insights from the outside

it's easy to get caught-up in the race to be the first to tweet, post, link, share out the latest and greatest shit that we find online. i'm guilty of it myself. when i used to have my office inside the client's office, it helped me be "that guy" when they wanted a creative spark of inspiration for a brainstorm. it was a defense mechanism that i had built-up to justify my reason for being. however, more and more now, i believe that as planners we need to be more than just "curators of cool" or finding ways-in for our creative teams. ultimately, we need to find ways to help our clients make money. [pause]. this requires more thinking, but there's some good discussion about it here from Faris' chat at the Boulder Digital Works/NY thing today.

what i really wanted to share was this post over at Rob Campbell's blog about the need to get our heads out of our asses and live in the real world. i've always been a big fan of getting outside of the office as often as we can to really see, observe and take note of what real people are doing. go to a walmart, a target, the local grocery store, or walk around the mall. look at what people are putting into their shopping carts. what items are flying off the shelf at the trader joe's? talk to the sales associates and see what trends they've noticed about their customers. i'll bet you'll find more interesting, insightful and relevant stories here than anything your cool-hunting sites will uncover. and if you do feel the need to tweet-out your found gem, go for it. you'll probably even scoop PSFK.

planning with purpose

Planningness Recap for interTrend Comunications

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a recap of two presentations from the "Planning-ness" conference that has the most relevance to my day-to-day here at our little asian-american ad shop, interTrend Communications. i've borrowed a lot of thinking and slides from people much smarter than me in putting this little recap together. for more in-depth smarts go to these 2 links here and here.

this was the most well organized and productive conferences i've ever been to. kudos to Mark Lewis and Claire Grinton on getting us all excited to make things. Looking forward to the next Planning-ness

the relationship

[photo]


The relationship of a client to an agency, is like that of a surfer to a shaper. Like most relationships, it is one that is built on communication and trust. But what makes some relationships so rich and prolific that it creates just tons of awesome? When the relationship between the two entities creates a culture, rather than just commercials for it's clients, or how about heaps of world titles and constantly pushing the boundaries of surfing with innovative board designs?

I believe it's an open and honest dialog between surfer/shaper and client/agency that yields the most rewarding ideas. I've had a few custom boards shaped for me over the years. With each consult w/the shaper, the best ones have come out of exchanges when the shaper asks all the questions to understand my surfing style, experience, and the conditions where I most often surf. This is when you [as a surfer or client] check your ego at the door and provide as much honest feedback as possible so that the shaper/agency can craft the appropriate board/idea for your needs. Most of the time, whether you're a pro or weekend-warrior like myself, we all want that "magic" board that does it all for us. however, we really don't know how to articulate the shape/design of what that "magic" board should be. Enter the expertise of the shaper. the best shapers are the ones that can understand the strengths/weaknesses of the surfer, the wave conditions, etc to craft that "magic" board. there has to be a dialog and trust between the two for it to work. And also, the good shapers don't talk over the heads of their clients either. they both have to be on the same "wavelength".

So there has to be a collaboration and mutual respect of each other's talents. How many times has a client tried to cocktail napkin a layout to their agency partner? Or, when an agency exaggerates how in love they are with a client's brand, just so that they can win the business? Respect. Respect what each person brings (e.g. assets/skills) to the table and work on creating a mutually beneficially relationship. The more a shaper gets to understand the surfer, the better the boards he/she can make for them. And in turn, a more prolific relationship where both get what they want. Better boards, better business.

Yes, there's also an exception. Most amazing surfers or clients can do almost anything despite the quality of the board/creative that is made for them. But those are probably few and far between. Hold onto the clients that you have and work on building the trust and confidence to experiment, innovate, and grow. I'd really like to think that we nurture those client/agency--surfer/shaper relationships so that we continue to elevate the work that is being created. Oh, and another thought...I think this analogy can also be made between the role of account planners to their creative partners as well. As planners our briefs that we produce for creatives should also be a collaborative process that includes honest communication and respect for each other. and just like the surfer who has an on-going dialog w/the shaper to create that "magic" board, and so should us planners w/our creative partners in developing the idea. yeah, agree? what say you?

transmedia & advertising

Transmedia & Advertising

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the matrix, lost, BMW's "the hire" and more. all these have stories have been told and shared thru a variety of media. each one inherently special among the community of people already having conversations there. a solid preso from @ivanovitch at Big Spaceship on the idea of sharing our brand narrative across multiple platforms.

bs our way into a strategy

and perhaps a job or a dept that perhaps isn't needed?

this is probably a topic that has been debated before, so forgive me if this sounds like a broken record.

what is the role of planning in advertising? (i'm looking to you creative folks). Planners, we can bullshit our way into an answer (either for ourselves or the client). ;)

a few weeks ago, i overhead this convo between an art director and a planner: "you guys (planners) are only telling me what i already know, but just make it more complicated"

then a recent post from the Ad Contrarian: "I'm tired of strategists" had me thinking a bit about the value and purpose for planners. read the comments, good debate.

