Miami Ad School
Planning Bootcamp
September 1 2009
Leon Phang

Planning is like rolling a joint.
... there are many ways to do it.

I had a look at your curriculum and thought: ”what’s missing?”
And although it looks good, I think it’s highly focused on classical account planning - basically the
stuff that happens before the [change] brief.

Creative brief
Cause I really believe there are many challenges even after the briefing and that’s really what I’m
going to talk about...

It’s kind of like this... From a nice and linear path you’re suddenly in a big cloud... Or is it?

Creative planning
So for the next hour or so we’re gonna talk about this. Creative planning.
So, why is Creative planning important?

The thing is: there’s no real shortage of ”smart MBA people” in the world. And there’s no shortage of
creatives either.

”My attitude is that creativity might be a commodity.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeremy-abelson/embrace-for-impact-alex-b_b_229160.html
Creativity might be a commodity says Alex Bogusky... So, the trick isn’t really to be really creative or
really strategic, but it’s really to combine the two.

Creatively Relevant +
inspiring Differentiating
I really believe that this is what advertising is all about, and that’s why Creative Planning is important.

The creative domain
Wrong Right
The rest of this presentation I’m going to talk about this: the creative domain, the area or arena which
the advertising will take place and some tools for filling it.

1

Get the basics right
(strategic planning)
Get the basics right OR strategic planning. It’s really important to get the basics right, because countless times I’ve seen
creative teams lost in the process when there’s no basic planning.

Industry/category insights
If the consumer is trading down - is coffee/ tea protected by brand loyalty?
The Recession Effect: Sweden
Hypothesis
New views on consumption may lead to an increase in sales of the retail chains own brands;
Share of sales
40
30 36
28
20
20
10 14
6
0
Household products Deep-frozen Staples Sweets Beverages
Retail chain’s own brand/ category Source: AC Nielsen June 2009
Among all Nordic consumers, Swedes show the lowest intention to
switch to cheaper grocery brands, even though overall intention has
Source: BCG Consumer Sentiment Barometer, March 2009 increased - from 21 % in October 2008, to 35 % in May 2009.
Downturn pick-me-up: A Good Cup of Coffee or Tea Consumption development: Sweden
Konsumtion av fil/yoghurt (liter/pers)
39
Coffee and tea may benefit by a downturn, from consumers who consider them to be a less 38
37
expensive alternative to other non-alcoholic beverages, such as soft drinks and juices. Coffee and 36
35
tea are viewed by most consumers as necessary staples. 34
33
A similiar trend can 32
be seen in Sweden; 31
30
”Coffee and sweets 29
seems to be the only 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
thing people do not
cut their spendings Source: svensk mjölk, Swedish Dairy Association
on”
NOTE REGIONAL DIFFERENCES
Source: Bengt Hedlund, CEO
Svensk Servicehandel och Fast - Filmjölk has its strongest position in northern Sweden, while yoghurt is mostly
Food. DN Ekonomi 2009-06-13 - Declining sales of ”light” dairies, with less fat consumed by people in the western and eastern parts respectively.
- Yoghurt/ fil with more fat increases
'!"#
Source: AC Nielsen 2008
&$"#
”Svenskarna väljer smak och naturlighet framför lightprodukter”
&!"#
%$"# 89-#
:);<=*2#
%!"#
$"#
!"#
()**# +,--./# 012# 3412# 567)12# 567#
Source: Hemköp’s statistical survey ”Så vill svensken ha sin frukost” in July 2004.
Industry or category insights are of course important...

Consumer behavior
Consumer behavior too...

Human insight

Models
And when it comes to models, use them even if you risk being ”theoretical”.

MSU
Don’t be afraid to Make Stuff Up. A colleague of mine once said:
We’re not in business of science but in the art of business.

Repackage current offerings
Cluster products and services into new offerings
New segmentation of target group
New sales channels and offerings for these
Identify new usage areas
Develop new features and accessories
Communicative features integrated in the product
Adding knowledge services
For example:

Repackage current offerings: RSO subscription + key

New sales channels and offerings for these: Länsförsäkringar shop

Communicative features integrated in the product: Jämtkraft river option

Develop new features and accessories: Absolut Icebar themes
DIAMONDS ARE NOT FOREVER. WELCOME TO A DIFFERENT JEWELLERY EXPERIENCE.
PREMIERE NOVEMBER 5TH. NORDIC SEA HOTEL, VASAPLAN 4. +46 (0)8 505 631 24.

2

Tools: the workflow

Order Chaos
The workflow is seldom linear. But it’s not totally chaotic either. So as a planner you can really achieve creativity by
remodelling the workflow by setting ”rules” etc.

Wieden & Kennedy has an interesting concept which is about ”embracing failure”, based on the
insight that the risk of failure hinders creativity.

Behaviors Characteristic
Expressing No negative
Actio-orientation
many ideas remarks
Creative
Building on Discussing ideas Special
ideas of others with others projects
At Jung von Matt we’ve done our own little exercise to find out how we can be more creative. With the
help of a psychologist we’ve tried to map what makes creative behavior.

As an example: we came to the insight that generating a lot of ideas without dissing them is key and
therefore developed a simple idea template which is a piece of paper where you scribble down your ideas.
In that way you will not get discouraged through negative comments in the process.

We also created an idea wall that encourages discussion around creative work - only with positive
feedback.

End-user focus
Another tool I’ve used in some projects as a planner is to focus on the end-user emotions or experience rather than message
or concept.

Flavor

Form and shape

Interaction

Challenging

Surprise

Play

Inside

Display

Motion activated animations

Inside outside

Light space

Can sound and light
make you warm?

Freezing your ass off?
Keep warm. Go mental. Or leave.

Do It Yourself

surprise
So those were some tools for expanding the creative mind...
Next topic is [change slide]

3

Build an inspiration portfolio
Another tool which is outside the workflow is to build an inspiration portfolio. The key word is portfolio, because it’s like
having a constant stock of assets which you can draw your inspiration from. I’d like to present you mine:

Pop culture

Psychology
Cognitive psychology
Evolutionary psychology

Economics
Economics.

Philosophy

Blogs

Technology

People

… connect the dots
... and with your inspiration portfolio you can simply connect the dots with all the strategy, concepts, insights, etc. into one
idea.

Kind of like Pixar which is ONE BIG IDEA made up from thousands of small ideas.

Psychological Media
placement
Budget
Engagement

4

Creative strategies
Creative strategy is the soft side to the formal brand or communications strategy.

An uncompromising direction
The goal is to find an UNCOMPROMISING & SINGLE-MINDED direction. By uncompromising I mean that there are always
gaps between strategy and executions, so the creative strategy is really about filling this gap and turning it into a positive
force.

Rule #1: you can position anything.
And there’s really only one rule to a creative strategy.
So forget those 2 by 2 grids.

Provoke
Entertain
Inspire
Back to basics
Flip
+
Some themes.

That was a bit on Creative planning. To summarise you could say that the creative planning role is to
be the midfielder: it’s all about deadly passes.

Bonus materials

1. Tinyurl.com/planneradvice

2. Work with the best creatives
(and avoid those that suck)

3. Choose an agency that understands.

4. Do it with models.

5.
Don’t boil the ocean.
Three.
Have a clue.

6. Be creative in research.

7. Confront anxieties.

8. Power-summarise.

9. Outsource boring stuff.

10. Listen & don’t listen.

11. Handle trends.

12. Be unconventional.

13. Get a free lunch.

14. Wear your bullshit glasses.

Thanks.

leon@jvm.se