COVID-19. A second national lockdown, followed by heavy restrictions until at least March. It’s a tough world out there for agencies and our clients. As recession looms, we ponder the question posed in the latest WARC ‘The Future of Strategy’ report: will the planning function continue to play a central role in the marketing agency model?
We say yes. Here’s why.
If planning was phased out, agencies would re-invent it
Before we consider the future of planning, let’s remind ourselves of its past.
Planning is the discipline of applying a set of robust techniques and processes to answer the perennial question, ‘What shall we do now?’. People have been planning advertising and direct marketing since the nineteenth century; distinct planning departments then emerged within advertising agencies in the late 1960s. Ad men, such as Jeremy Bullmore, Stanley Pollitt and Stephen King, were pioneers, documenting a disciplined approach to planning. And it was King, at J Walter Thompson in London, who penned an agency Planning Guide that included a deceptively simple process: ‘The Planning Cycle’.
Building era-defining brands, developing iconic campaigns, creating customer experiences that emotionally move the consumer to act or respond — all meaningful activity relies on these simple, yet crucial, questions being asked, explored, answered and then repeated.
Clients are often unable to do this themselves; they’re too close to their own business. A client who has worked a career in home insurance, for example, may develop an enviable depth of commercial expertise, but becomes blinkered, unable to view their category and brand through the eyes of the customer.
A management consultant has the necessary distance from their business to provide a customer perspective, perhaps presenting research and data that pinpoints where the client ‘is’ and identifies where they ‘should be’ — but unless they are responsible for creative execution, there’s no guarantee that they’ll distil this research and data into an insight, the springboard needed to develop the outstanding creative ideas and extraordinary brand experiences that customers are seeking.
Agency planning is different. We seek insights that spark creative magic.
We work closely with creative, media and experience specialists to answer the big questions facing brands. The unique position of agency planners, at the intersection between a client’s business challenge and the creative department’s need for an inspiring brief, makes us best placed to identify a way forward with creative potential.
Put simply, we’re needed.
Planning helps us focus on meaningful brands and experiences
The Havas Meaningful Brands survey for 2019 led with two statistics:
Ouch. We’re reminded here that brands have to graft to be noticed, and pull out all the stops to become meaningful for their customers. Clearly, many fail to do so.
Customer expectations of brands — and ongoing brand experiences — have never been higher. Consumers are hungry for personalised benefits, engaging rewards and unforgettable moments to fulfil their ever-growing appetite for the experiential.
At Havas CX helia, we believe this points to three opportunities:
1. Every brand needs to understand how meaningful it is to customers and prospects versus the high expectations of those customers and prospects
2. Every brand needs to understand the gaps between current customer performance and experience versus ideal performance and experience
3. Every brand needs a plan to bridge these gaps and to deliver more meaningful customer experiences
The role of the Havas CX helia planning team is clear: let’s apply our Meaningful Brands process to identify opportunities and deploy budgets where they’ll make the biggest difference to our clients’ brands — and then deliver communications and experiences that really matter and are deeply memorable for the consumer.
Such an approach was taken with our retail client, Pets at Home.
Back in 2012, we helped launch the Pets at Home’s loyalty scheme, VIP Club. The scheme now has nine million members, with over half of the UK’s furry (and non-furry) friends holding the status of VIPs — Very Important Pets.
Research told us that 18 to 34-year olds were happy to spend the most on their pets. We used our Meaningful Brands approach to understand these soon-to-be pet owners and sniff out:
1) the channels they’d use to do research
2) what influenced their decisions
3) the biggest causes of anxiety in the first weeks of their pet’s arrival
That helped us map out a menagerie of brand touchpoints. We planned timely, tailored exclusive offers and expert tips for the ongoing CRM journey too.
We hooked owners to join VIP Club by positioning it as a single source of consistent, reliable new-pet information. We launched ads in The Sun, Daily Express and Daily Mail, plus on Heart Radio. And we made it easy to discover our new-pet tips and advice through search-optimised content, a Guardian online partnership, and as digital display ads to educate and inspire — while on social, we put out a targeted video campaign.
All of these angles took owners to a bespoke campaign microsite, where they’d find extra information and helpful ideas and could sign up to become a VIP Club member.
Since launch, we’ve adapted discounts, vouchers, advice and content to members’ behaviour to create a personalised programme of meaningful rewards. We’ve further developed customer loyalty through ‘Lifelines’ — a charity initiative that donates cash to an animal charity of the owner’s choice.
That’s Meaningful Brands in action.
Planning helps us take competitor context into account
To make brands and experiences more meaningful, we need to consider the competitor context and the latest trends and events shaping culture and society.
A few years ago, next day delivery of online orders might have represented a meaningful benefit versus competitors. But if all businesses are now offering next day or same day delivery, the bar has been raised.
Likewise, the fact that your product is delivered in non-recyclable packaging may not have mattered to most customers five years ago. In 2020, a brand’s lack of commitment to sustainability can have a damaging impact on brand reputation and sales figures.
Change is constant, so planning must be ‘always on’
Every marketing plan needs to react to a changing environment. Fixed plans soon require updating, so a more fluid, ‘always on’ approach is key. Planning might be better described as ‘reacting smartly’.
Professor Phil Rosenzweig reflected on this in a 2007 article, where he explains why there’s no fixed formula for marketing success:
“Faced with this basic uncertainty, wise managers approach problems as interlocking probabilities. Their objective is not to find keys to guaranteed success but to improve the odds through a thoughtful consideration of factors.”
The global pandemic has forced us to plan reactively, adapting to this complex business climate. Lockdown has made us even more inventive and transformative — working in partnership with clients to support their customers through the most trying time in a generation.
Here’s an example of where our planning team has had to reinvent during the COVID-19 outbreak.
Problem: During lockdown parents were faced with the challenges of home schooling and quickly ran out of creative ideas that would entertain the kids during long days at home.
Solution: We sent a personalised, reactive series of emails and social posts to Organix customers, inspiring them to visit the flagship WonderDen website hub. Different seasonal modules teased a variety of games, activities and recipes, while we also reflected government responses to COVID-19 within the creative messaging — turning the dial on indoor and outdoor activities.
With WonderDen page views up by over 540% during lockdown versus pre-lockdown, and sessions from email up by 155%, the campaign highlighted how unique and innovative WonderDen is within the sector. With new users from email up by 113%, content appealed to acquisition as well as retention audiences, demonstrating campaign appeal across the board.
You need a range of planning skills to deliver meaningful experiences and relationships
No one person is an expert in every channel — you need a multi-disciplinary team to design the best customer experience. Havas CX helia is part of the Havas CX network, allowing us to bring together the team of specialists we need to deliver better customer experience and engagement. Our planning function leads the deployment of these specialists, ensuring that we all pull in the same direction and that our response is joined up.
Planning helps clients sell in strong ideas to their organisation
Clients often look to agencies for bigger, bolder, more distinctive ideas. But big, bold and distinctive can also make stakeholders nervous. Even if the marketing team love a bold idea there are inevitably clients who need to be brought on board. Planning can help by showing that the creative department hasn’t simply pulled a rabbit out of the hat. There are logical steps that support and justify a strong idea — the thorough analysis, the insight, the proposition, the need to differentiate from competitors, the way the idea builds on the brand’s values and makes it more meaningful to customers and prospects. Planning not only builds the creative brief. It also justifies the creative solution.
In these strange and confusing times, planning sits at the heart of our agency — and our planners hold decades of problem-solving experience across a wide range of industry sectors. They’re ready to help you build more meaningful relationships with your customers. Please get in touch with us to learn how they can support you, your business and your customers.
