london in prague: john griffiths planning tools

Crowdsourcing, insight sourcing and other planning thinking..

John Griffithswww.planningaboveandbeyond.com

Nov 30th

Planning Above and Beyond

A bit about me

www.planningaboveandbeyond.com

www.accountplanning.net


DevelopmentResearch

TrainingWorkshopFacilitation

CommsPlanning

Planning Above and BeyondHotel Babylon emails


Agenda

10.00 a brief introduction to account planning..11.00 insight generation: left brain right brain tool12.30 lunch break13.15 Waggledancers – strategy as collaboration3.00 Cloud of Knowing: Swarming a community of

interpretation


Planning: a function for adding value

An agency role which is not functionally essential to the making of advertising material

One of the earliest attempts to import the customer perspective

At its most effective the more junior the people doing it (senior expertise is hard to access and expensive

A way of thinking and innovating Anybody can do it – this is not a departmental function

(like creativity?)

You can use planning thinking


Half truths about planning It’s a job some people do at the agency

True but it’s a way of working – everyone in the agency does this particularly with experience – the planner can’t do it all.

Its about the consumer True but its also about a lot of other things – marketing,

branding, channel planning Its about research

True but it’s about a lot more: any techniques for understanding and evaluating consumers is relevant– there are planners who actually reject research because they say it doesn’t do these things

Its about intellectualising how advertising works True and this can be useful for selling work to clients but ivory

tower planning doesn’t add value and those guys are really a pain in the ..


History of Account Planning – where it began

In the beginning – Stephen King and Stanley Pollitt

Two schools of planning the marketers the ad tweakers

The two faces of strategy Simplifying Optimising

The impact on research The rise and rise and rise of the focus group


As it went on

Planning outside of advertising – the new specialists design/direct marketing/ sales

promotion/sponsorship/PR Integrated communications/Media

neutral Planning Communications Planning

Space Race/2020 Jim Taylor


Planning outside of the UK

Planning has spread worldwide like a virus!!

USA – Jon Steel Truth Lies and advertising

Elena Ionita –Wash and goLeo Burnett Bucharest


Nov 12th 2007


Planners in other areas John Grant New Marketing manifesto, Co-

opportunity Adam Morgan – Eat the big fish, Pirate inside Mark Earls - Herd Planners clientside - Diageo Planners in research – Brainjuicer, Mesh


And then there’s Russell Davies..

http://russelldavies.typepad.com/planning/2006/11/how_to_be_inter.html

Founder of InterestingThe first planning blogger

Coffee mornings


Account planning .. what’s the point of it?

Global Curious Eclectic Self organising Counter cultural Generous

Every business needs planning thinking!!


how each discipline makes its money - IT VARIES

AdvertisingMedia commission

Fees related to media spend

Biggest accounts

Discipline Making money Making profit

DirectMarketing

Construction and operation of bespoke

medium: account handling/targeting

Complex accounts

SalesPromotion


mechanic: account handling

Complex Mechanics(any size)

SponsorshipFee proportionate

to size of sponsorshipBiggest

Accounts

Complexaccounts


medium: account handling/targeting

Web based


how each discipline adds value – IT VARIES

AdvertisingEffective creative work

that creates massawareness/involvement

Discipline Adding value

DirectMarketing

Effectiveness of targetingand ability to solicit

response and conversion

SalesPromotion

Effectiveness ofmechanic and appeal to the trade and the client

SponsorshipLeveraging higher

awareness at lower costthan advertising

Reducing interaction costsOR Leveraging higher

InvolvementWeb based


The Integrated Model

1. The brand as promise

3. The brand as experienceddirectly by the consumer

2. The brand as medium


How the Elements Have Been Used in Isolation

Product led business

Service led business

Media led business

E.g. Ryvita

Eg The Economist

Eg Asda


Where the Disciplines Add Value

Advertising

Sales PromotionPoint of saleCustomer satisfaction

Direct marketingDatabase marketingCRM loyalty

PRSponsorship


How the person doing the planning adds value in each area

Psychologist

Private Investigator Accountant


Listening to customers

An early and core planning role Planners functioned as research buyers They often ran qualitative research

themselves This role is changing as communications

is spreading in all directions


The need to consult and be

consulted

STAKEHOLDER ECONOMY


Markets are conversations

Cluetrain manifesto

Companies and their employees aren’t moving fast enough – So their customers are working around them


Markets are co-creations

The mind of the market emerges from the interaction of consumers’ and managers’

conscious and unconscious minds

Gerald ZaltmanHow Customers think

The researcher’s job is to facilitate by getting in the way!

conscious conscious

Unconscious Unconscious


There’s a co-ordination problem

Are the departments talking to each other? Who is setting the agenda? Clue – it’s the

budget controller – may be none of the above

MarketingResearch Customer service

X X


And a proximity problem

Research used to be carried outbecause companies were so far fromtheir customers


Customers getting up close..