a fellow planner in sweden posted this analogy of the role of planning

a lot of agencies like to talk a mean game about "turning insights into action" and great creative. before planning came around, where did these insights come from? who did the work to uncover them? who provided the inspiration? was it just some BS to get clients to feel better about the work we were gonna sell them?

or is planning suppose to help create? collaborate w/our creative partners? are we to find truths and opportunities that the creative team may not have realized or observed on their own? or should we just get the hell out of the way? do i find myself struggling with my recent decision to move into planning from account service? no. i've found my home. this is what gets my ass out of bed everyday.

are we necessary to the process? I'd like to think that we are. We are partners to our creative friends. we all in it to help solve our client's business problems. and today, more than ever, our clients are looking to us for more than just that :30second piece of film or page 4/C ad. we all need to be in the business of creative problem solving. in addition, as planners we should challenge not only our account folks but also our clients into solving for the right problems. we need to work closely w/our clients to define the business strategy, ask the right questions, observe, uncover, ask more questions and eventually inspire and create a launching off point for our idea creation folks. this is the role and the value that i see planning provides. it's the real deal insights, ideas, inspiration, or strategy that will help us connect w/relevance and a point of difference. sure there's probably a few exceptions out there w/the types of planners and what they bring to the table, however, like anything else, it all depends on how much the client and agency embrace planning and how much value you deliver, no matter what the title on your business card says. am i full of it? off base? i open the floor to you.

peace.

photo via: The Planning Lab

be interesting

when i first started out in advertising, i used to think that it was the best job in the world. not in a sense that i was doing something that was making a big difference in people's lives, but more of the feeling that, "hey i'm surrounded by a lot of cool and talented people, doing some fun and interesting things with just words and pix." i used to surround myself with just ad people. all of my good bros (that i also surfed with) just happened to be in advertising. so yeah, i was pretty happy with my career choice and with the close knit group of friends around me. i had found my tribe. i also noticed that i was talking about ads all the time. there was no escape from it. my poor then girlfriend, now wife, had to endure so many get togethers, BBQs, cocktail parties, and company functions with the same type of people...ad people. but that was then, many years ago. today, i think i've matured and become comfortable in the skin that i'm in. not as an ad guy, but as a husband, a father, a son, a bro, a surfer, a cook, a photographer, a snowboarder, a fashion whore, a gadget geek, and probably a few more, but after all, i'm really just a person. the work that i do, does not define me. it is certainly a part of me, but it's just a part of my collective 38 years of experiences that has clumped onto me like different grains of sand, from different beaches, that stick to the wax on my surfboard. with each new beach that i surf and every fresh layer of wax that i rub onto the deck, i'm building more grip and traction to the board and therefore allowing me to surf with surefooted confidence. a lot of different experience = more confidence in who i am. i should be proud of the life and work experiences that i've had so far and carry that confidence into each interview. if i were an employer, i would bring in interesting people into their organizations. people with a variety of skills and interests that can bring that traction AND friction to foster a dynamic work experience. i wasn't planning to head down this path when i started to type this, but it just naturally went this way. so go with it.

what i really wanted to talk about was this tweet by @jasonoke this sunday right before the superbowl. the tweet read: "Why people care about SuperBowl ads: it's the one day a year the brief is "be INTERESTING", not "be on message." Let's do that more often." i couldn't agree more. BRAVO! so many times, we get trapped in the box of coming up with ideas that deliver a very clinical, 1-way message to people. the notion of "being interesting" can easily get lost in a poorly conceived strategy, or an ill-defined business problem to solve for. at the end of the day, it becomes just noise to the rest of us, especially the rest of us that ARE NOT in advertising. people who don't do what we do, don't read into ads as much as we do.

so by now, most of us ad folks have seen and talked about the Cadbury Eyebrows spot. what i loved about this ad, was that it was simply entertaining. it was interesting. and i also have to agree with the post over at Influx about the 9 reasons why cadbury's eyebrows are a hit, and especially if the idea "can spawn derivatives - people can try this themselves and post videos" which is clearly evident here , here , and here. these appear to have been created by fans of the idea, not ad folks who've taken an interest in this darling of spot. i also have my buddy clay who's not an ad guy also post the spot to his facebook profile. when i asked him about how he found this, he told me he saw it on his other friends facebook profile and he wanted to share it. now isn't that what it's all about? let's come up with ideas that are interesting, and not always be about force fitting some brand manager's positioning statement into a target audiences' head. so going back to jason's original tweet, i am inspired to challenge ourselves to come up with interesting ideas, that'll hopefully inspire others to share the work we create vs just being on message.

