Mirror imaging.
I think there are two types of strategies. There is one where you find something positive to say, an outside covering. There?s also the idea that a strategy makes you look at a product at an angle you wouldn?t necessarily have looked at otherwise. You hold up a mirror that shows the best angle, as opposed to wrapping it in an extraneous, stuck-on, positive message. People are suspicious of the grafted-on marketing veneer. I like the idea that strategically, as a planner, you?re finding the best place to hold the mirror, which is ultimately a true reflection?from a good angle. We all have a good angle to be shot from.

Thinking in absolutes.
Some say a brand is just a collection of peoples? views about a service or company or product. I think that?s true to a point, but I tend to believe people respond to an absolute, something like a concrete essence, if you like. I have a bias toward believing there?s a built-in truth in a client or company or a service. The people who have been making it, designing it, working with it every day, the people who are selling it?through their closeness and also their affection for it?will help you find those things to say. You can find the truth in that, as opposed to starting with the consumer perspective, which is counter to the way people think of planning.

It?s helpful, too, to talk to people who are obsessed with a product?not because they?re representative, but because they provide a pure example of someone having an experience with a brand. When I worked on H?agen-Dazs, I talked to obsessed H?agen-Dazs eaters?people who would eat pints of it every day. There are not many of them, but when you talk to them you have this very clear, very intense version of an experience with a brand. It was also interesting to hear the views of people who entirely rejected the brand, the people who hated it. There?s a crystallization with extremes. Some people would never buy H?agen-Dazs because to them it was an immoral extravagance. That crystallized the essence of how rich the product is. We ended up focusing on the sensuality of the product, and you could hear these people?s suspicion of that sensuality.

Diamonds in the data.
The planning community celebrates these Eureka! moments. These ?ta da? moments. My experience of coming to good solutions is much more step by step. The process tends to be quite cumulative. The stunning, bright-light road to Damascus is actually quite rare. The work we did for Sizzle and Stir was provoked by an insight that every ?normal family? is profoundly dysfunctional. You get a family where you can?t help but wonder, ?How on earth did that daughter come from that set of parents?? It?s great to celebrate that, rather than the bland, homogenous, traditional family unit that you get in other food products. But the trick was not that no one has ever said that before. The trick was in spotting that that observation was useful and creatively fertile. People talk about break-through ideas. That does happen, but often, people in a focus group will talk about a lot of things, and the talented person will spot the diamond in the dirt. Then there was a brilliant leap from the creative department when they made use of that.

Using your rectitude.
Planners have to be humble. It?s worth remembering, especially in the US, that there have been a lot of great ads without planners, and great work still happens without planners. Good planners remember they are there to enhance and add value. You do get planners who think their own brilliance is an end product. They forget there?s such a thing as a brilliant strategy that?s unexecutable. Or that you can come up with a brilliant strategy that a client will never buy. Our smart little utterances are not products in their own right. We are there to make what the creatives do better and help it flourish. It?s actually useless to be right. You have to be right, and then persuade and inspire others to use your rectitude. It?s no use being brilliant in the corner.

The elevator strategy.
In my experience, marketing problems are very complex, but the best solutions are very simple. We?ve all heard about the elevator pitch?where if you have a great new business idea, you can pitch it to an investor in the course of an elevator ride and they?ll appreciate its brilliance. And I think it?s the same with a good strategy. A lot of things go wrong when planners don?t distill thoughts down to a simple core. Advertising is a strong weapon, but it?s also quite a blunt one. When you?re working to develop advertising, you need to bear that in mind. You have to remember you?re doing something bold and focused.

As a planner, you need to provide clear direction?not just a vague wish. You would never say on Levi?s something as open-ended as: ?Just write another ad that makes the jeans look cool and sexy.? That?s what everyone wants, but getting there requires something much more concrete and specific to work from. Someone said that a good brief is like a strait jacket. It?s very tight, yet that can be the most helpful start point. If I just say to you, ?tell me a good story,? then most people?s minds would go blank. But if I say, ?tell me a story about a mouse who went to Mars,? they?ll immediately be able to start telling those stories.

New directions.
It?s very rare that a creative will go in a direction completely different from the strategy because you almost always involve the Creative Director in the brief. We?ll meet and say, ?We?re thinking of going in this angle. Can you work with this?? However, it can happen. Sometimes you have to say, ?It might be brilliant but it won?t work, given what we know about the market and client. It may be fantastic and stunning and it may win awards but it won?t work.? Yes, there are sticky moments when you?re not very popular. There are also times when a creative team makes you realize there?s a better strategy. Then you go back to the client and say, ?We thought the strategy we had was the right direction but now we think we should do this.?

Translation, please.
Planners can justify creative ideas to clients. I would argue that that is a valid role. An awful lot of the planner?s work comes when the work is on the table. A client is selling a high-investment product, and on the table are dancing elephants. The client is not expecting dancing elephants. There is the language of business, and the language of creativity. If you?re a good planner you?ll say, ?We?re recommending the dancing elephants because we?ve found that people are afraid of financial investments, and adding humor will get them to feel better and, oddly enough, people think of dancing elephants as trustworthy.? I?m saying honestly, ?this is great and here?s why? in business and marketing language. Yet I understand where the creative mindset is coming from. I don?t use the language of art and creativity??It?ll be stunning, it?s powerful and compelling work.? These things are valuable, obviously, but a client wants to know why and how it will work.

Yes, maybe it is sort of ?keeping the clients happy.? But provided that you?re keeping them happy by getting them to value what they wouldn?t otherwise see, it?s a good thing. Imagine trying to explain why the Flat Eric puppet would work. The creative department knew instinctually it was right. We had to explain, ?This is why it?s right. We found that there is a new model of masculinity being celebrated.? I don?t think it?s the creative department?s job. I?m not sure creative teams are so good at that. Put it this way: There are creative directors who are fantastic idea generators and are also brilliant at the client side. There are also brilliant idea generators who are not brilliant at the client side.

My perspective is that planning has always been done. Sometimes the creatives and account people have had great thoughts about who we should target, what message should be conveyed, and how the advertising will work. Somebody?s always done that. The advent of planning is stripping out the responsibility that was shared by account people, creatives, and often the client, and saying, now you have primary responsibility for that.