What happens to the strategic planner with the advent of data and marketing automation?

Second day in the digital summit and I swear that I've met agency groups who see Strategic Planners as an endangered breed.  And they rejoice to hear from one.

Strategic planners - a dying breed?  Well, that depends on where you come from.  In Malaysia, and specifically Malaysian strategic planners - yes, they're high on the list of extinction.  And if data intelligence is going to drive the client's business from now on, then how do we survive?

Image: Easystock

On the contrary, this. Is. Our. Moment.

Was reading Superforecasting on the plane and came across this very interesting paragraph:

"When the scientist tells you he does not know the answer, he is an ignorant man.  When he tells you he has a hunch about how it is going to work, he is uncertain about it.  When he is pretty sure of how it is going to work, and he tells you, " This is the way it's going to work, I'll bet, " he still is in some doubt.  And it is of paramount importance, in order to make progress, that we recognize this ignorance and this doubt.  Because we have the doubt, we then propose looking in new directions for new ideas.  The rate of the development of science is not the rate at which you make observations alone but, much more important, the rate at which you create new things to test."

Take that principle, apply it in planning. Ever come across a planner who struts in and is cocksure that his idea was going to work and everybody else's is going to fail?  Well, that's not a planner.  That's just plain bossy.  Jokes aside, it is true that we must be able to differentiate ignorance and doubt.  And it's always good to have a pinch of doubt in everything we work on because before we are planners, we are human and we must recognize that as humans, our knowledge will always be limited.  Hence, why there are always new ways to be tested, novel ways to do things.  Data, interestingly will help us to reach there and get our answers faster.  Because data does not only show historical behavior, it can also be a rich base for predictive modeling.  And that's essentially what we do isn't it?  We evaluate where the brand is today and project the highest potential of where it can be in one year, 3 years, 5 years time.  And then we work out the kinks on how to get there, considering everything good and bad that could possibly happen under the sun between now and 5 years later.  Predictive modeling helps us to close our doubtful gaps, even if not 100% and advise plans which are a lot more grounded and risk-proof in such a fast paced environment.

Account planning was half strategy and half creative - there was always something subjective albeit calculated in our proposal.  Because we were weavers of culture and we understood the fabric of people.  So we have and will always stand proudly to represent the consumer's voice in the parliament of marketing.  That human intuition will and should never go away.  It can only be made more powerful with data analytics and machine learning.  To quote Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner, "To reframe the man-versus-machine dichotomy, combinations of Garry Kasparov and Deep Blue may prove more robust than pure-human or pure-machine approaches".  The computer learns patterns and can probably spew a million positions in a few seconds, while the human mind can only project to as far as 10 steps ahead. But the computer will never be able to understand context as well as a human and there's where we trump. Honda said it right, Man Maximum, Machine Minimum when it comes to their engineering philosophy, because at the end of the day it is about the 'human taste'.  And THAT, was coined in the 40s.  Likewise, the machine might have hundreds of best variations but it still lacks our God-given creativity - the nature to start fresh without the burden of history. The even better news is, they will help us to be faster and more efficient as a planner.  In levels never before - we can make decisions overnight or in a blink of an eye.  Ten years ago, if you wanted a complete brief in 3 days, you must be out of your mind!  But today, 24 hours is possible with the right tools. But don't you dare test it on me.

Machine will never replace us. They're our friends. And they will help us to reconcile our client's brand and/or category back into the world where it happily belongs, in speed we've never been able to before. We shouldn't just wait and embrace it.  We should create it.

Monetizing curiosity.

First question - what does it take to be a planner?  You have to be curious.

But doesn't everyone in advertising... or as a matter of fact, in any industry (last I checked most Nobel Peace prize winners aren't from the communication business), should be curious?

Then the question becomes what makes a curious person, a planner?

When you can monetize curiosity.

