Trials & Tribulations of a Planning newbie

So this is my first post on JPIA and it's a long time coming. I've had access to write here for over a month, but have been caught in the whirlwind of a new city and new job. I myself am a new Planner straight out of Austin, Texas. I just started my first full-time gig at a good agency in Chicago six weeks ago. Coming out of Miami Ad School's Account Planning Boot Camp last September, I didn't know where I'd end up or how long it would take. It certainly was a long and arduous process that took almost a full year to land a job. And here's the thing, that's not uncommon. Planners I have met, at all career levels, say that it took six months to one year to land a full-time gig in Planning.

When I left MAS, it was the final quarter of 2009. Needless to say, agencies and their clients had shut it down for the year, financially and in new hires. In January, I managed to land a freelance Planning gig for three months, working at TracyLocke 20 hrs/week. That ended in March and the great hunt (for a job) picked up steam. Finally, in May, I got the offer I wanted and accepted. I interviewed seriously (beyond 1st interview) for three global agencies, two mid-sized agency, and one very small agency. I got two offers at the same time and one more a week a too late (from their perspective). I say this just to give an idea of just how difficult it can be. The places that didn't offer me a job just needed a different fit for what they were looking for, whether it was experience level or digital chops. And judging from the stories of my classmates at MAS, their experiences weren't far from that. Everyone in the class has been hired though, so that should tell you something. We all found jobs, but in different ways. Four of us work for big agencies (big = owned by holding company), one works for a strategic consulting group, one person got laid off, another got in the door with media planning, another worked client-side first before moving over.

I believe there's a lot of reasons why it can be difficult. Planning as a career field is very small. There just aren't a lot of Planners in the agency because there doesn't need to be. Planners can do a lot of heavy lifting (in terms of branding/thinking/problem solving) and just isn't the same kind of work one sees in Account Management, Production, or Media.

Being a strong Planner requires a certain set of skills and characteristics that are hard to define. It's hard to tell with 1-2 interviews if someone has the skill set to be a good Planner. New Planners or those that want to break in should have some kind of work to show. Seeing how a Planner thinks can help interviewers understand that person's potential.

Getting hired as a Planner, like a lot of other job openings, is a mixture of timing and connections. The great thing about the Planning community being so small is that everyone is open to meeting others. Plus, Planners are very transparent online (or are we just vain?), keeping blogs (like this!) and using social networks (you better be on Twitter) to share content, hold conversations, and keep in touch. It's very easy to start the conversation online and if location isn't an issue, planning a get together with others over coffee or a beer.

This may have sounded like some kind of warning or begrudging commentary, but that wasn't the intention. This is a part of the reality of the situation. I came out of school believing I would find something in a month or two. That may not have been the case, but here's the other side of the situation. Now that I'm in the "club" full-time, I couldn't be happier. All that stress and hard work paid off. So, while it may take a while or be hard to get in the door, it's totally worth it once you're there. I say that wholeheartedly. So all of you aspiring Planners, all of you who are just starting to dive in to books like "Truth, Lies, and Advertising," get excited about the career you are starting because it's awesome.

~ Justin D.

Engage!

Hi there!

It's not a line from Star Trek (although, i must admit I was a Trekkie in my youth). I think it's the most important step a young and/ or aspiring planner can make towards joining the industry by researching and gathering knowledge from the planning community.

This is how I see things.

You are a brand. You've got it all: core values, history, visual identity, a communication strategy, communication channels and targets you want to reach. Planning is the completely new consumer target you want to reach and, pardon my expression, sell yourself to. You start researching the market, its history, context, insights and values and come to the conclusion that indeed this is your target and the next step in your development. But which strategy will you use to convince an agency that you are the best choice / investment in your over-crowded cathegory?

Start simple.

Engage the online planning community, become a part of it, find out how it feels and how it thinks, learn from it (be it case studies or just opinionated rants), bring all your experimental thinking to it and... don't be afraid to join in the conversation because, as Richard Huntington puts it, "blogging isn’t killing planning it’s the best thing that has happened since the death of the overhead projector"

Thanks!

