Advertising spend is expected to exceed £20bn in the UK this
year, as the economy & consumer confidence continue to recover and brands also
seek to ramp up their digital activity.
This impressive stat follows an equally jaw-dropping one
from late last year – 75% of marketing campaigns failed to achieve their
targets.
According to The Fournaise Marketing Group (a marketing
effectiveness consultancy), the most common mistake that contributed to this
degree of failure is a weak or unattractive proposition – “they kept focusing
on ‘Style’, ‘Look’, ‘Feel’, ‘Digital’ and ‘Social’ and did not pay the proper
attention to answering the most relevant pains, needs, wants and expectations
of their target audience”.
Agencies (and Planners in particular) have a duty to their Clients
to ensure this doesn’t happen. Unfortunately, Adland tends to talk ‘consumers’
rather than ‘people’. The Planner’s core role is often summarised as “representing
the consumer’s voice and interests”, which can sometimes be seen as synonymous
with writing research proposals.
We (Planners) have to shake off this misconception and break
out of our ivory towers. We need to regularly walk a mile in our customer’s
shoes. Everyone involved in the development of campaign (especially those
involved in signing them off) has to be mindful of how people actually live
their lives.
With the advent of new devices, like to Apple Watch, it’s
easy to be mindful of the constantly evolving media landscape. However, it’s
much harder to remain mindful of related change when it comes to our customers’
behaviours, their motivations and their barriers to purchase.
The Planning role is a critical one when it comes to staying
abreast of customer’s shifting relationships with brands and media channels.
This means we Planners need to stay engaged throughout the campaign development
cycle and evaluate the effectiveness of creative ideas and develop learnings
for future campaigns.
The Planner’s role is increasingly a practical one and
shouldn’t be viewed as academic. For that
reason, we don’t put a grand name to our Planning process here at Clarity. We simply call it 'clear thinking'.
Colin
Gray
Head
of Strategy and Planning, Clarity
