After a long time, posting something to with planning. It's about the 5 "C"s I've found absolutely necessary for good planning:
Category Insight: How does products and brands behave in a category. That category could be something as wide as "FMCG" or something as narrow as high-end mobile mobile handsets. The client should be able to help with buying habits, market challenges, competitions' strengths, and more. A retail survey and household survey should also be able to help at that. Quantitative? Qualitative? I'd say both.
Consumer Insight: The tricky part, and total planning job. Mining for consumer insights isn't an easy job. Conventional marketing and behavioral research may not deliver the appropriate insight at all. An entire range of stuff - from experiencing the consumer with and open mind and an open heart to taking a look at biological features of psychology - may be needed before coming to the the insight to make or break history. This alone is enough to keep the planner busy with both high-end studies and living a fully social life. Surprise draws attention, but meeting expectations works to hold them on.
Cultural Insight: Never to forget that the homo sapience is a social and cultural being, evolving fast in the cultural direction. There has to be solid insights into emerging trends as well as cultural bedrocks, hallmarks and landscape of the field of operation. Even at a global scale this is a total necessity. It is often wiser to ride on the existing cultural paradigm than to fight it. You really don't want to interrupt you audience who is already pressed against time and fighting against your thousands of competitors trying grab their attention.
Communication Insight: Competition mapping for an advertising professional isn't really about the merchandise they are selling, rather it is the communication they are selling. I'll strongly insist upon that we don't get carried away by the "creativity" of some of the communication that come out. It is important to draw attention and "disrupt", but are measuring these communication for their impact (i.e. is it translating into trial or retention?) and, of course, their shelf life. Even the most memorable works of advertisement these days hardly have a shelf life of more than three months. The clutter and the race towards greater creativity is just getting way too much. Sometimes it might help us to be completely non-creative, if we are sure of what we are doing.
(and last, but not the least) Client Insight: The client is a many headed beast. Living too close to the brand and burdened with business cases, they mostly miss all the points there are. It is primarily important to understand how far the client is ready to go and what syntax would get through the client's cute little head. Without this there is no selling of creative material or strategies. The consumer/audience don't give a flying rat's ass to what the CCO or CMO of a company is going through, but they do care about the creative material they experience. And, at that lies the Achilles' Heals of advertising. Damn.
Consumer Insight I can manage most of the times. Cultural Insights I devise out of thin air. Category Insights I have on an on-and-off basis. Communication Insight I can borrow. But, that last-but-not-the-least Insight I never get, almost.
Category Insight: How does products and brands behave in a category. That category could be something as wide as "FMCG" or something as narrow as high-end mobile mobile handsets. The client should be able to help with buying habits, market challenges, competitions' strengths, and more. A retail survey and household survey should also be able to help at that. Quantitative? Qualitative? I'd say both.
Consumer Insight: The tricky part, and total planning job. Mining for consumer insights isn't an easy job. Conventional marketing and behavioral research may not deliver the appropriate insight at all. An entire range of stuff - from experiencing the consumer with and open mind and an open heart to taking a look at biological features of psychology - may be needed before coming to the the insight to make or break history. This alone is enough to keep the planner busy with both high-end studies and living a fully social life. Surprise draws attention, but meeting expectations works to hold them on.
Cultural Insight: Never to forget that the homo sapience is a social and cultural being, evolving fast in the cultural direction. There has to be solid insights into emerging trends as well as cultural bedrocks, hallmarks and landscape of the field of operation. Even at a global scale this is a total necessity. It is often wiser to ride on the existing cultural paradigm than to fight it. You really don't want to interrupt you audience who is already pressed against time and fighting against your thousands of competitors trying grab their attention.
Communication Insight: Competition mapping for an advertising professional isn't really about the merchandise they are selling, rather it is the communication they are selling. I'll strongly insist upon that we don't get carried away by the "creativity" of some of the communication that come out. It is important to draw attention and "disrupt", but are measuring these communication for their impact (i.e. is it translating into trial or retention?) and, of course, their shelf life. Even the most memorable works of advertisement these days hardly have a shelf life of more than three months. The clutter and the race towards greater creativity is just getting way too much. Sometimes it might help us to be completely non-creative, if we are sure of what we are doing.
(and last, but not the least) Client Insight: The client is a many headed beast. Living too close to the brand and burdened with business cases, they mostly miss all the points there are. It is primarily important to understand how far the client is ready to go and what syntax would get through the client's cute little head. Without this there is no selling of creative material or strategies. The consumer/audience don't give a flying rat's ass to what the CCO or CMO of a company is going through, but they do care about the creative material they experience. And, at that lies the Achilles' Heals of advertising. Damn.
Consumer Insight I can manage most of the times. Cultural Insights I devise out of thin air. Category Insights I have on an on-and-off basis. Communication Insight I can borrow. But, that last-but-not-the-least Insight I never get, almost.
