"How to..." in a world full of "What ifs?"

Every day millions of people have countless millions of ideas - and most are lost into the ether, where they're fed upon by hungry monsters. These monsters are desperate to maintain the status quo (hungry monsters being huge fans of fossilization due largely to their inability to adapt to change) and so they gobble up all but the most well championed thoughts, growing fat on our inertia and sleeping soundly at night on mattresses stuffed with genius thought that went nowhere.

A planner's job is to ensure that fewer of those ideas are lost to hungry monsters and that more of them make it out into the world, where they can make a difference.

The problem is nobody is really helping Planners to do that.

That's where this book aims to help.

If this book aims to be a practical guide to getting ideas out into the world.

A 'How to..." in a world full of "What Ifs?"

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I've been a planner for a long time now.

It may look easy. At face value all that you need is access to the internet, a knowledge of a couple of key powerpoint shapes and marketing models, a graphic t-shirt and some ridiculous glasses.

You're not responsible for anything that actually makes it out into the world, you win awards for summarizing what other people have done, you outsource research, and you have plenty of time to blog about life in the agency, your theories on life, and what you're planning to do with Gareth or Russell the next time you all meet. Plus you get to wear sandals, in winter.

But the truth is that whilst there's no shortage of theory on what planning should be about. And while there's a surfeit of stories, anecdotes or retro-fit case histories (the formula for which is "We believed this, we tested the work, we were wrong, we learned humility, we had an a-ha moment, we re-calibrated, it worked, we are brilliant...") nobody really tells you what you should be doing when it comes to the day in and day out of frozen peas, pasta sauces and weight loss clubs.

Let's change that.

What am I talking about?
Fair question, here's an example of when I think that this book will be useful...

Your client knows that marketing works best when it's expressing a core brand belief
And when that core belief is expressed through the product
And at every touchpoint.

Because you've told him
And because it's in every marketing book he's read in the last 3 years.

He has an issue though
His brand doesn't have a belief.
It doesn't have a charismatic founder.
It doesn't have any obvious reason for being.

It was founded in a meeting room in New Jersey in answer to segment growth of 14% a year, a chance to flood the market via a friendly distribution channel and research that showed that people respond well to thistle imagery in the semi-premium yellow fat market.

Now you can throw Apple, Nike, Starbucks and Virgin logos at him for a while
You can pull out a Dove case study
And you can show him brands like Innocent

And if you art direct it well, and phrase it aggressively enough ("How can you call yourself a brand and not have a single guiding principle, would Steve Jobs have allowed that?) you can buy a couple of weeks for yourself and the agency.

But ultimately the client wants to know... where can I find my belief? How can I run it through the company? How can I get it to inform the product and distribution of the product? And how do I ensure that it's all credible?

And you have no fucking clue how to answer that.

We've all been there. Trapped in the circle of "You should", "We haven't", "But you should know", "Alas we don't" that leads nowhere good.

That's where and when I hope that this book will help.

Pick it up and it will tell you - where to look for that belief, who to talk with, the kind of meetings you need to have with them, how to plan those meetings, how to introduce product people to the idea, how to anchor it, how to build momentum, and consensus and how to get it through the system.

Practical, sensible, start points to deal with the issue.

It's a planner's "WTF" guide...

Let's do this