To mark the occasion of the first release of Stephen King's JWT Planning Guide in March 1974, which arguably marks the birth of the Planning profession, I have two wishes for all my fellow planners.
One is that you always collaborate with Creative to deliver ideas that are both right and great.
Two is that every pitch you attend receives many nods of approval from the client, paving the way for Creative to sell their work more easily in the rest of the presentation.
These two wishes are also part of the "number one goal" of my Strategic & Integrated Communication Planning course, aiming for planners to understand their role in the most intuitive way. Clients working with agencies will never buy only the strategy, so a planner's success only comes when they can sell the whole package.
On that note, I have a question: If you had to eliminate one of the three roles at an agency to ensure it could still operate, who would you eliminate and why: Account, Planner, or Creative? 🔫