See you soon.
~ def

What they're looking for

7 things:

- curiosity. Of the world around and of something specific. No butterflies allowed
- empathy. To be able to see the world from different perspectives
- the ability (?) to worry about a problem until it has been properly sorted
- questioning & listening. The ability to ask searching questions and hear the answers
- imagination. To make stuff out of your empathy
- reality. Everything has to be doable.

Craig Elston, the author of the original post is looking for at least 7 of these.

Good luck!

What happened to connections planning?

A great presentation found on Ed's Influx Insights made by Jason and Gareth at this year's Planning-ness conference in San Francisco, rallied by Mark.

Connections Planningness

View more documents from Jason Oke.

Some great points:

• Where connections planning went wrong: we applied the lens of advertising (interruptive, message-based) to new media. We should apply the lens of new media (interactivity, iteratioin) to advertising.

• We have an opportunity to rethink the value of connections planning. It's a new creative process, not an output.

• Put human connections at the heart of everything, grounded in a deep understanding of what people are trying to do, what the brand is trying to do, and how people use media.

• It isn't about digital, it's about planning for interaction.

Take a look through the slides for more, and take some time to reflect on the way you view the role of planning. Do we need to segment the discipline or should it just be the way we all think?

nailing down the objectives

prologue: the conversation will always run long and unfocused unless you set objectives first.

This morning, I was looking through my Twitter feed and was engaged by a comment from my social media friend @Kyleplacy, he said: Do you think the customer cares more about the experience of the purchase and not the purchase itself?

my first reactive reply was: re: customer experience - I think the purchase is their primary motivation but if the experience is good, loyalty will ensue

@kyleplacy: I think it depends on the product.. a high cost item will be more experience driven.. thoughts?

This was all via Twitter mind you. Then because it felt like we needed a more immediate way to communicate, we transitioned to gchat, and we discussed the following:

8:36 AM kyle: hello!

how goes it in wonderful TX?

me: cloudy with a chance of meatballs

8:37 AM me: an interesting way to start for sure

about the experience...

8:38 AM I think the "brand experience" is extremely crucial to nail down, but it's the product that attracts them to that experience

kyle: I would say it is the marketing that attracts them to the experience of the product

me: bad ads for jewelry, on the radio? I think it's a bad medium

for that category

kyle: I agree

it depends on the product though..

8:39 AM the shopping experience for a low cost shopper (WAlmart) doesn't really matter

they care tooooo much about the price

me: very true

kyle: but for a high end product.. the experience matters (marketing, store, employee) just as much.. if not more

me: but what would you sell in "an ad?"

the experience or the product?

8:40 AM you'd sell the product and make it an experience

kyle: you tell a story.. an experience.. that in turn sells the product

a product is just a product without an experience..

it is just another diamond ring..

me: right

kyle: or a car..

:)

me: agreed

8:41 AM there are a lot of bad ads in this world

creating a brand experience definitely needs to be a box to check when creating a brand campaign

I think it may do more to differentiate your brand and raise awareness than drive sales though

8:42 AM kyle: amen erin.. amen

me: I think you have to ask yourself what the objectives are. and then create accordingly

All in all, a productive conversation. I think every goal you ever have should have an objective to begin with, an objective that solves a problem. What are you trying to do? What does the brand need? What need will it be satisfying? What do you want to achieve and what problem will be you be solving? - start here and I assure you the (brand) conversation, in whatever format (or media) you choose will be productive, efficient, and effective.

You can read more from Kyle's POV in his latest blog post: Diamond Marketing and Selling the Experience.

writing a brand manifesto

From David at brandgymblog:

Brand manifestos are a better way to work on the vision for your brand, allowing you more freedom to express yourself, and [to help identify] what you really want to "fight for".

What are your guiding principles, beliefs and issues you want to take a stand on?

I encourage people to use provocative language, not politically correct corporate speak.

There are a series of exercises in Brand Vision to use in creating a brand manifesto, including:

1. If you were on a protest march in the street to fight against something, what would you write on your banner? And if you were to flip this into a positive and fight for something, what would you write?
2. What is the bigger role your brand can play in everyday life? What sort of "legacy" would you like to leave behind after 5 years on the brand?

