Comms planning: not dead, but ripe for change
In response to a recent article eulogising the stand alone communications planning entity, Naked’s Brett Rolfe questions if comms planning really is dead and buried.
Having observed this from the inside over the past ten years as part of the team at Naked, the one thing I can say is there has never been a dull moment. So it felt right to keep the conversation going and respond to Ben’s article.
As he observed, clients did indeed tighten their budgets following the GFC – and independent communications planning became an unjustifiable luxury for many clients.
Being a comms planning agency was a bit like sitting in the back of a Yaris, wedged between a bloated creative agency listening to K-Pop and a media agency who keeps poking you in the ribs. It was only a matter of time before mum and dad stopped the car and told someone to get out and walk.
Great piece. Takes me back to those halcyon days but I agree. Idea, execution and channel have never been more intrinsically linked.
Great article. Still the smartest guy in the room!!
Brett certainly confirms that he knows how to ‘talk the talk’ with a fleeting thought that there may be a possibility he can remember how to ‘walk the walk’. Serious planning and problem solving in agencies stemmed originally from Unilever’s MO in Australia in the early sixties when in 1965 the radical multi-skilled, proactive ad agency planning role was conceived and successfully launched in a Sydney ad agency in 1966. It became the most complex role in the agency and also over time the most hideously misunderstood role. There could be much more to say. But simpler just to refer to originplan.com and more importantly for advertisers and creative ad agencies – originplansuccess.com.