Planning-ness Vol. II

I have been meaning to write at least a quick recap note about the very cool and memorable experiences that I got to enjoy on day two of Planning-ness. They deserve it just as much as the experiences of day one.

Here are the highlights:

Planning deities, Jason Oke and Gareth Kay, shared their simple yet visionary point of view on Connections Planning. According to them the problem with this discipline is that, currently, it is not focused on brands or people, but on solving an AGENCY problem: the disconnect with media departments and agencies. Looking forward the key for the prosperity of Connections Planning (and this could apply to modern Advertising at large) is "to apply the New Media lens (interactive, interaction) on Advertising, and not the other way around, the Advertising lens (interruption, pushing message) onto New Media". Their presentation is here.

Flamingo, a very cool international research company, conducted a hands-on workshop on Commercial Semiotics. Through immersive, insightful and plain fun exercises we analyzed commercial advertising messages. We also uncovered Apple as the Mother ship of the Future.

Garry Tan (Posterous) shared his grasp on design and revealed how UI is a conversation and how people treat computers like people. As a consequence, in addition to design aspects, tech companies must pay attention to the human factor and human connections. He pointed out WUFOO—an Internet application that helps build online forms—who replies all customers' inquiries within minutes.

And last but not least Adrian Ho and Rob White from Zeus Jones brought the whole group together to brainstorm on how to take the leap from traditional to modern branding. We all picked our brains and came up with new and more effective marketing/planning tools to build better brands. The brilliant collective outcome can be found here. "Failure Awards," "ARG," "Act Now Think Later," and "Role Playing" are a few examples that demonstrate an interest on dynamic processes.

All of this exhaustingly stretched the limits of my perceptions and gave me a lot to think and to apply from now on.

who needs an ad agency?

... when passion comes from within. And in this particular case from a group of extremely talented, creative and well organized individuals. Great examples of user generated video "ads", below are the winner and two runner ups from the "HANDMADE MOMENTS ARE EVERYWHERE" Etsy contest. I really can't give this organization and community enough praise!

October Holga

Camara: Holga
Film: Fujichrome 400 120 slide film
Technique: Cross Over

Notes:

With this film and settings subjects/objects need to be in direct sunlight.

Greens will over-saturate but this can easily be fixed in Photoshop levels.

Need for a better system to calculate focal distance (see Cactus shot) e.g. LOMOKEV's measuring tape.

Love imperfections. There is only so much you can control with this type of camera. The best thing to do is to let go and have fun, sometimes the results will delight you.

I also found a great book with composition and other useful tips: HOT SHOTS

Can't wait to develop the next roll!

ñ

Similar to Heather LeFevre's Planner Survey this year Cristina Sanchez Blanco from Navarra University, together with APG Spain, have come up with a report painting the strategic planning landscape in Spain. The 76 page report can be found here (en Español).

Strategic Planning is a relatively new discipline in Spain and so this study outlines basics: 1. Planner Demographics, 2. Daily work of the account planner and 3. Relationship with other agents in the communication process. This is one of the first studies covering this matter in Spain and helps define their current state of strategic planning.

YOUNG GUNS

31% of the respondents of the survey were under 30 years of age (that is 20 out of a total sample of 62, a surprisingly high number).

A very high percentage have postgraduate studies in business, marketing or even strategic planning. This study did not provide data on salary, however from Heather's survey we know that salaries in Spain are extremely low, so how are young planners paying off their school debt?

37% have under 3 years of experience. This seems odd, from my personal Spanish network I know how extremely rare junior positions are. Some places even require previous service in account. All this makes me wonder about 37%.


OVERWORKED CREATIVE PLANNERS

22% percent work in places with only one planner and 62.9% are taking care of 5 or more accounts. Woah. This may be a sign that Spanish agencies are somewhat understaffed however we need to remember that this field is still developing. So, how can we help more people get their foot in the door?

When describing every day duties, planners indicated they are highly involved in the "creative Jump" (even more so than in "qualitative research"). Creativity seems to prevail over strategy in Spain.

There is an increasing number of planners in media agencies—Could it be the emergence of Connections Planning? This is supported by planners "looking for consumer in new technologies" and the use of Internet forums and social networks as MAIN research tools.

