Value added Planning
5 January, 2007 at 1:02 pm 2 comments
In yesterdays post, I said that there was a whole other post to come looking at when Planning can best add value to the creative process and when Planners should butt out and leave the Creatives to it. So here it is.
Marketing agencies would (and many do) function perfectly well without Planners. Ads would still leave the building on time, brochures would still get printed. So we have to add value to the creative process to justify our existence. But that doesn’t necessarily mean breathing down the necks of the creative team or insisting on writing every single creative brief ourselves.
It might mean working with account handlers to improve their brief writing skills or ensuring that the research is asking the right questions, trawling the internet for some speck of insight or sharing thinking with the media planner. In my opinion, anything I do that means that the final piece of communications is more effective is me doing my job properly.
I know that Scamp and Russell Davies have both posted on roughly this subject before, but I can’t for the life of me find their posts (if anyone can, please add a link to the comments section as I’d love to read them again).
Entry filed under: Account Planning, agencies, Planning. Tags: Account Planning, Creative Department, Creatives, effectiveness, Planning.
1. Stan Lee | 6 January, 2007 at 2:00 pm
A very interesting post. I wonder if the casual dropping of the word strategy has been a factor in the “what exactly do planners do?” dilemma. The very name Strategy Planner says so much. Planner however, well….
2. Planning is mediation? « (almost) always thinking | 9 February, 2007 at 1:04 pm
[...] I share Jason’s view that Planning is about creating great work that works. But while Jason thinks it should be all about the planner-client relationship, I’m more in favour of a value-added ‘helping wherever you’re most needed’ approach. [...]