A comment on David's post reads: we forget that we're supposed to be engaging people. Not clients. Not consumers. But people. And the only way to really do this is to talk in simple, human terms.

Jennifer Rice says on her blog:

So I see a brand manifesto as a declaration of 1) the core intention of the brand, 2) the guiding principles of the brand, and 3) the policies that guide each department to effectively realize the stated intention. So unlike brand visions or missions (which only focus on intention), a brand manifesto should get into the nitty gritty of turning the intention into reality.

Ultimately, a manifesto needs to put a stake in the ground - what do you stand for? what do the people who subscribe to your vision believe in? what world do you and they want to see?

Take a stab at it, it might feel poetic, it might feel liberating, it might just be the best thing you ever did for your brand. :)

Visual Thinking

We all get spam. But in the workplace, it's a different kind of spam - vendors hoping to prove their usefulness with the provision of information. Jen Spencer might have it right:

"We all know we are in the Information Age, constantly being bombarded through email (sometimes in the form of newsletters - ha!), tv, blogs, ads, marketing messages, and the list goes on and on. This barrage of information often leaves us in a continuous state of being overwhelmed, making it difficult to focus, see clarity, and find the mental space and time for innovation.

Check out Jessica Hagy's work at Indexed.

I happened upon the Visual Thinking Movement, through a local maven and crusader, Sunni Brown. Visual thinking '...is the common phenomenon of thinking through visual processing using the part of the brain that is emotional and creative to organize information in an intuitive and simultaneous way.'

This method of working is being used by all levels of professionals to connect facts and insights with visual images and representations, allowing for a higher level of understanding and recall from the audience to which they are speaking. Graphic recorders and facilitators have shown their prowess at events like TED and SXSW Interactive.

Most of you work in creative environments and practice this work for your clients in one form or another. Images are powerful and words can create magic -- whether you are marketing a message, creating an ad, designing a logo, the details matter. And, too many details clutter.

Visual thinking marries creativity with your thought process. The emerging result can bring about a different cognition for yourself and others.

And, the great thing is: anyone can do it! You don't need to be an "artist" or "creative" to practice visual thinking and implement visual thinking skills in all aspects of your life. As Austin Kleon says, there are only 5 shapes (dot, line, circle, square, and triangle).

Check out Visual Notetaking 101 offered by VizThink

How can you use visual thinking?
1) To cut through the noise to hear the succinct points
2) Steal a creative moment in everyday meetings, conference calls, and presentations
3) Sell a complex or simple idea through to a client
4) Describe a process or desired outcome
5) Laying out a project and timeline
6) Understanding cogs in the wheel
7) Goal Setting
8) Self-Expression
etc.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Training offered through The Grove + VizThinkU
The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Picutres
Ed Emberley's Drawing Book: Make a World
Handbook of Pictorial Symbols
Indexed

Give a damn, get a lot. - by Jessica Hagy of Indexed (image above)

Lastly, if you would like to enhance and develop your skills and talent and achieve a higher level of leadership and satisfaction in the work you do, Jen Spencer Coaches is here to support you in your greatness.

My niche: Companies and individuals that provide creative services.
My clients: Men in their 30's and 40's going through transition and evolution AND driven women

Jen Spencer Coaches wants to hear more about you. To receive a complimentary consultation, email or call Jen.

Enjoy your brains (left and right)! And experience a wonderful summer..."

And that's Jen Spencer and her wonderful, unexpected Spam.

Hope you all enjoy thinking about Visual Thinking.
Have a creative day!

keeping things honest

I got a compliment the other day from a colleague:

"Thanks for keeping us honest."

It's hard sometimes to make the time to actually look at all the information we have to position a brand, identify a target, and set true objectives. But it's always easy to make decisions if the information you have is insightful.

Find the insights planners, they are out there.

plannerly advice

My director and I went to launch a month ago so I could pick his brain about things to improve upon. Here are some of his advice clips on being a planner:

• The job of the planner is to be the most confident person in the room. If you think about it, we're the ones who actually make sense of why we're doing what we're doing, why we're talking to a particular target audience, why we're using this particular strategy, why this strategy works, etc. Knowing that all of the parts make sense should allow us to speak with confidence. :)
• With this confidence, planners set in place the backbone of an idea. Again, we're there to answer the 'why'? We need to sound like we're in control.

