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BOASE ON POLLITT

’How I invented account planning in agencies’ was the title Stanley

Pollitt gave to a seminal piece that appeared in ±±¾©Èü³µpk10 20 years ago,

not long before he died. In it, he outlined the circumstances, going

back to the mid-60s, that bought about the birth of a third discipline,

alongside account service and creative, that he developed initially at

Pritchard Wood and later at BMP.

Stanley’s article reminds us that the late 60s saw a popular paradox; on

the one hand, an explosion of data, both qualitative and quantitative,

that was relevant to professionally planned advertising and, on the

other, an exodus from agencies of the very people (those in agency

research departments) who were best qualified to handle it. This exodus

was provoked by client companies restructuring along marketing lines and

reclaiming the research function, which was formerly the province of

agencies. Apart from the resolution of this paradox becoming a Pollitt

mission, Stanley had a bunch of other convictions which came into the

equation.

He was uncomfortable with the idea that it was the account man who

decided what data should be used in planning advertising and if research

was needed. Worse, the account man often had to be acutely expedient in

resolving any differences that existed between the creatives and the

client - too much data could be uncomfortable.

Second, he was sceptical of the many mechanistic and unhelpful

techniques that were used to measure the effect of an advertisement -

palm sweat, pupil dilation, persuasion shifts etc. He felt there ought

to be a way of getting a consumer response to an advertising idea early,

before too much money or too many reputations were on the line; a way

that took account of the, often passionately held, intuitive views of

the creative team, the expediency of the account man and the plodding

reasoning of the client.

Out of all this came the account planner, a title coined at J. Walter

Thompson where much the same development was going on under Stephen

King.

One difference - and even a difficulty - was the fact that Stephen

worked in a large existing agency, whereas we at BMP had a blank sheet

of paper.

And so the account planner emerged at BMP. We had as many of them as we

had account men. They worked on accounts as of right, and were in charge

of all the data. They became a sort of ’conscience’ on an account,

ensuring everything possible had been done to get the planning and the

advertising ’right’.

It rapidly became clear that the old researchers could not un-learn

their bias towards techniques rather than problem solving, so we started

recruiting graduates. The result, 30 years on, is that a big part of the

management structure at BMP - and a good many other agencies here and

abroad - began their careers as graduates in Paddington.

Twenty years on from Stanley’s death, what would he be pleased to see as

his legacy? Naturally, he would be delighted to see account planning

being a core agency discipline across London, to find that it has grown

its own culture and organisation in the Account Planning Group and has

become strongly associated with effective advertising via the Institute

of Practitioners in Advertising’s Advertising Effectiveness Awards. He’d

be delighted to see ex-graduate trainees such as Adam Lury at HHCL &

Partners, Leslie Butterfield at Partners BDDH and Gary Duckworth at

Duckworth Finn Grubb Waters all running newer outfits than BMP. But even

more to see planning reach the US, first through Jane Newman and then

with Jon Steel at Goodby Silverstein, Ewen Cameron at Berlin Cameron and

Damian O’Malley and Ruth Parr at DDB.

But equally he would regret account planning having become a portmanteau

term for a confusing array of different approaches. Narrowly, perhaps,

he would regret that the BMP model has not been followed universally and

that there is a lot of poor planning about.

On the creative/development/assessment front he could claim credit for

animatics and qualitative focus groups being the broadly accepted norm;

but he would regret an undermining of client/ agency trust causing much

of this work to be carried out by outside researchers.

Stanley should be remembered for his passion for getting advertising

’right’ - for underlining the qualitative dimension to the way consumers

react to ads.

As Stanley sits up there, looking down upon us while still brushing

cigarette ash from his lapels, he should be proud.

Martin Boase was a co-founder of Boase Massimi Pollitt in 1968

BULLMORE ON KING

Of course, 1998 is not the 30th anniversary of account planning.

