What is your vision of a media-neutral approach to strategic planning and how would you go about reaching that vision given an open brief?

Steve Barton, Managing Partner, Leonardo

The last thing we need to solve this issue is another 'vision'.

Hints about the best media-neutral approach to planning are in our best new business pitches.

Typically, a small group of representatives from a number of departments or group companies attend a briefing. Representation tends to be more senior and it tends to be people who have worked together before. All brainstorm potential solutions and agree a common direction, then go away and work to it. As a result, the other parts of the agency spend more productive time working up creative ideas - - all to the same proposition and across disciplines.

And it does not have to be an overly formal process with reams of documentation. What is critical is getting the right people involved at the right time (often earlier than you would expect). Because briefing the 'right' people earlier in the process invites interrogation of the brief from different perspectives and leads to an innovative use of discipline-centric thinking to shape the strategy - - well before any execution has been committed to.

Though it is worth noting that there are some additional reasons for this:

· client desire for fresh, new approaches
· no existing rules or processes to follow
· no ingrained roles putting up 'ownership' barriers
· less time for politics · more senior input earlier in the process
· greater openness with agencies to any idea that will win the business (regardless of origin)
· no existing group profit barriers

The role that a planner can play, here, is to be the 'solution neutral' moderator. The intelligent, guiding hand that gets the best out of people, keeps their thinking on track, captures the insights/direction, and? keeps the bigger egos in check. He needs to lead the debate from a solid understanding of the issues rather than be pigeonholed as the gatekeeper of things strategic.

Then, he needs to work with all parties to keep true to the essence and direction that has been agreed upon. This means spending as much time with the advertising creatives over scripts as the direct marketing creatives over letter copy or media planners over media properties.

If we simply replicated the 'new business' approach more often, we'd be more than half the way there.

But given an open brief, I would go a little further. I have found that the most profound insights, in terms of media-neutral planning, come from a blending of data and ad planning. This helps you get inside where they live and how they live - - which serves as an excellent springboard for media planning.

Of course, you must have talent to make any of this work. No process, approach or trademarked, proprietary tool will make up for a dearth of talent.

How might this lead to a more integrated communications strategy and what steps would you take to prove its effectiveness?

It shifts the emphasis back to solving the client's core business problem rather than the portion of the problem that each discipline is best placed to solve. And if we start with the business problem, then it should be easier to judge which bits from the marketing mix are most appropriate.

Proving the effectiveness of an integrated communications strategy is much more difficult. But I believe the answer is closer to 'net present value' than ad tracking studies and copy link tests.

If one of our clients biggest questions is "should I put this money in a building society or invest it behind product x?", then we should be linking communications effectiveness with return on investment. And then, one of the most important questions for us is how to measure the impact of different mixes of communications investment upon return.

I've yet to see such a model.

Can any individual agency have the depth of experience and knowledge to carry out this task?

In theory, yes. In practice, no.

We are not in these discipline silos by accident. The proliferation of media and properties within each media means that you have to have 'craft skill' expertise - - at a strategic & implementation level - - to be in business. It is unrealistic to think that any individual agency would carry out such a task, today.

Rather, the question becomes: how do you build/sustain/access the best 'craft skill' expertise and then plan it as one solution?

Some groups built up separate units to deliver the depth of experience and knowledge. OgilvyOne (O&M) and Wunderman (Y&R) were some of the first to do this.

Other groups, such as Saatchi and Saatchi, elected to split up specialist disciplines and place them into each client group. This way the 'craft skills' are integrated into the business without profit centre or organisational barriers.

If you judge best 'craft skill' practice based on what clients are buying most often, then the separate unit approach wins thus far.

And this is because clients understand the difference between and integrated agency offering and a specialist agency, arguably better than most agencies. They also know how to manage these different agencies to get the best possible creative product, again, arguably better than most agencies. Clients prefer one briefing and one integrated response.

However, they will not sacrifice the quality of PR, direct marketing, sales promotion, etc. for that convenience. So, they turn to the stronger, independent units more often. However, all this independent talent becomes a problem when the different agencies become incompatible silos (often in different locations). This is our opportunity: become better at planning and managing a media-neutral solution so that clients are willing to buy this from us rather than manage it in-house.

And this brings us to the unavoidable question of who should lead (and plan) this effort.

Media-neutral, strategic planning works best when you have a good leader. This is a person who has a fascination the different disciplines and an unyielding drive to crack a brief - - wherever it takes her. This is a person who can speak advertising with ad people and direct marketing with direct marketing people - - with equal intelligence and authenticity. This is an integrated Account Director - - with an integrated Planner at her side. A perfect driver/analytic partnership.

The future is about this integrated leader working with the strength of the 'craft skills' while shaking up a bunch of out-dated processes and bad habits.

(c) Account Planning Group 1995-2002