Life after Account Planning Boot Camp

So, I am back in Graz and getting ready for my last regular exam in Salzburg. Two weeks have gone by since I returned from Hamburg and I pretty much have been constantly doing stuff – from attending weddings and sorting out last term’s notes, books left behind in July to picking mushrooms.

I guess it is time to look back at the Miami Ad School Account Planning Boot Camp. For me it has been a great experience. Miami Ad School is an exciting place to be, I enjoyed learning from several outstanding planners and my fellow planning students have been a diverse, inspiring group of talented individuals.

Many people keep approaching me with questions about the program. To answer the most burning question: Would I recommend the Account Planning Boot Camp? Yes.

I will write up a more detailed summary of the course and my experience in the coming weeks. There were several great projects that resulted in awesome work, but also sobering experiences in how ideas won’t happen. I believe I learned more from these rocky road trips than the smooth rides.

Account Planning Boot Camp

The planning projects went great for me, in a team with Diana Caplinska I won a pitch presentation and my other teams’s (Zoe Maritz, Carolina Bueno, Antonio Delgado) final strategy presentation for a German-wide launch campaign got awarded a “Best of Show”. I will soon publish the case studies and presentations of these projects we worked on.

But for the moment I have to return from the glamorous, glittery world of advertising to the real, sober world of academia: studying social semiotics and finishing my bachelor paper on English literature, specifically the morphology of characters in the American romance novel. I am living the dream.

You get the answers you ask for.

Yesterday, I learned that Henri Ford’s classic “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”-soundbite is usually quoted when people prepare to lash out at market research.

Funny, I always understood it as a criticism of stupid questions.
You always get the answers you ask for. Or deserve.

That is all.

Adding intangible value

Out of nowhere I ran again across this small section of Rory Sutherland’s “Life lessons from an ad man” talk at TEDGlobal 2009. I had forgotten how interesting and brilliant, filled to the brim with awesome it was. If you like this small section, you will enjoy all the highly recommended 17 minutes.

www.ted.com
Rory Sutherland’s blog at Brandrepublic

Account Planning Boot Camp 2010

This is a bit delayed. Upon arriving in Hamburg the plan was to immediatedly and regularly blog everything that is happening here at Miami Ad School Europe. Now we are through with the third week and here is my first post. So much for ambitious plans.
The name Boot Camp really lives up to it’s sweat-promising name. We were sweating literally, but that was also due to the unusual heat here in Hamburg. Boot Camp wise, the first weeks felt like more like four with so many new ideas, new people, presentations, new things learned and it takes some time to process it all.
I will hopefully commence regular transmissions from the field by Sunday. Until then, here is a photo of the Account Planning Boot Campers 2010 courtesy of the phantastic Olaf Kroenke.

Account Planning Boot Campers 2010

We are quite a diverse bunch from Brazil, Switzerland, Spain, Germany, Latvia and Austria. Some with experience in planning, some in account management, some in creative and some fresh from school.

But I still think it’s a Good Idea

Working in teams with the creatives here at Miami Ad School in Hamburg, I have a strong feeling of deja vu – of me as a young copywriter. The one defining lesson I took from my experience in the creative field was how much you can fall in love with what you believe is a great idea. But, truth be told, it is not a good idea – no matter how eloquently you post-rationalize it. The memory of me as a bad copywriter is my constant reminder how important the third person in the middle is to ask, “Does this really work?”.

A quote from a discussion this week: “I know it goes against all the values of the brand, but I want to present it anyway.” So what do you think will happen? That miraculously the client throws over board all his prior considerations and picks your idea? That would not a the brave client, that would be a stupid client.

Now there is proof you can make a client brave and bold, but you need substance and strategy that make sense for the client, not for yourself, not for the idea. I am still amazed how many of the seemingly crazy ideas (Old Spice guy) have obvious and clear strategy behind them (we need to address married middle-aged women because they make the bodywash decisions for their husbands, often choosing lady-scented varieties). Planning gruntwork and great creative helped P&G take a controlled risk, not a leap of faith.

Creatives have it tough. Idea after idea after idea rejected, buried, killed. Every meeting a rendezvous with the guillotine for your most brilliant work to date. I get why they hate it. I’d hate it, too. But all the great clients are usually the toughest clients with meetings that can be summarized (according to folks I met) as “Great! Your best work, ever! – Make it better.” To steal and paraphrase a quote from Winston Churchill: “Great creative is the result of going from one rejected idea to another with no loss of enthusiasm”. Creative is more about letting go many ideas than coming up with one perfect idea.

That said, being aware of the creative’s fragile mind I avoided to kill off the idea of the prior quote: I will let the person present their great idea personally, if they show up on time. Which they never did at any of our meetings. I rest assured we will not be wasting our client’s time in the meeting.

Why I want to work in Planning

Great news in my mail today: I have been accepted to the Miami Ad School Europe’s Account Planning Boot Camp in Hamburg. The program will start in July.
I am super-excited about this opportunity and about being able to see St.Pauli play in the German Bundesliga again.