Being curious is not enough, you need to be resourceful.  Experiencing a moment is not enough, you need to understand how to draw that moment into the creative process.  Discovering trends is not enough, you need to know why and how people's behaviour is changing and how that would affect brands.  Researching a problem is not enough, you need to find illuminating solutions.

Yup.  2013 - monetize curiosity.  Because curiosity stems all creativity.

And in case I don't see you, hope you have had a Merry Christmas and most importantly, an awesome fruitful 2013.  Take care and see you in business.

Really. Seriously. Honestly, what do planners do?

When people ask me what I do in advertising, everyone gets it if I were to say 'Client Servicing' or 'Copywriter' or 'Art Director' or 'Media' or 'Production'.  Most often than not, I just get a blank look when I say 'Planner'.  No one knows what we do.  Heck, even some within our own office don't know what we do.  While some people bitch about Servicing as being the 'high-class' messenger, we are infamously known as the 'expert' Powerpoint writer.

It's total bullshit.

What I do is I PLAN.  I solve problems.  Any problems.  Period.  Full stop.  You have a problem?  You come to me.  I give you a solution.  And that solution has a plan.  It consists of an idea that has a concise strategy to help you get out of your rut hole (Point A) and into dreamland (Point B).  Wherever your Point A is, wherever your Point B is.  It doesn't matter.  Sometimes, we can give you an even bigger plan and suggest the third point.  Point A to Point B to Point C to Point Whatever.  Till you say stop.  Small planners, small journey.  Big planners, big journey.  Simple as that.

There's no job in planning.  Planning is living.  If you're a good problem solver in life, you're a good problem solver at work.  Problems are problems, big or small.  What a planner lives on, he or she feeds back into their work.  So, there's no 9 to 5 job, it's a round-the-clock work because a planner is perpetually living, breathing and most importantly learning.  What a planner learns is oxygen (amazingly well put by fellow planner, Heidi Heckemer) to the agency.  The oxygen that's needed for the ultimate first spark of light (yes, pun intended).  Without that oxygen, there's nothing.

I'm not a workaholic.  I might seem like I'm thinking all the time.  That's because I enjoy learning.  You can't learn if you're not thinking, no? (that's why our education system failed so terribly).  So people may mistaken me as a workaholic.  Well, yea.  Whatever.

In reality, there's no such thing as a 'junior' planner.  Or planning manager, or director, or chief planner.  A planner is a planner.  You're either a planner or you're not.  A good planner or you're not.  Levels don't define how good you are, it just defines how old you are (defers maybe only in some exceptional cases).  But I guess, it's a way for management to safeguard the planning lineage in agencies.  Therefore, they need to photocopy the planning director into many little planners so that they can make more money.  Makes perfect economic sense and I'm not complaining.  But I think planning directors are just highly misunderstood.  That's all I'm saying.  I'm not interested in intellectual masturbation with C-executives.  I'm here to solve problems.  Directorship sets a diplomatic restrain on you, that's all (say that, don't say that, say that, don't say that).  It's no biggie.  Don't like?  Leave.  Be a planning nomad :) (that's my dream job actually.  And now that I've mentioned it, PLEASE REMEMBER THAT YOU READ THAT TERM HERE FIRST.  TQVM).

I have a confession.  I have trouble following rules or systems to be specific.  I can't work in a cookie cutter.  I can't live in a pigeon-hole.  That makes me unstable and that always gets me into trouble.

BIG SMILE.  Sorry, can't help it.  Learning is a dotted-life (credit Steve Jobs).  Hold that thought!  Did you just imagine some black dots on a straight line?  Whether horizontal or vertical?  Hmm.  You know what dalmatians are?  Well, that's what I'm talking about.  Sporadic dots (who says it must always be a line!).  I get suffocated, unhappy, bordering depression if I'm locked within 4-walls.  Not 4 physical walls (I don't really care about physicality) but my light gets dimmer if I'm tied down by systems.  Linear methods.  You must do this and this and this because it's this and this and this.  You must be in by 9am.  I don't really care what time I come to work but to sit in the jam for 2 hours simply don't make any common sense to me.  I defy inefficient systems.  So.  I don't come in to work at 9.  As long as I'm in when I'm needed then problem solved.  You get me now?  Yea, planning nomad.

