Dan Cherry - "ANOMALY": Everyone thinks that the craftsmanship comes in the doing and not in the planning...(but) If you have a point of view on the strategy and on the plan, why the hell wouldn't you be involved in the doing?
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Is strategy really the new creative?
I came accross a really great article by Alexander Wipf on the Leo Burnett Frankfurt blog. I think it very much relates to the issues discussed during the Planningness conference in San francisco last month during Adrian Ho and Rob White's work session. I am reblogging it here for your benefit. Hope you enjoy reading this as much as I did.
Recently, say over the last years or so, planning and strategy has gained sex appeal. Lots of clients are all about “insights” these days and seem to have developed quite a hankering for that one inspirational bit of information that can transform business ideas, product ideas, marketing innovation ideas. Oh.. and, I almost forgot: communication ideas. Meanwhile, the agency landscape seems to be filling up with a formerly less commonly heard title: Chief Strategy Officer.
So, understandably, the trade press comes out with articles entitled “Is strategy the new creative?”.
But what does this really mean? I believe a headline like this is a great eyecatcher. But really, it is written that way to make you look. Strategy is not the new creative. It’s simply that the definition of strategy and creative and how both have to work together has changed.
However, what the headline really does, too, is to ignite a conversation. And conversations, or rather making sure that people talk about your brand and brands themselves are part of those conversations is what is actually behind the fact that the definition of strategy and creative has changed.
In a communications landscape where marketers have begun understanding that people aren’t interested in your messages obviously the old form of creative product, i.e. the delivery of ads, is losing importance. Or, at a minimum, ads need to be complemented with different creative products that provide context-relevant experiences, content and participatory elements alongside before they can be effective again.
Arguably, before strategy and creative were seperated, creative directors or account people did the strategy. Now it looks like everyone has to do strategy and creative. Why?
Having moved from the brand era to the people era has not only increased the need for agencies to offer a different or extended creative product, it also forces agencies to change the way they work to achieve the delivery of idea platforms that work channel-agnostically. Agencies have been offering full-service for decades, but in siloes and all services and creative executions tied back to the might big brand idea.
The most apparent differences of doing creative work now vs before is what happened to team structure and process: the traditional art director / copywriter duo who was responsible for “the big idea,” and represented the creative fulcrum of the agency, now has to live with the fact that the team responsible for creative output just got bigger. In order to deliver idea platforms that work in all channels, it does not suffice to come up with a “communication idea” and then adapt it into channels. You have to have ideas about experiences, content, functionalities, technologies and the brand’s product or service itself. Also, to be creative for those kinds of deliverables you need to do more than call your brand planner for some “consumer insights” about people’s attitudes: you need behavioral insights, channel insights, technology insights, experience insights. As a result, you need more people adept at a lot of different things to get the job done. And yet another result is that you need to completely step away from the linear process of research -> creative -> production. Your process needs to iterative and co-creative, from writing the brief to coming up with little ideas that tie into one idea platform instead of just one big-ass communication idea.
So, in order to accomplish all the above, you need someone to keep provide a bigger sandbox for everyone to play in. And guess who stepped up to the plate for that one? Strategists. Being that “sandbox provider” means that the traditional research and briefing job of a strategist has become much more about actually staging the discovery experience of the whole team and making that experience visceral. In a way, the frame in which an entire team of art directors, copywriters, concept developers, content strategists, social media strategists, interface designers, technologists, motion designers, experience planners, and brand planners tries to solve for a communication-, brand-, business- or product issue has to be staged and stewarded. To me, this doesn’t mean the strategist also has the creative ideas, but it means he provides the environment in which it happens. This means that strategist can’t sit in their office and pump out a creative brief anymore and that’s it. It means that they have to become a part of the creative process itself. And vice versa, creatives being part of the discovery mean they have to think a lot more about insights, as well.
So it doesn’t just look like everyone has to do strategy and creative. This is the way it has to be. In fact, if you do things right, you could also ask “Is creative the new strategy?”
To me it looks like after a long hiatus, you have to get ready for strategy and creative to move in together again. Just don’t let the strategist pick the furniture.
Friday, October 30, 2009
The Planning Rebels
via psfk.com
Redscout is launching SPUR, a video series about brands, strategy and innovation. The first five episodes will revolve around the world of planning and wll be hard-talking some of the planning elite but also its rebels and newbies.
The series which starts next Tuesday will address some of the planning industry's most pressing issues: asking questions amongst others, about the planner'' role but also about the tools we should be developing to carry that role out.
