Russell Davies

blogging from the account planning conference

Thus far I've only found these two other bloggers from the conference. Don't disagree with anything they're saying so far. Going to be very tremulous about what they say about my bit.

Gareth and Brand New is here.

Ritter and Chillout Lounge is here.

Co-creativity

Mark Earls did a splendid thing on Co-Creativity.

It did make me think that while American account planning is largely a sub-division of Business, British account planning is a sub-division of Entertainment. Or at least of the arts. You can argue about which is more effective, but I know which I'd prefer to watch.

He was talking generally about co-creation, about the way that real value in the world is created in the interactions between people, not by the prototypical lone genius.

He reminded me of one of the most hateful dynamics of client/agency life - the way that almost every meeting you have is about selling something. No wonder trusts breaks down. He suggested, quite rightly, that maybe some of those meetings should be about co-creation - the joint creation of something new, rather than just a transactional thing to do with selling and approval.

References from Mark - worth checking out:

Dirk Helbing and econophysics.

Boeing and the 'world design team'

C. K. Prahalad on Co-creating value.

damn

I missed Bob Greenberg of RGA, which is a huge shame, because everyone says he was good.

Planning Neutral Planning

Not really sure what Planning Neutral Planning means and Julie Liss and Steve Zaroff admit that they don't either. But they're gamely trying to talk about it.

They've just made a really good case that Karl Rove should be considered 'planner of the year' (if there was such a thing) because of his management of the Republican brand and re-election of Bush. A very good point. He used unexpected media channels, he won the contextual high ground - the election was fought on his agenda, he made great use of research etc etc.

Good point, well made. You can despise his politics but you've got to admit he seems to be a master of the communication arts.

And, a chink of light, they're suggesting that we don't get always have to rely on a big 'insight'. And, they almost said that we don't always have to say, one big, simple thing. Sometimes you can do lots of little ideas rather than one big one. Hurrah. Maybe I'm not going to be such a disaster on Wednesday.

The Changing Landscape

Rick Boyko is leading a panel of people saying fairly obvious things in a really badly miked-up way.

I feel kinda sorry for them because they're dealing with a lot of mic popping.

Though it's hiding the fact that they're not saying anything much. Maybe the mic thing is distracting them.

Apparently TV is in decline and the world is changing. (I seem to be getting over my fear of saying bad things.)

Someone from Yahoo is telling us that RSS is important. Who'd have thought it?

Someone else refered to daypop, which seems kind of interesting. Though I'm not sure why it's different/better from/than Technorati.

Apparently we have to embrace the digital age.

And now someone's quoted that stupid Ogilvy thing - 'the consumer's not an idiot, she's your wife'.

(Which is true because apparently no women work in marketing.)

A little bit bored now - found this fantastic yamaha website where you can download paper models of bikes and rare animals and stuff. But the best one is this paper version of a tool kit.

Scott Goodson is saying something reasonably interesting - talking about how creative agencies are shrinking, because they want to. Clients are building their own networks out of small companies and freelancers and stuff. This seems true, that there's going to be more collaboration, more temporary networks, more affiliation. Which creative people will probably find more rewarding. And clients will find more effective and cheaper. And as a corollarly of that, clients will take more and more of the 'brand guardianship' in house.

John Hunt from TBWA

John Hunt is talking now. Seems like a nice guy. Did quite a nice mock sermon thing, but entirely based in a very old world view of advertising - the creatives have big ideas, the account guys make them small because the client is unimaginative and the planners do lots of research.

Is it not possible that some clients are imaginative, some creatives are unoriginal and some planners don't want to do research?

Is it really true that creatives just need to be set free from the tyranny of dull clients?

Maybe once, but not anymore. Maybe a bunch of demanding clients are trying to get exciting work out of dull creatives.

That doesn't seem to be conventional wisdom among creatives but maybe they should concede it's possible and that would make them stretch themselves a bit.

large and airless

The conference is just starting. Why do conferences always happen in large, darkened, airless rooms?

I guess it's a logistics thing, but it's not conducive to listening well. Or staying awake.

Just around the corner there's Millenium Park with a fantastic open air auditorium. It'd be very cool to do this there.

Oh well.

coffee me too

Jet lag woke me early so I went for a run. Then I needed a reviving coffee so I went to Caribou Coffee. It was nice. Friendly. Welcoming. And somehow completely pointless. Their entire brand vision seems to be 'we're like Starbucks but from one state up'. (Alaska). Everything feels the same, but slightly, slightly different. There's nothing wrong with it but it's depressingly unimaginative. There must be some other way to do a coffee shop than a complete replication of Starbucks.

Or maybe I'm missing something.

planning by night

night-time view from the hotel