Skip to content
  • home
  • About me
  • What I do
  • Remote Training
  • blog
  • contact me

Gemma Teed

Helping brands communicate better

Category: Planning

Keep it simple, Strategist

Posted on 10/11/202010/11/2020 by almostalwaysthinking in Account Planning, creative briefing, Planning, presenting

I’ve always been a less-is-more type when it comes to putting my thoughts on paper. In my first few years as a Planner in the early 2000's, I was fortunate that back then agency clients were generally happy with half a dozen slides of ‘show your thinking’ with a few cited insight sources. By the … Continue reading Keep it simple, Strategist →

Tagged brevity, keep it simple, trainingLeave a comment

Training the future

Posted on 30/07/201828/07/2018 by almostalwaysthinking in Account Planning, Planning, training

My last post Where have all the Planners gone? about the lack of trained Junior and Midweight Planners round here (due to the lack of available training and opportunities for them) resonated with a few people Up North, particularly former Planner Chris McCash, now of Breadwinner. He offered to host a Planning get-together in Leeds to … Continue reading Training the future →

Leave a comment

for Planners, gut instinct matters however experienced you are

Posted on 10/04/201809/04/2018 by almostalwaysthinking in Account Planning, Planning, strategy

When meeting prospective Planners, I always try to find out if their brains are wired the right way to be a great Planner - are they interested in what makes people tick, problem solving, investigation and communication? Do they appreciate the link between brand comms and the bottom line? And perhaps most importantly, have they … Continue reading for Planners, gut instinct matters however experienced you are →

Leave a comment

Planning is changing, fast

Posted on 03/11/201705/03/2018 by almostalwaysthinking in Account Planning, AI, Data Science, Machine Learning, Marketing, Planning, trends

I work for an agency that is very, very excited about the way that data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence are going to significantly change marketing, not least because all of the above will free us to spend less time knee deep in spreadsheets and Google Analytics and more time thinking (and in the … Continue reading Planning is changing, fast →

Leave a comment

the Planner’s 12 days of Christmas

Posted on 05/12/201603/12/2016 by almostalwaysthinking in Account Planning, agencies, Planning

On the 12 days of Christmas, the Planner gave to the Agency: twelve propositions, eleven customer journeys, ten creative briefs, nine internal meetings, eight marcoms workshops, seven big brand pitches, six brand personas, loads of PowerPoint, four brand positionings, three focus groups, two conference calls, and a client away-day by the sea.

Tagged twelve days of ChristmasLeave a comment

Planning needs to go back to the Old School

Posted on 20/01/2016 by almostalwaysthinking in Account Planning, agencies, Planning, strategy

I increasingly feel like Planning as a discipline/specialism within agencies is over-complicating things. Never mind thinking about what's changed since Planning's inception in the 1960's, so much has shifted in the UK even just the last 20 years. Back in the 90's (yes, I've been a Planner for that long), clients liked seeing the thinking behind the Big Idea - in pitch … Continue reading Planning needs to go back to the Old School →

Tagged processLeave a comment

why do only agencies have Planners?

Posted on 15/06/201530/06/2015 by almostalwaysthinking in Account Planning, Planning

Good account planning is about helping to make The Work better / more effective and helping to make life easier for the account team, creatives and client. So I've started to wonder why the role of Planner is mostly limited to marketing agencies (with a few exceptions like the BBC).  After all, these days agencies … Continue reading why do only agencies have Planners? →

Tagged creative, creative development, musicalsLeave a comment

Planning comes full circle Up North – and that isn’t a good thing

Posted on 16/03/2015 by almostalwaysthinking in Account Planning, agencies, Planning

Last autumn I blogged about the devaluation of Planning as an agency function - at least as I saw it happening Outside London.  But it now strikes me that it's not just that agencies are scared by how much decent experienced Planners cost and are promoting their own staff to Planning status instead. It's cause-and-effect - Planners have … Continue reading Planning comes full circle Up North – and that isn’t a good thing →

Leave a comment

Planner or Strategist?

Posted on 09/09/2014 by almostalwaysthinking in Account Planning, agencies, Planning, trends

I don't know what it's like Inside London, but Outside London the Planning scene seems to me to have changed quite dramatically in the last 18 months. After agencies limped through the recession on a minimal headcount they've now staffed up again.  And Planning/Strategy is one of the specialisms that is in growth.  But in many … Continue reading Planner or Strategist? →

2 Comments

why Planners are the backing not the star

Posted on 26/08/201426/08/2014 by almostalwaysthinking in Account Planning, agencies, Planning, Work

I read this great post from Ben Kay over the weekend about the awesome documentary about backing singers 20 Feet from Stardom (which if you haven’t seen yet, you should). His agency-relevant take on it was that like many backing or background singers never becoming famous in their own right because they have the voice … Continue reading why Planners are the backing not the star →

Tagged 20 feet from stardom1 Comment

Posts navigation

Older posts

The views expressed here are obviously my own and do not reflect those of past or current clients or employers

  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Create a website or blog at WordPress.com
Cancel