I get suffocated if I can't travel.  If I can't go and see the world, talk to people and consume their culture, I shrink.  Some people don't.  They retain their original size.  But I will shrink.  I don't why it happens, but it happens.  I'm not sure if it's gonna work as well if you tell me to 'grow up', cause trust me, I told myself that gazillion times before.  But it doesn't work.  On the contrary.  Every time I travel, my mind grows.  It stretches itself so much to carry the excitement back to my team.  My excitement literally bursts out from me.  I wanted to share with them what I saw, who I met, what I did because I have all these great ideas that would make for great problem-solutions.  Without getting out there, my sight dims.  And I will lose the love for my work.  The love for solving problems.  The love for learning.  The love for living.

That's what I do.

That's what a planner does.

And now, I'm gonna share with you a really simple but profound slideshow from Heidi, another planning nomad.  And right after this.  I'm gonna share the link with my bosses.  It feels like these are the words which I've always wanted to tell them but never knew how.  Well, now that a planner has expertly put it into a Powerpoint, I should just click 'send'.  PTL for Slideshare.  Enjoice :)

planning, creativity & planning for creative campaigns

View more presentations from Heidi Hackemer

What is account planning?

50 years ago, Stephen King and Stanley Pollitt founded Account Planning, a fuse between Account Management and Media Planning (hence the hybrid name). Till today, nobody could really fully define the parameters of an Account Planner still. Some planners are more data analytical, some are more campaign designers, some are just... a higher class of pencil pushers with a whole load of hot air.

Nevertheless, what I feel an Account Planner's primary role is as in the words of King - to inspire creative work. Do we really?

Well, my rough definition would be:

1) Listen to the client and diagnose the illness - at this stage, it could probably be a hypothesis until further tests are carried out

2) Carry out tests to affirm or negate hypotheses

3) Define current position and more importantly what brought us here

4) Define desired position and design a strategy on how to get us out of the current rut, to where we prefer to be

5) Hypothesize the plan and run checks to 'test' out the plan (of course, this is only possible in a very ideal situation)

6) The final plan includes - the Big Idea (or some call it strategic concept, depending how creative/serious you want your stakeholders to view you) and the broad communication strategy

7) Once the road map is set, drill down - chart the consumer journey, and match messages with media, identify responses at each communication stage. A good Big Idea should be like a glue which holds everything together

8) Put on your creative hat, mash messages with media - at this stage, innovate something - put a spark into the plan

9) Design in detail each component based on its objectives

10) Put a timeline and it will show how realistic or lofty the plan is - revise accordingly

11) Implement

12) Measure - are we where we set out to be? And what got us here?

I'm always inspired to read words of old planning gurus. King made advertising sound like... a professional industry made up of art and science - truly unique, one of its kind, complementing and contradicting - one that makes us proud of what we can produce that significantly contributes to the society, economically and sustainably.

IMHO: Account Planner or not, don't ever let go of that pride. And if you are proud to be in the ad industry, prove your worth and stop pushing pencils.

WWP's John Steel - every planner's dream boss.

Inspiring. I've got to look for John Steel...

Bedtime read: Stephen King.

Known as the Godfather of Account Planning, he said:

Many managements have copied the most overt element of BMP's account planning, without fully understanding the depth of skill and breadth of interest involved, the very high ratio of planners to account managers and the great commitment to training. All they have seen, in fact, is account planners running group discussions. As a result a large number of qualitative researches have found themselves, after four years or so of slogging away at group discussions, translated overnight into instant agency Account Planning Directors. It was so much easier to find them than people with a thorough grounding in all aspects of brand building. - Published (reproduced) in 1989.

