Thursday, June 15, 2006
The role of the agency planner
Just about every agency that we deal with defines "planning" differently- both in terms of role and process. Every time we hear a new or variant definition, it inspires us to re-think our roles and push ourselves to evolve.
One of the best and most inspring descriptions we've heard of the planner's role is from our friend John Griffiths, British planner extraordinare and mastermind behind Planning Above and Beyond . John wrote:
"... account handlers develop campaigns that clients feel comfortable with. Creatives develop campaigns that are eyecatching, provoke reaction and discussion and win awards. But neither of these lead to effectiveness and neither leads to relevance to the audience. Enter the planner as the consumer representative - the 5th columnist whose job it is to counteract the tendencies of the other 2 roles. Another metaphor I've heard is the transactional analysis one where account handlers are parentalk, creatives childish, and the role of the planner is to restore adult to adult communication!
...we'd love to hear YOUR idea of the planner role in your agency.
Just about every agency that we deal with defines "planning" differently- both in terms of role and process. Every time we hear a new or variant definition, it inspires us to re-think our roles and push ourselves to evolve.
One of the best and most inspring descriptions we've heard of the planner's role is from our friend John Griffiths, British planner extraordinare and mastermind behind Planning Above and Beyond . John wrote:
"... account handlers develop campaigns that clients feel comfortable with. Creatives develop campaigns that are eyecatching, provoke reaction and discussion and win awards. But neither of these lead to effectiveness and neither leads to relevance to the audience. Enter the planner as the consumer representative - the 5th columnist whose job it is to counteract the tendencies of the other 2 roles. Another metaphor I've heard is the transactional analysis one where account handlers are parentalk, creatives childish, and the role of the planner is to restore adult to adult communication!
...we'd love to hear YOUR idea of the planner role in your agency.
