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Can Planners Really Find An Insight In An Hour?

Apr 6, 2018
4 min

Can Planners Really Find An Insight In An Hour?

Why the demand for ‘quick-turnaround insights’ devalues great Planning and what we can do about it. In 2011, Richard Huntington wrote a presentation called: ‘What’s So Good About Trends?’ where he explained that a great insight is ‘a revelation’. The opening slide from Richard’s presentation Back in 2011, I was a qualitative researcher, and hadn’t yet made the leap from research into my first planning role. Reading Richard’s presentation and discovering the romance of finding

Planners Unmasked | James Lees

Aug 26, 2016
5 min

Planners Unmasked | James Lees

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR JOB TO A 7 YEAR OLD CHILD? The same way I try to describe it to drunk people at parties when they go “Creativestratawhaaa?” ... I usually pick up two bottles of beer from different brands and say, “I try to create the difference between this, and this, in your head, in order to make you want one more than the other.” (If I was describing it to a 7 year old I might use non-alcoholic props…) WHAT 3 SKILLS SHOULD EVERY GOOD PLANNER POSSESS? So

Behind the Mirror | A view from Steven Son

Jun 22, 2015
2 min

Behind the Mirror | A view from Steven Son

Last week, I heard Jon Steel lambast the current state of planning. His main bone of contention was that it is no longer a research based discipline. Although my admiration for him is boundless, I felt it was a little harsh. Since his heyday, the world, let alone the advertising industry, has undergone massive changes. The landscape is much more complex and the role of a planner has expanded accordingly. Indeed, there are now many different types of planner to meet a variety

Behind the Mirror

Jun 18, 2015
2 min

Behind the Mirror

An evening of talks, tools, interactive exercises and discussion to demystify qualitative research. A brief but incredibly useful, interactive session to get the most out focus groups and qual research. You’ll learn about the core skills of listening, interpreting and sifting and have a go in groups. And you can take away tools and approaches that will be useful in your job and in your life….. The evening will be run by the expert researchers and moderators from The Nurse

Hypothesis on Noisy Thinking

Jun 27, 2013
4 min

Hypothesis on Noisy Thinking

Planners get the research they deserve. 1/ Culture – over used these days. But what we are so used to doing we don’t notice is worthy of study. Nudge nudge. I shouldn’t have to explain it to you. The giveaway is the phrase ‘you know’. We all collude where culture is concerned. And the solution is to think like an alien – get a man to understand makeup. Get those without kids to understand parenting. Become an outsider and frame your hypothesis that way. 2/ The market categor

Planners get the research they deserve

Jun 25, 2013
5 min

Planners get the research they deserve

This time we were interested in interrogating the working relationship between Planners and researchers, from formal briefings, to going-in hypotheses to the impact of behavioural economic theories on the quality of what is produced. The underlying theme was that things are harder and more complex than ever and that it’s incumbent on Planners to go the extra mile to get the research they need – and want. As ever there were three perspectives on the problem: Wendy Gordon, the

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