Wherefore art they, O'King? If not from research!

Fastforward two decades, and instead of research agencies, we see an influx of planners from account servicing. Some grew in love for strategies (but then again, that's a little vague), some grew in detest of clients (a hard truth, but a truth nevertheless). For us to really grow planning talent, I'm afraid they will have to come from media or marketing. Best if hybrid, but that's where they should come from. Preferably, the client's side. Someone who finds sole data crunching a little limiting to their growth.

And really Mr. King... it is too ideal to have 1 Account Planner to 1 Account Manager. My management will drop dead laughing at my utopian proposal! (On second thought, hey... may I should...).

Dan Meyer gives teaching insights @ Ted.

Dan is a math teacher and he loves teaching. I guess that's really enough of a reason why parents and the society at large should be thankful for having thought leaders like him in generation building. Albeit it may be for selfish reasons which he so candidly pointed out, "I'll be retiring in a world which these kids will be running". Yea man, if I were him, I would be more careful of the knowledge which I will be imparting to these young people too.

Also, what I could so resonate with him is the following slide:

He said, students these days come installed with these 5 viruses. I say, "No Dan. A lot of people are infected".

Just take a look at our industry. How do you think the young advertising professionals will score? Sixteen year olds are cute. Early 20s can still cut it. Anything over 25 is not. C'mon really! In some countries, they're ripe for parenthood!

I think what Dan Meyer pointed out was the fact that we're all jumping the gun, too eager for solutions. We do not look at the situation and try to formulate the problem and then consider the solutions. We're so eager to get into the 'cheat sheet' - what has worked before? And try to formulate solutions based on the check list. Doesn't it sound familiar to you? As I commented: No wonder Originality is dead. Apparently Rule pushed him over the cliff.

Note: If you are an aspiring planner and you find it hard to understand why your Planning Director is taking certain routes and extra hard to well, copy. Don't. His formula may be the right one for obvious reasons. But no one said it was the best one (but it could be too for also obvious reasons). The important thing is for you to attempt the challenge first then get help second. Problem formulation is more important than problem solving. And that skill comes from practice. From Occam's Razor: Always address the why before the how.

Double note: Oh teachers of Malaysia! Utilize social and multimedia! Take your classroom 'out' without physically taking them out! :) Get inspired here.

Death of a strategic planner.

The key word of today's marketing communication discipline. Integration, integration, integration. Traditional planners become the consumer voice, conduct extensive social type researches to get a slice of the consumer's life and present it in the most inspiring manner for creative to chew. Traditional planners also provide indicative direction to the must-have mass channels in the campaign, supported by media data. Traditional planners help (and even encourage) creatives to say one thing and one thing only in the campaign, regardless of media. That's not wrong. Because that reflects the traditional consumer who's a digital immigrant (I learned a new word today) compared to his or her digital native younger counterpart. He or she is forced to use digital medium (computer, PDAs, handphones, etc) because that's how the world has evolved into it.

If traditional media is dead, then guess who's buried with it? Yup. Planners.

Today's planners need to be a Jack of all traits and Master of some. They need to know all interactive medium such as digital, mobile, PR and events because engagement is the key to integration, on top of what they already know about mass advertising. True value creation today comes from collaborative willingness from consumers. Part of the responsibility of communication should be socially skewed, to provide conusmers with a sustainable long-term value versus short-termed benefits. It's hard to spell everything out in one paragraph but, in a nutshell, planners should really evolve to consider the social innovation realm as part of the marketing mix discipline.

Evolve. Evolve. Evolve.

Advertising: Planners becoming account servicing.

In most agencies and recent times, and no one can deny this fact, more and more account servicing people are migrating into planning. One is because of the better pay. Two is because of the sterling image that comes with the title 'Strat Planner' compared to 'AE/M/D/etc'. Third because it's dubbed 'The Brain' in the agency. Bullsh*t.