One of the questions posed for the application was: “Why do want a career in Account Planning?”. Here is what I wrote:

First, because it is the field that makes the most difference in advertising. My perception is that the outstanding work of the last years was only possible because it had a firm strategic foundation.

Second, it will be the most challenging and exciting discipline in advertising. We are just at the beginning of the digital age. The maps of human behavior and communication will be redrawn. What a great time to be an explorer!

And third, because I hate being bombarded with lame, irrelevant and meaningless advertising. I want to change that.

On a more personal note, I have been excited about account planning and it’s practice since I studied it at the University of Oklahoma. It never let go of me. I kept myself informed and took courses. What I learned I put into practice at my job with DMS, but never worked as a planner.

I am applying here because I want to turn a hobby into a career.

Breakfast is for lovers…

The Lurpak campaign by Wieden+Kennedy, London is one of my favourite recent advertising campaigns. I like the insight and strategy behind it and how they were translated into marvellous ads (with long copy). The rhythm, images and focus on what good you can make with Lurpak (instead of promising some super-healthy proposition) are a pleasing contrast to the usual screaming of advertising.

Yesterday evening a new series of print and television ads went on air:  ”Saturday is Breakfast Day” (via the W+K London blog). 

Inspire people to make Saturday a breakfast day. The brilliant copy and images are mouthwatering and inspiring. Again, the focus is on something you can make WITH Lurpak instead of some obscure promise what Lurpak does for you. Improve your Saturday, enjoy a wonderful breakfast, add Lurpak. Brilliant.

 I believe this resonates with many people in general (breakfast people like my wife or non-breakfast people like me) and Britain’s situation in particular.

It is hardly a coincidence that this piece appeared in today’s Times. Camilla Cavendish makes observations about the British and food that could very well be in the brief for the Lurpak campaign:

Most of us are confused. [...] We balk at paying for raw ingredients, but readily cough up for extortionate ready meals. We spend hours watching TV chefs but apparently only 13 minutes on average making a meal – down from one hour in 1980.

and the last paragraph, where she recalls Carlo Petrini, founder of Slow Food, drawing the contrast

between Britain’s “pornographic” onslaught of recipes and TV chefs, and the “act of true love” that he believes is making food from traditional, local ingredients. 

Imagine that commercial.

Let’s be clear what we are talking about…

Last week this commercial for the Austrian Lotteries went on air. I actually like it. It has a good idea, the main protagonist is perfectly cast and it is amazingly subtle and still funny – for Austrian standards.

Last year’s “Dog” was also a good idea in my eyes. Got Lowe GGK showered in awards, but internationally only shortlisted (i.e. Cannes). 

Yet, despite being brilliant ideas and quite successful, I believe these ads could look a lot better if the agency would be clearer about what they are talking about.

These commercial have a looong history: Along with the tagline “Alles ist möglich” / “Everything is possible” they have been showing the depressing status quo of a person contrasted with the glorious golden future of that person being a lottery winner.

These two commercials have completely left that look-at-that-terrible-job-you-are-in-now-and-the-lottery-will-get-you-out-of-there strategy and tell a much clearer message:

Play the lottery because it will you make so filthy rich that [insert commercial idea here]

I have my doubts that there has been a true strategical decision towards this message. Rather good ideas that were pressed into the old corset. The execution is still stuck in that old tradition of how these spots must be made.

So in “Opera” they spend 15 seconds telling nothing of relevance, because that was the way we have always done it. It makes no sense, does neither help story nor punchline, and it costs extra money each time the ad is aired. And it will go no further than the Cannes shortlist.

Just my two cents.

Osama loves..

While Austria is preparing itself for yet another election filled with xenophobic campaigning, I stumble across this at Mark Earls’ Herd Blog:

Osama loves
Channel 4 does a little online/interactive/online campaign that tries to give people a differentiated look at Islam and muslims. The idea itself is simple: they are looking for 500 Osamas around the world to tell who they are, what they do and what they like.

Osama loves
Osama from Indonesia loves Mangas. Osama from Nigeria loves Playstation. And I share my interest in Astronomy with Osama the Imam from the UK. Who knew?

This is great. It involves people. Makes them do something. As Mark points out it is a textbook sample for a modern campaign. But more important, this campaign lets muslims portray themselves, instead of being portrayed by hatemongers on soapboxes.

Austria could use some similar campaign these days. We need more human faces and the realization that we have more in common than what separates us in to break through the label of “non-integration-willing foreigners” (bad translation of a bad term) and whatever that may suggest. But that would be an entirely different post.

They still need around 400, so if your name is Osama, or you know an Osama, join in.

Brand tags

BMW brand tags

Noah Brier has done a small website with a great, yet simple idea. Brand tags simply collects tags and comments for brands by users entering the site and then displays the tag clouds. More than 100.00 people have tagged already giving an interesting look at all the brands on the site.

I always thought that tagging and tag clouds or web 2.0 things like tweetclouds are great tools to analyze and display the results of interviews and focus groups. What works with brand tags on the larger scale can be done for single client, too.