At times when I'm struggling for a new angle or maybe the day-to-day has caught up with me and my life feels like Groundhog's Day, I turn the planning discipline on myself. Where am I? Where do I want to be? How do I get there?

Ok. Go!

creative briefs

Some things I've learned in my first year:

1. do not always happen
2. should be part of a larger conversation/should never be a hand off
3. help the creatives identify what the strategy means to who
4. sometimes are just "the form to fill out"
5. sometimes they're not brief
6. media peeps will be the most interested in demographics
7. creative guidelines are more of a "must do" than a general direction
8. the client will always want to see their name in the single most persuasive
   
9. using direct quotes from consumers helps get the language right

My insight today was point number 3 - that they help give color to why the strategy works for our target audience. I always though the brief was just a one-sheeter with power-packed, inspirational language that would help focus the creative output, but to hear that creatives are identifying with the strategy from it, make me happy.

Maybe this is a "duh" point to make, but it was validating to hear and helps to support this planning document even more. :)

What is Twitter?

I was asked this today by a creative. Instead of acting smugly "in the know," I tried to explain Tweets, Tweeps, and the service in general. Here's what came out:

It's considered a microblogging service, but you don't have to put up a whole post or anything, just a short message with 140 characters or less.

So, it's like a blog?

No, it's more of a feed. You have followers and you follow people, and depending the content of your Tweets and vice versa, it's a news feed more or less of cool stuff you might be into.

So, what do I write about?

Anything you want, it's mostly about what's going to be of most interest to your followers and what you like to read. There are many types of "feeds." Mine is about cool advertising, thinking news because those are the kind of people I follow. But if you wanted to know about mundane time at which someone's getting their coffee in the morning or hitting their afternoon slump, those kinds of Tweets are out there to know about.

I do Facebook, that's about it.

Well, Facebook - and its new "facelift" - is a lot like Twitter, where you see other people's updates in real time...

The conversation changed turns and we were then setting up a context mapping session in which I will reference Twitter and Facebook and review sites. At least he won't be blindsighted when I bring up Tweets, but the issue (and game for planners) will come when we bring to life how social media is changing people's consumption of media in general.

I think it's a matter of asking the right questions so that we include social media in the conversation. This was in fact the very topic of a planner I feel privileged to work with, Planning for conversations by Christopher Owens at the AAAA Planning Conference 2008. Conversations are powerful, conversations can happen anywhere, and brands, products and companies must be conversational. Ok. But how do we make this happen?

The standard questions on a brief don't take into account the interaction that can happen with a brand. Should this piece of paper be changing to include a social space? If we were to answer the question "what's my brand's share factor?" What would we say? If were to "guide" the conversation, where would we take it? What do we want people to talk about? Or rather, what are they talking about and how can we participate?

things to think about.

I.I. with brand management

A couple months ago, I asked a brand manager if I could take them out for coffee and talk to them about brand management; informational interviews have always been a favorite activity of mine to find out about occupations - so even though I'm employed here, I still wanted the I.I. structure.

Specific questions turned into conversation, but here were three answers that stuck out:

Q1. What is your role within the client team?

To represent the client to the agency; handle the majority of communication between the agency and client; determine the appropriate resources; handle billing and time.

Q2. How do you work differently with media, creatives, and planning?

In terms of relative power with the client - creatives, brand planning, media. There's an opportunity for each discipline to have a partnership with each other: Some of the best people in media still bring ideas to the table even though they know the client will ix nay their idea.

Working with senior planners, they're partners in strategy and coming up with marketing communications.

Working with juniors, it's about managing details and helping with the research.

Q3. What are some characteristics I should work on developing to set me up for success?

Be smart but in a humble way; use the Socratic method to lead folks

No whining - "that's not my job" doesn't fly

Be curious, always want to know more, push it further

Verbal brilliance defines a planner - the more interesting you are, the more you will be valued

Make yourself top of mind - stop by to talk to people, remind them you're here

Fight for the resources you need. If you don't have the depth of information you need to write brief, then say so!