ALL IN THIS TOGETHER

On a brighter note planners are great collaborators with account, creative and even clients. In contrast there is competition/ animosity towards media and research companies. Collaboration expands between agencies, with 45.2% of respondents stating that they have collaborated with another agency in their same group "very often".

Planners work very close with advertisers, who increasingly value and seek the role of planning. However, planners (79%) have indicated that their clients are looking for short term results (compared to a whopping 3% who is looking for long term ones).

Channel-wise planners are most involved in digital campaigns.


SUMMING UP
Strategic planning is a new discipline but is growing strong. Spanish planners, while lacking experience, have a great deal of vision and are writing the rules as they go. Advertisers seeking short term results still value creativity the most. In this time where Advertising is reinventing itself Spanish planners need to be advocates of the discipline —both internally and externally— and educate about the importance of consumer insights in dictating solid strategic work.

Learnings from Planning-ness

Planning-ness, the 2 day event organized by Mark Lewis (of DDB) to fill the gap and disappointment left by the cancellation of this year's AAAA's Account Planning conference, is over. And it was a huge success. The theme was "Get excited and make things", we had amazing speakers, great energy and most importantly just plain FUN!

Below are some of the themes that resonated with me the most:

DAY 1

Grant McCracken's notion of Corporation Respiration: breathing culture in and out.

David Brown on making documentaries: the key is the story and its compelling characters, casting will be critical and spending time with the actors will dramatically improve results.

Mary Jane Stevenson and Emily Duncan from "Organizing for America" presented narrative as an organization tool in grassroots movements and storytelling as the most powerful weapon in creating connections and engaging all kinds of audiences.

Ken Eklund, creator of many ARG including "World without Oil", on the importance of the state of play, experimentation and collaboration.

I was very thankful for the opportunity to volunteer at the event and very glad to see the Academy of Art University getting involved in this kind of events. This was all thanks to Cameron Maddux, faculty and director of Account Planning, who is promoting the importance of ART in advertising, business and schools.
RIGHT: At the Barrel House photo from Cameron.

Knowledge comes from everywhere

What could city planners and leaders learn from a bunch of hippies.

Recycling Architecture

Financial and safety concerns aside this is an applaudable example of local architects Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello putting the 3 R's into practice. They propose to repurpose the Bay Bridge's old infrastructure into sustainable low-cost urban housing. The Bay Line to be added to the eclectic list of SF neighborhoods.



Why I like their proposal
Overpopulation and the food crisis are two of the biggest challenges ahead. In both of those challenges LAND will play a preeminent role. The recycling of architecture provides with possibility—think of the tons cement awaiting demolition in the US today—and at the same time puts a break on the continuous invasion of the land and endangerment of animal and plant life. While we cannot undone the damage caused by decades of industrialization we can aim to maintain the balance of our ecosystems. We are recycling just about everything else these days and if we can figure out how to safely recycle infrastructure and reuse land we could be taking great steps to solve some of the challenges laying ahead of us.

A little bit Sci-Fi. A lot of cool. Personally I would still rather live on the firm land...


Read the BAY LINE project proposal here.

Still Analog

Yesterday Steve Jobs unveiled the new iPods. The most expected announcement was was revolving the video cameras: the new Nano has it, the Touch doesn't. Get over it. To my delight another announcement was made regarding the NANO: the model now incorporates FM Radio. This will be the first radio ever on an iPod.

One mystery remains. Why would Apple put an FM tuner into an iPod, something it has refused for almost 10 years? The answer comes with iTunes-Tagging. In addition to live pausing of the radio stream (and rewinding up to 15 minutes through the buffer) you can tag tracks by hitting the center button. If a radio station supports it, the song info is saved and later you can see a list in iTunes alongside, you guessed it, the option to buy the song. Of course, the fact that the new Zune HD has an HD radio inside may also have influenced Apple’s decision. - WIRED

Economic and competitive reasons aside here is another example of consumers clinging on to tradition, and marketers combining digital with analog.

it's a billboard, it's an ad.... what is it?

Advertising is redefining itself. Advertising is not advertising anymore.