Some of the people that will be interviewed i
* Dan Cherry, Managing Partner, Director of Brand Strategy; Anomaly
* Piers Fawkes, Founder; PSFK
* John Gerzema, Chief Insights Officer; Young & Rubicam
* Heidi Hackemer, Senior Planner; BBH
* Gareth Kay, Director of Digital Strategy; Goodby & Silverstein
* Domenico Vitale, Founder; People, Ideas & Culture
* Paul Woolmington, Founding Partner; Naked Communications NY
Here is the scheduled release of the series:
* Tuesday, November 3:
Is Planning Impotent? Overcoming Account Planning’s Identity Crisis
* Tuesday, November 17:
What Makes a Good Planner? Talent Specs and Extra Credit
* Tuesday, December 1:
Are We Just Glorified Researchers? The Myth of the “Voice of the Consumer”
* Tuesday, December 15:
What is the Real Value of Planning? Agency Politics and Client Perceptions
* Tuesday, January 5: What is the Future of Planning? Thinking as Doing
I'm sure the series will be well worth watching so keep tuned. I'll be posting more about this.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Smart Designs Achieve Friendly UI
Some of the workshops at the last Planningness Conference in San Francisco dealt with product design and designing User Interface friendly applications. To name just a few: "How to (really) design a successful user experience into a product" by Nasahn Sheppard and Nellie Hsu Ling and "How to build a successful web experience? by Posterous' very own Garry Tan.
Basically a redesign of the computer screen and desktop interface using multitouch iphone technology.
10/GUI from C. Miller on Vimeo.
Let me know what you think.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Awesome #Planningness
When Mark Lewis invited me to come talk at the San Francisco Planning-ness conference that was held last week, I really didn't know what I was in for. Business conferences in Israel are usually quite general - people come, speak and leave. What you're left with most of the time are some great stories (mostly of successes) and a bunch of additional case studies you can include in your next presentation. So although you may have spent a really interesting afternoon, you ultimately leave feeling cheated: Having come to learn something, but going home still wondering "how the hell do they do it?
In this sense, the Planning-ness conference was very different. The whole point was to actually get people to roll up their sleeves, and get dirty. Pick each others brains and build on whatever clever insights and comments were put forth without ruling anything out and with the starting point being all ideas are good and welcome.
There were a lot of great workshops to choose from - beginning with "How to design a product", "How to Design a Successful Application", "How to Create Advocacy and Conversation", "How to do Connections Planning in 2009", right down to the amazingly clever Zeus Jones guys: Adrian Ho and Rob White's closing presentation:"How to plan in the 21st Century".
They really touched a soft spot: many planning and marketing tools were invented over 40 years ago - way before television was invented and way, way before the internet ever emerged - not to mention social media. Their amazing session revolved around getting people to think about new tools for marketing. So, after a quick preview on Modern Branding,
they asked everyone to call out loud tools for planners that were obsolete and not really useful anymore. The whiteboard filled in less than 5 minutes:
Rob then split the audience in groups based on month of birth, and asked them to think about a new "tool" that would replace the ones on the board.This is what Rob Perkins and his team came up with: replacing the messaging model with the invention model. The goal being to create brand experiences that surprise and delight.
This is not the only idea submitted and for those of you who are curious, I suggest you visit the Zeus Jones Blog to watch the other months' ideas as well. Whatever the case, lots of people came away from this session feeling really hyped and inspired and the Planningness guys have promised to start a wiki page on this to keep ideas coming and evolving. Some of the learnings as Adrian and Rob put it:
- We’re all pretty clear on the fact that many of the tools we use currently aren’t working
- We’re much more interested in dynamic processes than static tools
- We want our new tools to be social, to be participatory not just for individuals
- We’re looking for our tools to reveal complexity and depth rather than hide it with simple-mindedness
- We need tools to plan the company as much as we need tools to plan the customer
- We want to learn by doing rather than by thinking and strategizing
The difference between this conference and all the others I've been to: this time I've gone home thinking "So that's how they do it!". That's a great feeling, a great thing to be a part of. Can't wait to hear how this evolves and definitely look forward to the next Planning-ness conference.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
SOCIAL MEDIA LIVE STATS API
Liked the dynamics of this social media online engagement counter.
Just thought I'd share it with you.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
The Hard Rock Cafe Wall Rocks!
This is the Rock Wall at the Hard Rock Cafe in Vegas, possibly the most technologically advanced restaurant in the world.
The display wall is amazingly interactive and can accommodate up to 6 users at once.
It literally lets you browse the entire inventory of Hard Rock photo and video memorabilia in real time, and at full resolution.
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