Develop your presentation skills, have a style, seek out opportunities to speak and have an audience

the generation to redefine what planning is

Amidst all the new ways to communicate, engage, and connect, could we say that "connections planning" is the evolution of account and/or brand planning?

When I was in Miami Ad School, Catrina McAuliffe opened our session with a class on the History of Account Planning. She talked about everyone from Stanley Pollitt (the father) to Jay Chiat (the first U.S. agency to have it). She put it all in context and then gave our generation a daunting task: you will be ones to redefine how planning works.

Ok. Look at this article from Mediaweek in mid-2008:

Communications planning is a more strategic way of determining key media choices. It's about moving away from the science of delivering messages to audiences and toward the art of understanding how consumers receive and respond to communication. The starting point is the consumer, not the media channel or discipline. When practiced at its best, communications planning not only influences where a marketer's creative will run, but also informs the creative, strategic, and activation processes as well.

Could this possibly be the next phase of planning? If we think about plannng now, we can't solely focus on the brand without taking into account all of the places it can intersect with a "target audience." Perhaps before, it was much more of a brand strategy in so much as what we had to say (the message) had to be strategic enough to resonate with an audience. Now perhaps, it's placement (an engagement) instead of the message that makes a brand most salient. We shouldn't expect brand planning to sit in its place, unchanged, when consumers and communications are changing rapidly around us; it needs to evolve to.

Determining how channels are integrated into the marketing communication effort is a core role of ________ planning.

(I added the _____) Is this media planning? Or connections planning? brand planning? account planning?

To me, we're talking about insights and connectivity - the focus of any "planner." Everyone can be insightful, but it's planning (in whatever category) that is held accountable for its representation at every touchpoint.

For those people who have been in planning for 10, 20, 30 years, can you see its evolution? Or should I bite the bullet and concede to the discipline being fragmented into tiny counterparts that have to do with different spheres of experience?

Or rather is connections planning the new media planning? And how do you brand planners feel about its responsibilities solely lying within another department?

in today's "knowledge economy"

For a new breed of professional, life is a blend of work and leisure where you're never in the right place. Always on the go, we feel like we are in the right place at the right time only when in transit, moving from point A to B. Constant motion is a balm to an anxious culture where we are haunted by the feeling that we are frauds, expendable in the workplace because so much of our service work is intangible.

Otherwise known as the "Elsewhere Class," never have so many professionals worked in such abstract industries.

I would place account planning/brand strategy in this new breed, and there have been many blog posts by green and mature planners alike that say something like "I need to think for hours and then come back with a fresh mind to tackle a problem." This thinking time is definitely not the same "labor" as being able to quantify the bottles of beer, milk, or juice you filled and packaged, and are now ready to ship by the crate (which you can also count). We can't look at our thinking time and assess its worth.

The ubiquity of information in today's "knowledge economy" makes each occupation's claim to unique expertise flimsier and flimsier.

Trend-watching services have dubbed this on-all-the-time trend with many names, but not until I read this article did I feel validated in my professional struggle to prove my value. As a Millennial in a workplace with Gen X, Boomers, and Matures; and as a planner, a fairly new discipline unto itself; I'm working constantly to bring to life the abstract. As an active member with many social media, I like to think that the tangible part to evaluate is a conversation, but I know people would disagree with me. What can I take away from a conversation? What value is a conversation? I've been asked this before and my answer is often actionable ideas. But is this good enough?

Time and social media will tell.

For more, read the article "Welcome to Elsewhere" in Newsweek

Best strategic work of 09?

Last year about this time, I put together a short reel for our creative department here that included some of the best strategic work of 07. I mostly compiled them from blogs I'd read and maybe an AdAge Top 10 list, but I wanted to ask those of you who read this blog what you considered to be some of the best (planning) work of 08.

Looking forward to your input.
Thanks!

Get out the vote!

Just popped on Twitter and saw a tweet from Mark Earls that plugged this post from Neil at Only Dead Fish. I don't know how long he's been doing this, but just seeing it motivates me to read more blogs. Thanks for the inspiration!

And if you're a planner (and read blogs), go vote!

planning - the new year

Just read Ed Cotton's post about old vs. new school planning at Influx. He makes a great point about the discipline evolving, learn from the past, but be forward-looking.

