Davies on planning

Over at IF by PSFK, Russell Davies writes on the state of planning.

My excuse for writing this is that I’ve just been involved in organising, judging and arguing about the Creative Planning Awards; which is a fabulous opportunity to peer under the hood and see how brand thinking actually happens nowadays. And that, having spent 6 months at Nike and having worked on the brand for years, I’m really starting to understand what should be obvious to everyone, but is sometimes very hard for agency folk to internalise – advertising agencies don’t have a monopoly on good ideas.

Most client organisations are full of imaginative, talented, creative people and they partner with all sorts of businesses to get even more good ideas. Agency planners are valuable to us because their skills and experiences have taught them to be good collaborators; they know how to work with people and ideas. They tend not to be precious about where the idea has come from. And, unlike many people in agency life, they’ve learned how to be good listeners. In the world we’re all moving into – client-based strategy and creativity, multiple agency partners, communications integrated across a wealth of media platforms - these will be increasingly important skills.