Thin Planning

I was judging some awards yesterday and it really struck me how many entries seemed to be pictures of a problem that someone (probably a client) had identified. Taken in the round, there seem to be relatively few agencies trying to get under the skin of the problem, of the consumer and make a creative leap. Instead they're relying on a bit of data planning or segmentation to mechanise their way to a solution. Of course, this means planning has to be too thinly spread across the industry. Most agencies have a planner, but it has to be a token gesture, on this evidence. I beleive Nike once specified thier agencies sent a planner and a designer to briefings - the 'creative team'. Perhaps the industry needs to realise that it needs planners at breadth and depth if it's going to make work more interesting (and award winning), and thereby make the industry look better, and prevent the brain drain to other sectors like banking.

A chance discovery

We chanced upon this at Stowe yesterday. It appears that Andy Goldsworthy has written his name in found things from the woods. It was utterly sursprising and charming. Serendipitous. Even if it had been created by a 6th form art student from the school or Andy himself, it possessed great creativity and charm. I think Alan Bennett said once that the beautiful thing about TV was the possibility of discovery. How many ads would do something so humble as place themselves in a media backwater to be stumbled upon by chance? And then be so creatively charming that they make the viewers' day altogether brighter and uplifted? We call ourselves a creative industry - and surprise and delight should be in the domain of creativity, not sales promotion.