Now clients can‘t move without meeting customers: on the website, on help lines, writing letters of complaint, starting Facebook fan groups

so does this meanthat research is obsolete or has tobecomesomething else?


The internet…

Makes research faster Makes research cheaper Destroys the foundations of research


Lumpy Mass Audiences and the 80/20 Rule – which lumps do you need on your side?

Profitability Weight of usage Frequency of purchase/usage Loyalty to a given brand or subset of brands Propensity to try new products Promotionally responsive Pay attention to advertising Level expertise/knowledge Sociability and connectedness Persuasiveness

Audiences are NOT equal – some 5 timesmore polarised than the rest


How we describe customers ..

Demographics

Goals

Attitudes Behaviours

The old way The emerging way

Website development requires a customer description based on goals and behaviours

Demographics and attitudes hard to validate online So why use them as a discriminator? Volume of internet marketing means that goals and behaviours will become

normal descriptors for customer segments even offline


Making up Customer insights

You DON’T need research to get customer insights Brainstorm the insights then use research to

validate them – much quicker, easier and with far more radical results!

Toyshops that kids can play in


Left Brain Right Brain Exercise

Holistic understanding of the audience how they think about the product Their attitudes to lifeBUT ALSO What they know and think about the company How they spend their leisure time and what

this tells us about them How they process communications How they store communications


Exercise – Getting into people’s lives

Complete questionnaire If you don’t know the answer then improvise –

you can always check your guess later Left brain right brain exercise On the left hand side put a summary of the

learnings from the audience questionnaire On the right hand side brainstorm what the

brand can do to connect with the customer insights of the left

ACCESS YOUR UNCONSCIOUS ASSUMPTIONS!

Customer insightWhy should they?

left brain right brain exercise

Who are theyWhat do they want?

What is going to Attract their interest?

Questionnaireresults

Think of thingsthe brand could

do for them


Lunch time


Introducing the waggledancers project

Alternative take on account planning Planners as collaborators and

facilitators Skillset that any company would want to

hirePlanners do

it by themselves.

.NOT


1st law of planning

We aren’t necessary to the production process

We have to add value over and above

Strategists enable the group to focus its resources more effectively = they make the group more powerful


Waggle Dance: Angle of Flowers to Sun

Source: Francis L. W. Ratnieks


Waggle Dance: Angle of Dancing Bee to Vertical



Dance Duration Encodes Distance


Honey Bee Waggle Dance

Dancer (forager)

Dance Followers

(unemployed foragers)Source: Francis L. W. Ratnieks


3 skills of the strategist

Find where the nectar is

Make others want to find it too

Waggledance well so they can find it for themselves!

LOCATION

MOTIVATION

COMMUNICATION


Waggledancing is growing out of control!

Planning is now expanding faster than we can measure into agencies round the world and into every type of communications

There are even planning departments clientside – there ought to be a lot more


6 planning territories

Interaction

ReputationMessaging

Content

Channels/Networks

Audiences

Planning triangles are

SO 20th century..


Swarm ideas

Build your own peer/respondent network Trading partners – tool for finding partner

brands Brand peleton – tool for generating

propositions Brand screenplays Finding out what the swarm thinks.. And

into the Cloud of Knowing project


Building your own peer/respondent network

Research communities perhaps the hottest thing in qualitative research now Fusion of qual and quant Always on – can last for a week or a year Interactive for both clients and participants Customers can set the agenda Multimedia Global

Make your own – for free


Relevant websites

www.ning.com www.webjam.com Or start your own facebook group!

Use for workshops before and after Use to get more out of research groups Use for workgroups

Examples http://www.webjam.com/waggledancers

http://www.ning.com/

http://www.webjam.com/

http://www.webjam.com/waggledancers


Trading partners – brand and media partnerships

More to branded partnerships than 4 week sales promotions!

