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Orlando
Hooper-Greenhill, Planning Director, DFGW
When I
first read the questions attached to this topic I didn't think they made
much sense. Then I thought about them for a bit. Then I realised that
it was worse than that. For some time now I have been growing increasingly
annoyed by the random, almost frivolous use of marketing language. On-brand,
off-brand, strategy, insight and comms blurted out as if the words alone
are shining emblems of success. As you can imagine 'Media-neutral Strategic
Planning' didn't do much to quench that feeling. In campaign today (29th
August 2002) it lists 'bullshit' as a one of the things most disliked
about the industry. Oh dear. This seems just that, a convenient and accommodating
crutch designed to make clients feel like they're doing it right without
having to think too hard, and a moderating tool between a bunch of different
agencies squabbling about who's the most important. Integration or whatever,
a blazing trail of convenience is a poor road to follow. I'm one of the
people who do strategic planning and frankly I want something more exciting.
The way
I see it, planners don't look inside the marketing process and politics
to build the most effective communications for their clients' business.
They look outside; at the world, at the business, the market, and of course,
at consumers. So let's start with them.
When you
think about it, people and their brains are pretty complicated items.
"Yeah yeah yeah" we all say. The funny thing is that we don't give them
half the credit they deserve. Sure someone has counted the number of marketing
messages any given individual processes in any given day. But what does
this mean about the people who see them? It means that somewhere somehow
all this is being divided up, categorised, judged, and it gets turned
into things we think we know about companies and tugs the emotions about
how we feel about them.
Take this
thought, flip it over, and see what it says about how people build opinions
of any given brand. Imagine all the different times, occasions and ways
in which people experience most brands. It's wild and varied, almost unfettered.
And it's through all this that we form our opinions of a brand, up there
in our brains. It sounds hard, but don't worry we can do it in our sleep.
So what
does this mean for 'integrated communications'? I think it's terrifically
liberating. This means we don't have to be confined to the straight-jacket
of visual consistency. Slapping the same image here, there and everywhere
in the mistaken belief that this means "Hooray, we're integrated! We've
made it!" If this was our mantra we'd start insisting on the same rules
of consistency for all experiences of a brand. Would you put Howard from
the Halifax on a credit card or a cheque book? Maybe, but if you insist
on it, blindly, is that a great idea? When does it stop? Is Howard the
only genuine article I can expect to find behind a counter? He's got his
work cut out. Is there an army of Howards manning the call centre, is
the piped music a medley of Howard Hits? Thank God we don't have to do
this because people are perfectly capable of building up their own opinions
from lots of different things. They actually like doing it. And here's
the real killer - they will do it anyway, we can't stop them.
I am by
no means advocating a free for all, far from it - a schizophrenic brand
is a disaster. Rather, a more sophisticated idea of integration that results
in a very simple idea of what this is all about. When it comes to it,
if you strip back all the bullshit what you'll come down to is the little
sparks of things called 'ideas'. It's as pure and simple as that.
No earth-shattering
beam of light from the bag of insights all planners keep underneath their
desk. Just a straight-forward bit of honesty. An idea that combines what
something is, what it offers people and how you feel about it. So that
the people that buy it, live it, or even own it, can relate to it. Sure
you need ideas that are flexible, versatile and compelling, no easy task,
but that isn't a challenge to shy away from.
The idea
is your communications currency. It becomes the heart and soul of what
you do, the springboard for all the various avenues and channels; from
the script of a glossy commercial, PR stories, media placement, to staff
chatter. For every different form of media you take this central idea
and express it the most eloquent and appropriate way for that medium (albeit
with a discipline of adherence to the idea). If you want a phrase for
it you can have Media Specificity, but I wouldn't bother.
It doesn't
really matter where an idea comes from (except maybe pride or in some
cases money) but it does matter how good that idea is. A good idea can
become whatever it needs to become. Guinness and 'waiting' is a perfect
example. Then you just need good people to get behind it, get on with
it and make it happen for real. Likewise a bad idea is always bad no matter
how well integrated it is. No matter how many times and places we see
Andre Agassi and Steffie Graf living a happy family life thanks to T Mobile
it does not make it a good idea.
For this
purist strategic planner, media-neutrality is a non-phrase, distracting
jargon. You just need to be able to find and judge ideas and then work
out how to use them properly. This sort of intellectual integration is
harder than physical integration. It's a lot more complicated, and it
usually takes longer, but it is better. If you ask for integration, you
had better mean it. But the richness and variety of communication this
permits means you can present your brand/product in continuously interesting
ways. And the strength of feeling and opinion that this can create in
the hearts and minds of people is worth all the effort. I find that a
lot more exciting.
(c) Account
Planning Group 1995-2002
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