This is a really tough one. At what point as a Planner do you say “I’m not adding value to this project and my time would be better spent working on something else”.
I’m talking here about the typical integrated mid-sized UK agency, where a Planner has a fair amount of autonomy and might have a good half dozen projects across disparate clients and pitches on the go at any one time, rather than Stanley Pollitt’s idealised two-or-three-clients-per-Planner.
There are never going to be enough Planners to go round an agency and yet how do you know which projects are going to be the ones where you can really make a difference?
Perhaps some else in the agency just ‘gets’ this client better than you do. Or the work has settled down into a regular cycle of execution and the Account Director is on top of things. While on another account, the client’s business is growing like crazy and suddenly they’re asking about how they can understand their target audience better.
Then there is the seemingly low profile B2B design job that develops into a fascinating repositioning and rebranding project while that juicy project for the household name FMCG turns out to be glorified artwork.
There is a whole other post here (that I’m sure Scamp would have a lot to say about) looking at when Planning can best add value to the creative process and when Planners should butt out and leave the Creatives to it, but that will have to wait for another day.
It’s always a tough call.