We were at last night's industry prizefight in which two heavyweights of the plannersphere sparred without either managing a knockout blow.
The debate, sparked by this now infamous post, raged over the motion that blogging was killing planning. In the 'yes' corner was Grey London's John Lowery, wearing what can only be described as an outrageous jacket. In the 'no' corner was John Grant, founder of St Luke's and wearing his qual research shirt with 'Yes, No, Maybe' plastered over it.
John Lowery kicked off the debate with a well put together speech. The central tenet of his argument being that whilst planning blogs spewed out ideas and idle pontification they lacked the intellectual and statistical rigor that the discipline requires. He also argued that many planners, particularly the more junior were likely to fall into the trap of introspection.
John Grant's argument wasn't a direct answer to Lowery's, Instead he argued that there was no way of measuring the effect of such a new medium on the discipline of planning. Grant also pointed out that the 'advertising' industry was doing itself no favours by attacking a medium that threatened it very own existence.
Once the opening salvos had passed the debate moved into a more ideological territory which harked back to the dawn of planning; on the one side those who believed that numbers were the key to good planning, whilst the other argued that great creative ideas could be honed for target audiences in focus groups. Whilst Lowery represented inspiration coming from solid data, Grant argued that clients needed something to push them beyond this: ideas that took their brand further.
Does this go to a deeper root - a generational one? Are younger, newer planners of the idea-first variety, and older ones from the 'let's start with the Nielsen' camp? It's certainly my impression, which is why I like generalists - planners who can come at things from both paths. And that's because client cultures vary and seem to gravitate towards different planning approaches (or more accurately, sometimes planners have to find a way to get traction). John Grant won.
3 comments:
Just curious, did anyone count the votes?
Maybe we could plot the votes against age to see if there is a generational divide...oh bugger, that makes me an old fart doesn't it.
Or a generalist. The IPA published the results - it was like 90% pro-blogging. But then that reflects a bias in the sort of people who would have gone to an event about blogging, promoted on the blogs. Oh hell, I'm doing it now - but I am an old fart.
It's not generational, but certainly to do with the method of planning people use - if you are ideas led or not.
I was there, and felt it was a little silly - people don't forget that the data is very important. And I think that it was implied that the senior planners who blog may give a bad impression to those who are juniors, which isn't fair.. those same juniors realise what the job entails.
On the other hand, we may not be creatives, but denying us a chance to think of ideas would be folly.
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