Planning types

Is blogging killing planning? this is the post from IF! today.

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.

The future of TV advertising? Admovies: a theory.

It seems like planning is trying to position itself (sensibly) as the driving force, or glue, for the new media landscape. You know, how to balance TV with digital with all the other channels, fragmentation and consumer media-pull.

I was talking to Richard today about what the new communication model looks like and remembered some of the things people talked about tha the APG Big Thinking day last week. That TV is still tremdously powerful to touch people's emotive core, that even in a consumer-pull media world, repetition is still important. Jonathan from PHD was talking about how TV needs to borrow more from Hollywood. My agency is built on 'entertainment' in communications as a core principle, so I agree.

So here's a theory, I think we're going to see much longer TV spots in the new world. We're going to see a renaissance of great TV commercials, but they're going to epxlore a broader emotional spectrum - be scary, shocking, sad, funny - all in the same spot. Mini-movies. 3 minutes, 6 minutes or whatever. More like BMW films but served up in ad breaks.

We haven't quite figured out what the rest of the communications might look like yet - more to follow on this. But I do think that these new spots aren't the natural province of 'TV agencies'. Just because you can tell a simple, short, one-dimensional story in 30 seconds, there's no guarantee those skills will translate to creating admovies.