Planning needs some planning

I spent my 40 minutes talking about the thing that keeps me up at night, a fear that advertising is coasting into irrelevance and planning is to be held responsible for that.

My contention is that if a planners job is to make sure the work works (as I believe it is) then we're in big trouble.  All the data suggests advertising, more often than not, does not meet its goals and doesn't change behavior.  We've done little to address this.  We chase new media channels but we don't challenge how we think communication works (or as Mark would put it how ideas spread).

So, I talked about the three big, fundamental problems I believe we need to address.  I'll blog about those a little later.  In the meantime, here's the charts.

Planning Needs Some Planning

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: strategy advertising)

Comments

[Helge Tennø]

Excellent Gareth. I’m looking forward to reading the sequels.

To suggest one of my own “fundamentals” it must be understanding that a lot of the fresh opportunities presented in digital aren't new ways of thinking about what to do about communication in Media Channels, but exploring how brands can add value inside a Communication Medium.

A research report (here in Norway) stated that young people don’t view the Internet as a Media Channel, they view first and foremost as a Communication Medium. Where conversations and sharing between peers are far more frequent than consuming media (rich or text).

Being a facilitator in a Communication Medium puts brands at the center of where culture is shared. And gives a different vantage point to positioning a brand and thinking about how to creatively communicate its ideas and values.

At the same time this also demands a new set of tools and understanding on how to achieve this. As you write in the charts: “The future of advertising isn't messaging…”

Thanks again for sharing :o)

[Tania Grønvald]

Dear Gareth

Very interesting reading, thanks for sharing great stuff. Any chance that your presentation will be webcasted?

[Mark]

Nice job - some great new examples

[lee maicon]

great stuff, gareth.

the good news is it seems (as from all your great examples) that something is happening, it's just widely distributed and often more of a nice to have than major shift in how others are thinking.