Brands can exchange Values Content Audiences

And share customer contact points to make an added impact


Strategic Partnerships – Britney & Madonnashow how it’s done! (in 3 seconds)

Common contact point – MTV Awards

Exchange1. Values2. Content3. Audiences


Partner Profile Tool Values

Shares WantsContent

Shares Wants

Contact StrategyShares Wants

AudiencesShares Wants


Peletons Positioning and propositions


The positioning enigma

Marketers don’t position brandspeople do!

To position your brand you needto persuade your audience toreposition it

A proposition is shorthand forwhat you say to persuadeyour audience to reposition you

Snooker is no different!


Introducing the Peleton


Working with the pack


Category marketing

Requires you to think about how to build the category not just the brand

The stronger the peleton the stronger your brand can be

But you need to position the brand inside the peleton

Its not always about being different – sometimes it is better to be close

Market PositioningPremium /

Luxury

Mid-market / mass- market

Authentic / craft /traditional

Manufactured / modern

Napier

Neal’s Yard

Origins

L’Occitane

Aveda

Tisserand

Duchy Originals

Crabtree & Evelyn

Boots

Body Shop

M&S

White Company

Jo MaloneDaylesford

REN

Molton Brown

Penhaligons

Liz Earle

Lush


The positioning exercise

1. Choose 2 ‘drivers’ – reasons why customers buy products in your market

2. Plot them on x and y axes3. Then plot where your brand is and also

your key competitors


Now write your proposition

4. Pick one axis to compete on5. Be the best on that dimension or6. Be better than a competitor strongly

associated with that dimension

position 2

Market PositioningPremium /

Luxury

Mid-market / mass- market

Authentic / craft /traditional

Manufactured / modern

Napier

Neal’s Yard

Origins

L’Occitane

Aveda

Tisserand

Duchy Originals

Crabtree & Evelyn

Boots

Body Shop

M&S

White Company

Jo MaloneDaylesford

REN

Molton Brown

Penhaligons

Liz Earle

Lush

position 1


Positioning 1 – sample proposition Handmade from traditional Provencal recipes

Positioning 2 – sample proposition Give your skin a holiday in the south of France

The acid test – are you convinced it is strong enough to reposition your brand?


Positioning Water - exercise How do you make a water stand out?

BrandsSpaEvianVolvicHighland SpringOgoVossVittel

Possible DriversPurityRefreshmentLifestyle


Brand = Verb

Brand screenplays


Brand screenplays

In an age where free content dominates branded behaviour has never been so important

Be interesting! Have a point of view! Tell a story!

Brand narratives is a workshop technique for identifying branded storylines using movie writing techniques


Narratives versus bunions

We’re not being rational…

Everyone knows stories – level playing field vs marketing and branding

The characters are different from each other

Characters change and develop and make choices

Conflict and opposition is what drives the character

They’re far too rational! There’s no storyline There is no distinction

between the brand, competitors and the category

Characters are supposed to be consistent

There’s never any conflict (unreal or what?)


Archetyping


Archetyping and branding

Pearson and Mark: Psychotherapy meets branding and advertising development

Archetypes or stereotypes? Insight tool or sales technique?


Archetypes and narrative Hollywood employs

archetype consultants tocreate ‘successful’storylines usually the epic


Epic in 120 pages..

Act 1 Act 2 Act 3

120

Page 45 9010 60 753031

The central questionIntroducing the cast

Character has to change

Final challenge

Character commits to new goal

The growth of the main character

Conclusion

The life changing event

Vicki King: How to write a movie in 21 days


The hero’s journey model

Act 1 Act 2 Act 3

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Test

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Ord

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Crisis

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Christopher Vogler The writer’s journey


How is it done?

Genre The lead character Cast Character

development Plots


You can do it in a single scene

Know the character of your protagonist Choose a genre Choose a cast list Make a scene which involves the whole

cast eg the card party in Pride and Prejudice – which of several female characters leaves a lasting impression on Mr Darcy and why?


