Demand for Planning

In my career as a planner to date, a large chunk of time has been spent explaining to the rest of the agency what it is we actually do. This tends to fall on a mixture of deaf ears (the majority), those who reckon their clients could be persuaded to buy what we do (minority #1), and those who really don't want to have what they've always done questioned in any way (minority #2).

Put simply, as a department we've had to stimulate demand in the face of apathy - after all, why would anyone want to change (the other rude 'C' word) the way they work, even if it's for the better?

So on moving to my new agency, my over-riding pleasure so far has been in witnessing the sheer demand for planning on the part of both clients and agency staff.

Why?

Because they actively want to do new stuff but don't know what new stuff they should be doing.

And that's exactly what the planning function is (or at least one of the many definitions that I like). Namely: giving people confidence and inspiration to do something different.

This might be about using new media, talking to new audiences, talking about a different part of your product or brand. But in each case, the discipline of Planning should be there to make the strategic case - a bit like a barrister - drawing on available evidence and logical extrapolation - for making this change.

This isn't to say that Planning is required in every campaign for every client. Far from it. Many teams working on many clients know what needs to be done and it's frankly rude to suggest they don't. But if you trust the people you work with - and you've done a good job in showing them what Planning can do when they need it - they'll actively want to ask for it when necessary.

Here endeth, etc. etc.

But bloody well done to Michel, whose large shoes I'm now stepping into, for getting things to this point.