correct planning
In 1968, Stanley Pollitt, along with Martin
Boase and Gabe Massimi, started the agency Boase Massimi Pollitt.
The three of them had worked at Interpublic
agency Pritchard Wood Partners.
(No relation, as far as I know, btw)
BMP emerged after the trio had
un-successfully attempted to buy Pritchard Wood and started up their own agency
instead.
It was while at BMP that Stanley Pollitt
was able to fully form his idea of Account Planning.
Coincidentally Stephen King at JWT was
having similar ideas at the same time, and the pair are recognized as the
godfathers of the discipline.
Here’s Pollitt’s description of the role of the account planner.
‘The
account planner is that member of the agency's team who is the expert, through
background, training, experience, and attitudes, at working with information
and getting it used - not just marketing research but all the information
available to help solve a client's advertising problems’.
For the ‘expert’ that Pollitt describes,
his or her single most important task was to get the advertising ‘right’ and
both Pollitt and King advocated an approach based less on gut feel and more on
scientific foundation.
I mention this as Pollitt and
King came to mind while reading
the following passage from evolutionary psychologist Stephen Pinker’s book ‘How The Mind Works’.
Pinker is making the argument for proper science vs 'pseudo' science.
He could just as easily be making the case
for correct planning vs pseudo planning, such is the proliferation of
‘experts’ in the now expanded realm of quackery that passes for ‘strategy’ of
some shape or form in agencies.
(The principal skill of many of these strategists being the ability to 'find the data' that promotes their particular case and specialism.)
(The principal skill of many of these strategists being the ability to 'find the data' that promotes their particular case and specialism.)
‘Experts
are invaluable and are usually rewarded in esteem and wealth. But our reliance
on experts puts temptation in their path. The experts can allude to a world of
wonders — occult forces, angry gods, magical potions — that is inscrutable to
mere mortals but reachable through their services.
Tribal
shamans are flimflam artists who” supplement their considerable practical
knowledge with stage magic, drug-induced trances, and other cheap tricks.
In a
complex society, a dependence on experts leaves us even more vulnerable to
quacks, from carnival snake-oil salesman to the mandarins who advise
governments to adopt programs implemented by mandarins.
Good
science is pedantic, expensive, and subversive. ‘
Dictionary.com
appears to have a different view of ‘pedantic’, describing it as:
'The
nitpickery of the english language that drives the less detail oriented
insane...often mistaken as a tool to impress others when in fact it is
annoying.'
For planning to get the advertising ‘right’
this is a necessary risk.
To round off I’ve mapped Pinker’s pedantic, expensive, and subversive trifecta
onto three attributes that Stanley Pollitt believed to be essential for
effective account planning.
Pedantic
This means total agency management
commitment to getting the advertising content right at all costs. This means
creating effective advertising instead of focusing on maximising profits or
keeping the clients happy.
Expensive
The agency commits the resources to allow
planners to be more than temporary role players. Account planners must be given
the leeway to work with the data and research that they see fit.
Subversive
It means changing some of the basic ground rules. Once
consumer response becomes the most important element in making final
advertising judgments, it makes many of the more conventional means of judgment
sound hollow. "Conventional means" representing the affection a
Creative has over an idea or the prejudice of a client that challenges research
evidence.
As an interesting footnote, while poking
around for some nuggets for this piece we were naturally delighted to find
that aside from Pollitt’s contribution to the advancement of the ad industry,
he also made a major contribution to the punk canon as his daughter –Tessa -
was bass player in The Slits.
