No matter how well planned you think you are.
How detailed you’ve been.
How many case studies you’ve watched.
How many focus groups you’ve sat in.
How logical your argument is.
People will always do what works for them, not works for you.
So think about that next time you try and claim your comms plan/user journey is a true reflection of how all people engage with brands and make purchase decisions.
For the record …
I get the role and value of comms plans/user journeys.
I have no issue with them. In fact they can make a real difference to the work.
Where I get pissy is when they’re presented as ‘fact’ rather than a guide. Acting like they represent how ALL people behave – while ignoring factors like personal situation and circumstance as well as competitive activity.
Of course this attitude of ‘unquestionable, unbendable, superior intelligence and logic’ is prevalent in many planners … probably driven more by clients wanting certainty and consistency than personal ego … however by refusing to acknowledge we’re dealing more in frameworks than blueprints, we’re not just undermining our discipline and inadvertently placing barriers on new approaches and experiments, but ultimately selling generalised convenience rather than personal intimacy which means it’s set up to be average from the outset.
Madness.
As I said to a client recently about insights …
They’re not perfect.
They’re not infallible.
They’re not all encompassing.
But when done right, they increase the odds of good things happening because they reveal the ridiculous truth behind people’s beliefs and behaviours … and I swear if we all adopted this attitude towards what we do, we may just end up making things that are more interesting and more effective as well.
We won’t. But I just like to think we might.