matching leggings and pretty ballet shoes. Go on.

    Rob

    That's going to ruin your weekend.

    The more you try not to think about chocolate, the more the stuff gets stuck in your mind. 

    In other words, there's no point pretending something isn't happening, or everything's okay. It just makes it worse, rather than finding a way to deal with it.

    That's what certain agencies I could mention don't seem to get. If there's a rumour, an issue or some bad news, there is absolutely no point not being straight and fair with your staff. It will only stress them out and make things worse.

     

  • Real things in the post

    As a down with the kids, digital native, trend settingm finger on the pulse plannery type person, I do all social mediary, bloggy, Facebooky, Diggy widgety type things you would expect.

    But the things that stood out the most for me recently was two simple bits of post. Someon put a little note in with a book they sent me, which was nice…to see the hand writing and picture the office it came from (from my old desk).

    The other was a little package containing a leaving present – a block of Norwegian chocolate, a few Earl Grey tea bags and a little post card. It was from a Norwegian friend at old work who'd got dates mixed and missed my leaving date. Made me feel nice on my first day, slightly shy, nervous and stuff.

    You can be thoughtful over t'interweb of course, but nothing's as intimate as something you can touch, that's been handwritten. Don't exactly know why, that's just how it is. So I'm very grateful Ben's invited me into Newspaper Club. Not entirely sure what a Northern Newspaper will include yet, any ideas? Not sure who would want one either, apart from Mum of course.

    Now, if the postcard has a Ztam.p on it we'd really be in business. Anyway…..

  • Helen gets my desk, new book and lying emails

    BookcoverSM2

    I bought 59 seconds by Richard Wiseman, but Amazon took forever to deliver it, so the lovely Helen had to post it from new work to old work.

    She also took the opportunity to share the news that she's in my old desk and making tea properly. So that's good and the desk couldn't have gone to a nicer person (I miss my old department, despite the bullying over drinking coffee).

    Anyway, I haven't had a chance to read it, obviously, since it arrived today, but I wanted to see how good he was as compressing useful stuff into digestible, doable chunks, since that's what I'm supposed to do for a living.

    There's a good little epilogue at the back, very Behavioural Economicsy. There's a short paragraph that advises you get suspected liars to email you, people are 20% less likely to fib if they have to commit it to paper. I knew open plan offices were daft. I'm going demand my own office and shiny Yale padlock.