i want to connect

note: this is a rant that i'm hoping to steer into some helpful insight. Here's my beef: rushing jobs thru and treating the creative brief as a "check-the-box" thing to do vs. having thoughful discussion and understanding around what is it that we're trying to solve for, is NOT how it should done . if you treat the work as if we were machines cranking the shit out, i might as well be working in a factory stamping out cogs.

in my years as an account guy juggling multiple clients and jobs, it seemed like all i was doing was making sure deadlines were met, projects w/n budget, clients happy, herding cats. that was my job and i did it with focus and determination. However, it sometimes bothered me when i sensed that other people on the team, didn't put their heart into the work. we all have our drivers and motivations in our roles, however, ultimately we ALL have a part in the creative process and the finished product. and, for me, i believe it starts with the client briefing. and as the result of that client discussion, we should be able to produce a well-crafted creative brief. we should sweat it out from the beginning to get the brief right, where everyone is in alignment vs. "just write something up for me and we'll send it over to the creatives." it should be a collaborative and living process, and most importantly, the brief writing process should be fun and have passion behind it. it should'nt be a mechanical, fill-in box #4 with this target audience info, and box #7 with this brand tonality. the brief should be a well written story that will lead and inspire.

so if our jobs as planners is to tell that story, what is the physical manifestation of that story? is it a word document where we fill in the boxes? is it a visual brief, one with images and copy? or is it a video brief, moving images that move us? or perhaps, is it taking the creatives out of the agency surroundings, go offsite, have a beer and a chat about ? think about the people who really connect with you whenever they have something to share. are they reading off a document? probably not. they share with you what they know, what they believe in, what they have heart for.

the brief is more than just carefully crafted words on a document, that only a handful of people can understand. it should be written in plain, everyday english, and be shareable, relateable, no matter what function you have in an agency. it should connect.

and if the brief is able to connect, then it'll stick and it can be shared. tracking w/this? if the story sticks, you don't have to be a planner to tell it. the creative team should be able to re-tell that story to the client when they present the ideas. the client should be able to re-tell that story at their national sales mtgs when the shiny new tv spots are shown.

the brief should be a labor of love, not some process where we're just cranking shit out. if it isn't, you might as well be working at Spacely's Sprockets. one more thing. i'm a fan of friction. it worries me when i present a brief for the 1st time to the team and no one has any questions or challenges to it. bend it, flip it, tweak it, it's helps create a better brief that everyone has a part in developing.

peace out.


"hey Nguyen, what's your beef (noodle soup) about?"

thru the eyes of a newbie

okay, it's been awhile since i've been on here. been tweeting and commenting more. work has been busy good. i had the opportunity to help out on a couple juicy projects that normally don't fall into my scope of work, which is me being a brief writing machine. the first project was going out on shop-a-longs with bottled tea drinking women to get an understanding of their purchase behavior. this week i moderated a focus group to get feedback on some fantasy football promotion concepts. both these exercises were a rush, but i especially enjoyed the focus group. i've been on the other side of the glass before, but to be in the chair, at the head of the table with a camera to my back, there was a different tingly feeling. i certainly had some butterflies at first, (maybe cuz i don't know a thing about fantasy football?) but after a couple minutes, i started to get into my groove and felt really at ease. i realized that i didn't have to be the expert. the experts were in the room with me. i just need to look thru the lens of a rookie player, and get them to open up and share what FF meant to them...let them do all the talking. yeah, i kinda like that. being a planner is not about being the trendynista, or the iphone carrying smart ass know-it-all. for me, it's about always being curious and looking at everything thru the eyes of a newbie with excitement and inspiration.

one more thing, go check out this flick, FUEL. If you're local theater doesn't have it, ask for it. thanks.

looking in all the wrong places

i think sometimes i've been trying to hard to find that data point to bring out an insight...a truth. if i'm working on a job that has the luxury of time, i'll get so caught up in scouring thru decks over decks digging, looking for that gem of an opportunity. lately though, the turn 'n burn 1-day projects that i've been working on doesn't really afford the time to get really smart. so, in my immersion into planning, i've had to think quick on my feet, be observant, be resourceful and be insightful w/o the benefit of research. so far, i've lucked out. is it dumb luck or is it that the clients don't really care or don't understand? or i'm i not looking in the right places? most of the time, i feel that i'm just putting a new shade of lipstick on the same pig. does it have to have a data point or some quantifiable research to tell the most compelling story possible for your brand? or is it more about having a simple and honest understanding of the brand and being able to communicate that in the most relevant and interesting way that no one else has done before you? to me this Levi's spot is honest. did the insight and truth come from research? or did it come from a basic understanding of the brand, the consumer and the culture? i admit, i've been busted once, maybe twice for looking... and observing. is it wrong? or is it part of my job to look in all the right places...to observe (thru all the nooks and crannies), understand and help communicate in the most compelling way possible? i'm so busted.