This Target Billboard in New York's Times Square is a piece of art produced by NY collage artists: Michael Anderson, Josh Goldstein, Laurie Rosenwald and Charles Wilkin. Free for collective enjoyment. But this piece of art will later be recycled to become Anna Sui bags, sold in Target stores.

This is a magnificent example of the mentality of our times—sustainability, responsibility, efficiency, collectiveness—and of what advertising can become. Bravo Target.

(I am very curious of the role, if any, of the ad agency in this process... anyone?)

the countertrend

I thought one good thing was coming out of this horrible recession: people seemed to be interested in doing good, in being efficient and, most importantly, responsible (perhaps to make up for years of our reckless industrial society).

However last night, I bumped into yet-another-reality-tv-show that was a setback to my original thought.

Set in Detroit, the auto capital of the world, "CRASH COURSE" consists of a series of driving challenges in which the participants use old clunkers to drive recklessly (there is no real driving ability required in their obstacles). Although I can certainly understand the momentary thrill it provides these stunt-men-and-women-wanna-be one can argue on the kind of example it is setting for younger drivers (ABC seems like an odd choice, I was thinking more SPIKE?) and in the middle of an energy crisis.



My question is... Could we possibly find more constructive and responsible ways to recycle our old cars? Perhaps in the area of energy? housing? education? and providing jobs for the unemployed? Something to ponder... Maybe we are not as good, efficient and responsible as we could/should be.

On the importance of the 6 senses

- Look. There's Saturn. Saturn is the sixth planet from the sun...How many of the satellites of Saturn can you name? There's Mimas, Titan, Dione, Hyperion of course...

- I can't name any of them and fortunately they never come up in conversation.

- Sigh... Facts. I got a million facts at my fingertips.

- That's right. And they don't meant a thing, Because nothing worth knowing can be understood with the mind. Everything really valuable has to enter through a different opening... forgive the disgusting imagery. The brain is overrated.

Manhattan, Allen

the essence of the American Culture

Richard Avedon (1923-2004) was an American Photographer and pioneer in the field of fashion and portrait photography. He brought new life to the portrait genre with his highly defined black and white portraits in which the very essence of his subjects seemed captured. He was notorious for his famous subjects: Marilyn Monroe, Andy Warhol, The Beatles, President Eisenhower and long etcetera.

But he was also a cultural anthropologist. In his exhibits you can see decades of American culture pass through your eyes as if he had also captured the essence of the American culture.

You can enjoy the work of this master at the current SFMOMA exhibit or here

getting in (the ad world)

In such an unstable and competitive industry... How could employers reward (not abuse) creativity?

The death of Pop and the rise of hasty news

We received sad news about Michael Jackson passing away at Chilis Happy hour, right around 3PM. One of my co-workers was checking Facebook on his iPhone and saw some comments on Michael RIP. Although these were terrible news I couldn't help but to be absolutely amazed by the promptness in which we had received the news over frozen margaritas.

I was also commenting how I would love to see one of those cool Wired charts on the exponential growth of the speed of news spreading.

The chart could take the form of a timeline and show:
- Average time passed before learning about death of Marco Polo
- Average time passed before learning about death of Leonardo Da Vinci
- Average time passed before learning about death of John Adams
- Average time passed before learning about death of J.F Kennedy
- Average time passed before learning about death of Kurt Cobain
- Average time passed before learning about death of Lady Diana
- Average time passed before learning about death of Michael Jackson
... and so on, with indications of technological advancements: telegraph, radio, tv, web and finally the mobile web.

This again relates to the topic of our dependency on technology and how invasive it has become in our lives.

I was also surprised to read an article this morning about fake news of celebrity deaths—aka "death pranks"— which shows a real problem with the reliability of our new source. Quite concerning.





Please, another one of those cool charts to show the curve of news reliability go down as technology explodes and filters disappear.

catching up with Seth + Adrian Tomine- And a lesson for designers

Last week I attended a public speech and book signing with graphic artists Seth and Adrian Tomine. I must say it was a pleasure and thank the Booksmith on Haight.

Seth talked about his early years, how he started by drawing Super-Hero characters but how eventually grew out of it, he also talked about his struggle during art school and early career. His passion for his profession is admirable. He talked about the loneliness of the cartoonist which is something that really resonated with me.