There are very steady account management people whom I've met who don't need the title 'Planner' to be a planner. And they are usually heads of the accounts and teams and make up a minority of the advertising population. Due to this huge deficit of planners in the industry, headhunters scout for researchers and AEs and AMs and install them as planners in prospective agencies.

Some made it, some never did.

Since I'm not yet very good at planning myself and management recognized that I'd need a lot of help, we've been hiring planners since... day one. I've been surprised, irritated but mostly amused by a stream of account servicing people who came to 'suss' us out and compare us with the other wonderful offers the other wonderful agencies are offering, since planners are a rare species. They claim to have 'passion' in planning therefore they are out of the 'servicing' box and should be given the position. Basically what they are telling us is they didn't want to do what account servicing does - namely budgeting, client management and executing projects. Instead they want to be the 'brain'. Bullsh*t.

Strategic planning is something you grow into, not a title which you hold.

Since our hiring strategy didn't work very well, we made both our planners and account servicing do budgeting, client management and execution on top of researching, planning and tracking. We make them plan big brand stuff, we make them plan executable campaign stuff. We make them give out leaflets in roadshows, we make them present in front of client management. We make them scam creative ads, we make them design proposals. We make them interview consumers, we make them create sense out of analytics. We make them drink with the client, we make them challenge them. We make them think brand strategies, we make them create an activation plan. We make them work independently, we make them dependent on the team. We make them planners, we make them creators. We make them doers, we make them thinkers.

So what happened after this short little experiment? Turnover rate of the team dropped tremendously, more business from the client, more synergy in all of our campaigns, more respect from and for creative and vendors and last but not least more ownership on the projects.
So instead of hiring account servicing people to be planners. We are hiring planners to be in account servicing. We can all put something on paper and if there's no one who could sell it to the client, then there will be no you. No me.

You think it, you sell it, you make it happen. Period.

Four types of planners in Sparks' world.

*'Syiok sendiri' is Malay, direct translation = 'self pleasure'.

Learning to be a (great) planner 101 #4.

How to overcome butterflies in your stomach when presenting?

Present only what you know and present it with passion :)

Learning to be a (great) planner 101 #2.

Agency myth: There will be monies allocated to do all the research you want about the brand, the product and your target market.

Correction: Yea right. Show me this agency and I'll show you a self-sacrificial government leader.

I've been thrown the same question by a lot of people lately. Why on earth am I doing what I'm doing when it's not supposed to be done by me? Well, going back to the myth above. No. Agencies do not have a bottomless pit for planners to research whether formally or not. Not the money, not the time (time spared is money burnt, some thinks) and definitely not the manpower (or woman). That's why it would be important to use every opportunity for self-initiatives and if possible try something new. Execute something you've never done. Exchange roles with someone who complains a lot about what they do. Do something different other than researching, reading and planning. To a certain extent, executing activations especially on-ground events where there are great opportunities for physical human interaction, these are great grounds for planners to find out more about their target, the product, the brand. For free. In a way. Observe and learn. Multitasking stretches your perspective to a spectrum of possibilities you never thought possible.

I'm doing what I'm doing because it will eventually add on to what I should be doing, that's why.

How to be a (great) planner 101 #1.

Don't ever. EVER. Think you have something which is above the rest. If you resist the driver, BE a driver. If you resist the promoter girls, BE a promoter girl. If you resist the Mat Rempits, BE one of them (just make sure you don't get caught and you did not. I repeat, DID NOT read this from my blog). If you resist the client, run a mile in their shoes. If you hate your supplier, move in with them for a month (which I did, not a month because my 'own house' was on fire... but thanks Slipknot ;) I don't hate you guys so much anymore).

The tip is to be able to relate to almost everything and anything in the world. Because these things give you perspectives. Perspectives give you understanding. And it is this 'understanding' which gives you insights.