Putting it to work

Always allow enough time to ask – what were the keys to the development of the character and how the narrative brought the character to success

And make enough time to brainstorm real life applications


Brand Narrative Applications

1. Brand development2. Communications development

(particularly through the line)3. Creating branded or company

storylines which play out in national media and become public entertainment

4. Product Innovation


Other swarm stuff

http://www.brandtags.net/browse.php www.taggalaxy.de www.wefeelfine.org

Sizing the audience: become a Facebook advertiser temporarily


Co-with everything

Co-creation

Research Communities

Bulletin boards Blogs


Cloud of Knowing

Face to face meetingsNext one due in July

Sharing papers

Open source project

http://www.webjam.com/cloud_of_knowing

Remit to consider how online content can beincorporated robustly into market research


Web contentThe questions we need answers to

SAMPLING

RESEARCH WITHOUT QUESTIONS

PERMISSION

% OF BUSINESS DECISION SUPPORT

REAL TIME

ANONYMITY

REPRESENTATIVENESS


Cloud of Knowing

The incorporation of web content as part of research

Issues of representativeness Outlier problem – nobody is normal What IS normal on the web? – no

consensus on what is average – qualitative significance

Issues of permission


The outlier issue

camcorder shampoo flatpackfurniture


Rachel Lawes – sample the culture

Don’t sample the population

Sample the culture

Think how to sample yoghurtness – not a balanced sample of

yoghurt eaters

Dr Rachel Lawes


There’s a storm brewing in the research industry

Direct access to customers

What is the role of researchers as intermediaries? Recruitment? Interviewing skills? Analysis and

interpretation


The difference between what the client thought as she leftthe last group and what she thought at the end of the

debrief presentation

A&I: What is it worth?


time to bring A&I into the open and put it on the outside where clients can see it!


Its Analysis AND interpretation

What kinds of music do you play here?

Oh We got both kinds.We got Country AND Western


Technically, two processes

Analysis Interpretation

Through revisiting and applying different filtersAnalysis works to exhaust the meaning

Through working outwards from micro to macroperspectives – interpretation is about finding the storyso as to show the big picture


Build a community of interpretation


Crowd sourcing analysis and interpretation

Because of the power laws amplifying a small network

Significance comes from validation at the interpretation stage – building a single version


Benefits

1. Speed – simultaneous analysis 2. Culture sampling – broader range of

inputs3. Embraces contrasting perspectives4. Can handle outliers – extreme data

sources5. Provides a way to integrate online data6. Respondents (and marketers) can be

used as co-interpreters


Analysis exercise: Barracuda swarm!We’re going to swarm a transcription from

many angles in 5 minutes then pull it all together! 10 barracuda teams

B1 significant Quotations - underlines B2 Comparison T with D – likes and

unlikes B3 themes: Roller coaster - sorting B4 Weight watchers – customer

experience - map B5 focus on T’s feelings about herself B6 God – what help is T asking for? B7 Social: shared with other

respondents B8 silences – human aid and

acquaintances who aren’t overweight B9 Culture – obesity discourse B10 Cf T’s photos and hand written

captions with the transcription

Obesity transcription – bulletin board postings on the diet roller coaster by T and D


The signal is amplified and balanced


How it might look

Instead of linear projects run by teams of 1-2 researchers

Have 1 day of data gathering then 1 day of analysis and interpretation with 5 analysts

Increase speed of project turnaround and increase depth of analysis

Draw together complementary perspectives in analysis

Apply different filters at the interpretation stage

Planning Above and Beyond102

Practical example of online swarming

Google, Bing, Yahoo cf Google Alert Amazon – sales info, customer reviews, what else

bought Ebay – new and second hand Wikipedia – what does it say and who said it? Flickr photos or YouTube videos – official/unofficial Facebook – official and fan pages Twitter – what are they saying? Blogpulse – blog analysis tool Delicious/Stumble Upon/Digg – tagging (& potential

user analysis) Squidoo – who is behind it


Flip


Summary

Account planning.. I hope you know a bit more about it now!

Now you can generate insights BEFORE doing research I hope you now see the value of strategy but something

that belongs to the group not the individual – collective thinking is more powerful

And you have a online swarming tool using the web to sample the culture


In Conclusion

What single thing will you do differently to change your working practice?

What are you going to start doing as a result of today?

Is there anything you are going to stop doing as a result of today?

How will you know when that change has made a difference?


The power of the many..

Is just as relevant to our working processes as it is to external markets

What could you do next to leverage it?www.webjam.com/cloud_of_knowing

[email protected]

www.researchtalk.co.uk/rt/category/series/jgshow/

Cloud of knowing site:

Podcast:

Website: www.planningaboveandbeyond.com

london in prague: john griffiths planning tools

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