The advertising environment has changed so dramatically, that unless Planners have an understanding of both content and context, they will be hopelessly lost.

As always, the idea for content, or the creative proposition can come from anywhere, even sales reports, but we now have access to a lot more material these days, beyond the focus group, to find these ideas.

The challenge for planners is to come up with platforms for ideas that have power in today's communication environment, they have to understand the context in which communication now works, without that, all the discipline in the world counts for nothing.

I hope to see more teamwork between planners of all disciplines: media/connections/brand in 2009.

moving to a new blog

I have been pulled in many new directions lately and have neglected to give JPIA the love and time it needs to be the robust resource I so want it to be. I have struggled with this for many reasons, namely:

• a blog helps me think through ideas and link them to new stimuli
• a blog keeps me in touch with the World Wide Web and all of the new cool websites that people are having fun with
• JPIA has been invaluable as a networking tool, a network I received much inspiration from and feel sad to have not been able to return the favor to in a long time

With that said, I have decided to consolidate my resources and time on a new blog to serve the functions above. My new blog will also provide me a comfortable link to my full-time job which I felt I couldn't do with JPIA because it was much more "me-centric" in nature. Culture Snack will be a collaborative effort with my colleagues to discuss the thoughts and questions we have about our experiences in advertising. I'm going to pair this blog with my twitterfeed. I think a blog for thought development and a Twitter for connecting will serve me well in my newly-busy bee world.

For JPIA, thank you for all you've done for developing me as the planner I am today. The support and advice I have received has been vital for my sanity and growth as an effective part of the the advertising industry, helping it to be better and stronger for a future of healthy consumerism and creativity.

Plan on.

planners caught in the middle

Let me know if you've experienced something similar:

your super smart insights help win the agency new business.
your strategic prowess helps position the brand within a dead category.
you excite the creative teams: they are creating Nike.
production begins.
then nothing...
some management conversations happen here and there, you hear tidbits about this and that, you "plan" for more work, etc. etc.
no "work" comes from management.
you call a meeting to "get everyone on the same page"
come to find out management has made decisions on strategy's behalf but rest assured if it's the wrong decision, strategy will be called in to save the day or we lose the business.

Agencies count on us (planning) to bring in new business with our vibrant talks of the possibilities and insights which drive them. The agency also counts on us to diagnose problems and remedy situations with a strategic sounding board when business falters along the way. But when we're not involved along the way, how can our strategy be the best?

Strategy exists for the betterment of the work. We are here to ensure results. In order to win and RETAIN business, please include us along the way. Caught between management and creative, I understand we're easily forgotten with no tangible piece of proof that we exist. Just like the brands we create every day, planning is a sense of something more - it's there to be engaged with, a smart personality with which smart agencies become associated with.

the new consumer

doesn't consume material goods: new jeans, the latest razor, new Nikes, Mr. JoeBob's insurance policy that can get the best discount around, or even the dinner for only $9.99 at TGIF's. The new consumer consumes content: podcasts, blogs, flickr photo albums, social media conversations, text messages, YouTube videos.

Content is what we all need to be producing now. Ripe from the AP Conference, content is the new creativity. What does our audience want to consume in terms of content? In this Internet and connectivity driven world, content is "the goods." What can you produce that people will want to share? What can you produce that people will want to add to, mess with, and get their fingers in?

And that's just it, and also maybe why many companies haven't gotten on the content bandwagon, is because content can also be created by consumers, so we're all competing in the same pool. AHHHH, no control, says the stodgy, traditional company, let's just talk to them (not with).

Everyone is creating content. It will be the brands and products and companies that facilitate the creation and sharing of content that will be rewarded with loyalty, love, and customers. CUSTOMERS of content. CREATORS of content. Maybe we'll finally replace the age-old consumers with talking to the creators. That sounds nice. :)

I just read an article, i can't remember the source, that said in this post-broadcast age, retail will reign. Well just think about it: a retail environment is filled with content! A retail environment provides a context to enjoy the content within, which is even better and more conducive to retention. So what can we call customers of content? Think about it. Plan for it. It's here, the age of content.