Monday, November 30, 2009

Rob on Planning

[Please note: It's late and I may edit this majorly tomorrow]

A lot of advertising's ills are often placed at the foot of planning. We get accused of being against or stifling creativity, of being account men in disguise, of wanting to please the client not make better work.

Well that's not my idea of planning.

Planning to me is exactly the opposite of limiting creativity, it's about finding information and making great briefs (whether written or verbal, that's another debate) to create better work.

I know a lot of planners are frustrated creatives, and maybe that's true to some extent. But that's exactly why I wanted to be a planner. I know I am unlikely to ever make world beating creative, but I know that I can help others to make it. Or help make sure that world beating creative also creates world beating reactions or world beating sales.

I am not the sort of person who thinks they know everything, I won't sit there thinking I know better; I just try my hardest and say what I think is right. But also, I am not here to make up the numbers. I truly believe if I keep learning and keep working hard I can make a difference to our industry. It might be a small difference, but It's there for the taking.

There are truly great people in this industry that inspire me every day. Some planners, some creatives, some even (ha) account suits. Some I work with, some I just know (and hope to work with), and some I've never met (and hope to work with). It's those people who give me faith that not only can we make better work than we do now, but we can do it whilst producing better results for clients AND making ads that people enjoy and appreciate instead of hating.

Ad land is there for improving, I hope I can eventually help out.

3 comments:

Adam Lowe said...

Nice post Rob with some interesting views! Do you think you'd have considered creative more if you had done a course like ours or do you still think you'd be set on being a planner?

shib said...

Interesting post Rob.

"I know I am unlikely to ever make world beating creative, but I know that I can help others to make it."

That pretty much sums up my career direction too! I can do creative but I'm much better at improving on an idea, helping it develop etc.

Curious to see what your answer to Adam & Dan's question is...

Rob Mortimer (aka Famous Rob) said...

Well to be honest I knew I wanted to be in advertising but not what the roles were.

I asked a small local advertising company about what A levels I should take to get into advertising even before that!

It may have still directed me to planning (my Marketing course didn't tell me anything about how to get into adland!)... though I may have found some relevant creativity in that course, but I guess I'll never know. I know I am a very very creative person in most regards (music, writing, etc etc).

I discovered planning during my second interview for account management jobs, and quickly found it to be the ideal job for me. My experience so far says it was a good choice of career.