Martin Weigel.
The professor.
The planners planner.
The miserable bastard that never returns your emails.
Well he might be all of those things, but to me, he’s my mate.
What’s more, I think I’m his mate too – which means he’s not nearly as clever as everyone thinks he is.
But the reality is, he has his place as one of the best because he is. That simple.
Not just because he’s as smart as shit … but underpinning his intellectual ramblings are very simple, but powerful, beliefs that benefit everyone he is interacting with.
I say this because I recently heard his answer to the question, ‘What should a planner do and care about?’ to which he responded with this …
That’s it.
4 lines.
But those 4 lines cover so much.
Vision. Creativity [Not advertising]. Innovation. Cultural Resonance. Ambition. Action. Focus.
In other words, strategy that is designed to liberate rather than play nicely with others.
It’s what makes him so good and the work he does so great.
I should hate him, but I can’t …
And it’s not just because I bloody love his bloody lovely other half.
The reason I say this is that one of the things I’ve been shocked about in America is the standard of planning.
There … I’ve said it.
No, it’s not because I’m a snobby Brit.
No, it’s not because I don’t understand the cultural differences.
It’s because a lot of it is bad.
I’ve spent a lot of time exploring what is out there and in many cases it’s either strategy that the individual has used for pretty much every client they’ve worked on regardless of the situation, or at worst, it’s a snappy worded version of the client brief.
Or just bad taglines that say nothing and mean nothing.
In other words, packaging rather than planning.
Now of course there are some epic planners here – I am fortunate to have a bunch who work with me and there’s a bunch who I wish would work with me – but there has been a bunch who I’ve met/spoken to who have just underwhelmed.
I recently met one who said their main approach to strategy was ‘owning the social platform’.
I had to ask 3 times if I had heard right, and I had.
And when I said they weren’t the sort of planner I wanted in my team, he said I didn’t know what I was doing.
OK, there’s probably more than an element of truth in that, but even my worst planner skills is better than that.
And yet this individual was a senior planner in a good agency.
In other words, he was responsible for helping brands decide the direction they were going to invest millions of dollars in.
MILLIONS!
The World has gone mad.
There is a craft to planning.
You can’t outsource it all to data and media.
Of course those people have a place – and an important one at that – but the hard work is still done by those who realize it’s not about the ad, but the direction, tension and opportunity for the brand and culture.
The one’s who can think of ideas that aren’t really just an executional idea.
Which is why we need more Weigel’s than Gary V’s.
Because flash means nothing if it doesn’t address what I now call, Weigel’s ‘Four Principals Of Worthiness’.