Video Conference with Jon Steel

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I was so excited to help Dr. Morris arrange the video conference with Jon Steel, who is one of the great practitioners in advertising today. He's book "Truth, Lies and Advertising : The Art of Account Planning" are considered the "Bible" by a lot of account planners ( although I don't really believe in that word). He worked for different agencies (WPP is the latest one) in UK and US as an account planner. Below is some notes I wrote down from the meeting. He mainly talked about the change of account planning today.

• Planning’s changed a lot .
• There are different kind of planners, strategic planners, digital planners, ….
• It’s all about social media. “Everything is digital” is overstated.
• Social media will not change everything.
• Planning is less affordable nowadays.
• The agency has to be committed, to get the advertising right, getting a real idea whether the product works before they give to the clients.
• Agencies choose to measure things that’s easier to measure not bc they should do it this way.
• “we knew more about the brand than the marketing people in the clients company”
• Nowadays, agencies don’t involve as much in the clients busisess (brand management).
• Agencies nowadays don’t say no to clients.
• The training culture does not exist in agencies today as 25 years ago.
• Two types of people – that simplifies and that complicates
• Take a pile of data and bring me data with just an idea in the back of it. – Simplify it.
• Its vital for planners to spend as much time in the real world as they spend time in the agencies, planning is about talking to people, about watching the program the customers watch, getting to know people. You have to do that in the context of real life.
• Take time out of the agency and go think some stuff. Allow yourself to switch off
• To figure out how to let everyone interpret your message in their way. Allow people put themselves in the message/ campaign. Let people personalize advertising campaign/ message/ response.
• The future of planning lies in the history. No matter what media, the best stuff is stuff that engages people, make ppl talk about it. Encourage people to response / interact.
• Even for the digital media today, you really need to know how communication works.
• A good planner tell stories, they have a journalist idea of a story. Another modern trend of planner is that
• Involves a lot of working and gathering information. It’s not just about coming up with good ideas. There’s a logical process before you get to the creative stuff.
• As a planner how do you know whether you’ve done a good job:
• Consumers do not always say what they really feel
• Those guys know how communication works.
• Know how to read body languages
• The effectiveness of your campaign;
• Good planners make themselves useful. If Clients are pleased to see you, they want to see you.
• Create an environment where clients are comfortable to see you, be yourself.

• Where do you get creative and big ideas, when your taking a shower, jogging, … make sure You’ve got the time and space to make that happen.
• Planning to creative good 30 – sec. tv commercials is not different than a website or a facebook campaign.
• For focus group or interview: Most experiences moderators sit back and let people be quiet and be uncomfortable, because some ppl are thinking and creative idea always come from the uncomfortable period of science.
• An example : 63 Million * avenue per customer = number too large to display.
• Retest is very important – nike commercial + got milk campaign in Spanish.
• Right kind of quantitative research and if it’s done well. I don’t agree with quantitative with pretesting commercials.

• Books recommended by Jon Steel.
• The book of Gossage
• More bull more.
• Brand planning - Stephen king
• Painting by numbers.