Last weekend some strategy and long-term digital agency career friends (Dirk Reinhardt, Shailia Stephens-Würsig, Björn Sternsdorf, Gerald Hensel and Angela Becker) and I held a seminar at our Leo Burnett offices on digital planning for traditional planners.
To be honest, we were a bit sneaky. To most of us, there ain’t no such thing as “digital” strategy. Or can you tell me what “analog” strategy is?
Fact is, there is so much confusion and mystery regarding the term “digital”, even to supposedly “channel-agnostic/media-neutral” strategists, that it seemed like a great strategy (haha) to offer a course in “digital planning”. In doing so, we had the pleasure to work with the top 20 of Germany’s planners who don’t just hide behind the hackneyed term “channel-agnostic” for lack of their own change-ability, but rather exercised their confusion tolerance and went into the whole thing full-on. The most engaged folks I had the pleasure to work with in a while!
Hence, our aim wasn’t sneaky at all: debunk the myths around digital planning, its complexity and hopefully provide some pointers that alleviate some angst concerning new terrains in research, discovery, strategy development and shaping the creative outcome. And above all: make the segregated planning community come together.
Therefore, the day started with the statement:
“Digital” strategy doesn’t replace traditional strategy. Strategy is strategy and always was. It simply rams home the point that we need to extend strategic planning overall so it can remain relevant as a discipline that can lead brands to success by making a qualitative difference in people’s lives again.”
Techniques and tools (such as information architecture, touchpoint analysis, contact planning, purchase funnels, etc) have existed for a long time before the term “digital strategy” became the mot du jour. They may have given us an irritatingly confusing mess of terminologies, but also a gift: we can make brands relevant again, without unsuccessfully and repeatedly pressing the “mass media onslaught” button because we’re out of ideas.
Therefore, we see digital strategy as a way to go back to the roots and deliver what strategy was always about: know what to do, not just what to say. This is the most relevant job a strategist can do in a time when people wonder if they should listen to your brand.
Therefore, we try to make digital the stuff that adds a PLUS to your strategic effectiveness versus being a completely new discipline:
Each section of the workshop then explored each PLUS with practical exercises and theory moving along the planning process from research to strategy to creative briefing and team constellations.
Result of the workshop:
At the end of the workshop, we had a discussion on whether we succeeded in offering an intergrated approach to planning, and if indeed digital (and other) planning methodologies in fact can be seen as a plus or if it isn’t really something different out there.
Here are excerpts of the discussion:
On brands:
“I think one of the biggest issues is still that brands and their clients feel that they have to be perfect. But people don’t expect you to be perfect. They want a conversation about your products. I mean, would you trust a person who disappointed you and walks away when you want to talk to them?”
“I think if brands didn’t understand the importance behind people’s digital behaviors before, flailing a dead business and brand model, the recession could end up helping in finally understanding it. There didn’t seem to be enough pressure to have to change. Maybe now marketers will understand that it’s not them that change everything, but rather the people themselves. Strategic planning needs to accompany that.”
On Technology:
“Traditional planning has been moving this way anyway, but there seem to be so many barriers still for brand planners because they think they can’t do something that in the end requires a technological solution.”
“I am so relieved the new planning isn’t about technology. On the contrary, I am happy that it is even much more about people than before. Looking at human behavior and having all this detailed insight instead of just asking people is what we should do anyway!”
“For brand planners, it is second nature to look at trends in categories. It might help to think of technology as a thing that keeps generating trends that change people’s behaviors. It is much better than getting scared about technological details. And we need to know what people do anyway. How else can we plan for anything?”
On the planning process:
“What really helped was to understood that my team just got so much bigger and what the different roles are. It helps me because I now that my brand strategy is not seperate from digital stuff and I feel there are people to talk to about my strategy and get it working everywhere else.”
“Digital always seems so overwhelming when you don’t know you don’t have to know everything. Knowing there are experts really helps.”
On taking clients into the digital space:
“I am still worried about being able to give a client security about delivering, so he moves forward into the digital space, but to be honest was I ever able to give him this security before? My client spends loads of money on TV and I can’t really say if it works anymore either.”
“In a way, tradititional planners have an advantage: they speak the brand and marketing client’s language better than some digital agency people. Using that advantage, also in terms of tradititional techiques to make them feel comfortable to try out new stuff is a big opportunity.”
“It makes sense to think in little steps and strategies instead of trying to solve for everything at once and selling the client a holistic castle in the sky. Taking the client on a journey with achievable milestones and giving them a sense of success in the space and growing from there works better.”
Conclusion:
While not all myths can be debunked in one weekend, not all issues solved, we feel we started a discourse in the right direction and everyone involved feel that this kind of collaboration can open doors to better strategy with less siloes. As workshop participant, Stephen Rothman, Head of Strategy Saatchi Frankfurt said:
I believe that as the world of marketing and communications moves forward, the work will demand that we come to the place where classic vs. digital planner will become an anachronism. Because “consumers” aren’t digital or classic. This seminar got us all started in that direction.
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