Adrian Tomine was often self-deprecating and absolutely mortified with his early work "Optic Nerve" which brought him early fame and was about to be republished despite his efforts to bury it in the past forever. In the end (and due largely to his publisher's insistence) the series will stay out for the public's enjoyment. The compromise was to make the format more suitable for the zines and at the same time more bearable for the artist. Instead of being book-bound, the zines will be collected in a simple kraft box. A medium that Adrian finds much more suited for the xeroxed stapled small zines.

We all have past work that we wish to bury deep down in the past. Adrian Tomine (and for that matter any other creative public figure) is an example on how to live with our past. By choosing a more original and organic format—and with a little bit of humor—Tomine puts his shame into humble perspective, and places things in context: a 16 year old young man learning to draw.

the future is marketing to marketers

marketers as

a) consumers

With empowered consumers, or like trendwatching calls them in their briefing SELLSUMERS, the future smiles to those who can help consumers become marketers.

The web is a platform, a means to an end, and applications that help people create, showcase, share and finally sell their own products and stories are springing. See Threadless—Blurb—Lovely Charts—Springspotters-the Doritos Superbowl Ad contest, etc.


b) traditional communications professionals

On a slightly different note, in this age of participation there is a very heavy involvement of advertising, marketing and communications professionals in the conversation. Their voices are already heavily represented on sites like blogger-slideshare and twitter, social media has an amplifying effect for them. Whether this is fair or not for the true-consumer it's undeniable that it represents more opportunity. And so business like the Chartbeat-Veer-iStock- creative circle and so continue to succeed.

Inspired at Influx Curated

Last Thursday it was BSSP's Ed Cotton's Influx Curated Conference : 30 speakers. 5 minutes each, the brief: to inspire.

The following are the most resonaning moments:

1. Kanyi Maqubela from Virgance and his Mobs for Good

2. Joshua Brody from On your Feet and "Stand by me". He made a case that we underestimate ourselves: "Nobody expected to come here and sing, yet you were asked to and you did it, beautifully and in harmony"

3. Paul Kim from Mozilla and his idea of "overrated surprise"

4. Mark Barden from Eat Big Fish and the power of YES. Jelly Helm (StudioJelly) later elaborated on this notion from the perspective of someone who has been in Advertising.

5. Gary Hirsch also from On your Feet and the importance of the audience and the idea of incompleteness to allow co-creation. "Allow room for interpretation, don't try to control all"

6. Jennifer Pahilka (Web 2.0) says brands will success when they become a platform for something (just like the web did).

Some of the themes or macro trends that continue to be preeminent are:

1. Collaboration, constructivism and co-creation
2. Narrative, and the importance of creating a connection through Storytelling
3. Ying-Yang, a balance of optimism and pessimism, understanding the power of Yes and the power of No
4. The rise and fall of Advertising as a creative industry
5. Designers are becoming social activists

We are living in challenging times, there is amazing opportunity if we learn to defy our culture of fear and a number of invisible rules.

Augmented Reality... why care?

Technology is catching up to our wildest dreams. The candy of the day is augmented reality. AR can pull graphics out of the computer screen and into the real world and enable consumers to physically manipulate 3-D objects as displayed on a monitor, further blurring the limit between the real and the computer generated world—even more.

Although the technology is quite niche and yet to be fully developed, few International examples begin to emerge in areas such as sports broadcast, and advertisers have quickly embraced it as a cutting edge way to engage audiences and customers (Check out GE's smart grid).

Geeks and gamers are the obvious outlets for this technology to explode, however there are other markets that could benefit from this technology:

Instant Information for location and tracking purposes. Imagine Google Maps out on the streets and the implications for travel and tourism.

Work and Training Tool for design, architectural, construction, medical, etc.

The potential applications for this technology are hundreds, gaming and entertainment being the most obvious ones, and will depend on the technological development and the survival of all the hype.

Regardless of where and when the future is going there are a few learning we can extract from AR:

• Technology continues to be preeminent in our society
• Human fascination with the visualization of information
• Human obsession with seen the unseen