I have always been a huge believer in having 2 planners on every piece of business and even now, try to ensure it happens as often as possible.
This is not – as many may believe – because it drives revenue, it’s because, among many things, it drives possibilities.
You see while both planners work for the same company and share the same beliefs – the key is they both have different views of how to achieve their goals.
This makes life interesting.
Not just because of the conversations that take place, but because of the information, insights, territories and ideas that it produces.
It’s a bit like my view on why The Who were so good, but with [hopefully] a lot less aggression and hate.
The fact is, I don’t believe planners working in isolation are that effective, especially when they’re the sort of planner who locks themselves into a room and then emerges 3 days later armed with a powerpoint document and a brief and says, “I’ve solved it”.
Debate is good.
Objectivity is interesting.
Conflict – managed in the right way – is liberating.
Which is why I believe approaching a project with the attitude of ‘what will cost the least amount of money/time’ rather than ‘what could create the best possible outcome’ encourages ‘normality’ before you’ve even started.
Of course this is not always the case … there’s a bunch of stupidly clever bastards who have the ability to generate genius on their own brainpower – but not everyone is like this and even if they were, I’d still argue this ‘objective conflict’ approach could push them to even greater heights if partnered with the right partner.
Anyway, I recently came across a TEDTalk that sort of validates this approach – even though the example they use is about someone who achieved a massive medical breakthrough whereas all I’ve done with it is make some ads … but that’s OK because as you know, adfolk are always looking to big themselves up by association. Why else do you think they hold the Cannes Ad Festival mere weeks after the Film Festival?