You can’t develop relevant advertising, persuade the paying client of

its potential, and then hope to evaluate it, without planning. What

makes 1968 significant is that two London-based agencies

more-or-less simultaneously decided that the planning function from then

on should become the formal responsibility of someone called an account

planner.

So 1998 is not the 30th birthday of account planning but of the account

planner.

For those interested in the origins of the planner at J. Walter

Thompson, there are two good published references: the Origins of

Account Planning by John Treasure, Admap, March 1985 and the Anatomy of

Account Planning by Stephen King, Admap, November 1989. What follows is

drawn from both, plus a light dusting of information from my own

memory.

For many years, JWT had a marketing department. Marketing executives

were assigned to accounts and fulfilled several roles, many of which

have today been reclaimed by clients. They would analyse market and

sales data, commission and interpret market research, quite frequently

draft the client company’s total marketing strategy and - as part of

that strategy - write the ad brief.

That was the department King joined in 1957. As now, he was then as much

at home with words as with numbers. He possessed a mind incapable of

fudge and a well-honed sense of absurdity and irreverence. He knew

business, he read books and he liked films and plays. He was intrigued

by the nature of communication and was himself a clear and entertaining

communicator.

By 1964, he’d become dissatisfied with the way the creative department

was being briefed and how their subsequent work was being evaluated.

King argued that, since all advertising set out to elicit a defined

response in the minds of its audience, the only meaningful and useful

measurement of success or failure was whether or not such responses had

been achieved.

He cast doubt on the value of ’consumer propositions’ and poked

scalpel-like scorn at the more mechanistic quantitative advertising

research techniques.

And, better than all this, King came forward with the T-Plan, which

systematically encouraged account groups to identify the desired

responses most likely to benefit the brand in question and then set

creative strategy in the same response-related terms.

After some initial healthy scepticism, the agency recognised it for what

it was: an invaluable, data-based evocation of a desired destination

that left room for - and, indeed, stimulated - originality in the

invention of ways to get there.

This kind of planning is not easy. It requires rigour and imagination in

equal parts. Not everyone could do it. Four years later, with members

drawn from the marketing and media departments, JWT’s account planning

department was born, with King as its head.

He said then, and would say now, that nobody invented account

planning.

He simply set out to identify the differences between good planning and

bad planning - instituting a language, an understanding and a set of

procedures that would generate a lot more of the former and a less of

the latter.

Jeremy Bullmore was at J. Walter Thompson between 1954 and 1987. He is a

director of the WPP Group and a non-executive director of the Guardian

Media Group

NEWMAN ON THE US

In spring 1990, the word went out to the fledgling account planning

community in the US that there was to be an inaugural APG meeting in

Texas.

Fifty account planners turned up and the meeting was such a success they

decided to hold it again the following year. Three years later, the

conference in New York was attended by more than 200 account planners,

three years after that by 400 in LA and this year’s conference in Boston

will probably attract more than 600. It is the largest advertising

conference in the US and there is no golf or tennis on the itinerary! If

two out of 25 planners attend the conference it would put the number of

account planners in the US at around 1,500, which seems about right.

Planning has taken off in the US in a big way and now just about every

agency has it (Leo Burnett, the last bastion of the traditional research

department, succumbed this year with coaching from Red Spider.) Nowhere

needed account planning more than America. The level of advertising

clutter is extraordinary. There are 12 minutes of advertising an hour on

TV and a daily paper such as the New York Times has 35 pages of ads. The

account planner’s mantra, ’relevant plus distinctive equals more

effective’, is a salve to sooth the marketer’s fear of getting lost or

being ignored.

Account planning actually began in the US a decade before that inaugural

APG meeting when, in a reverse colonial move, Jay Chiat ’discovered’ it

in London. Like Stanley Pollitt, he thought it could help his creative

people be more productive and it would lead to stronger ideas-based work

that would be more effective in the market. Although it met with some

resistance, a series of new-business wins helped it flourish. In 1984 MT

Rainey’s (she was in the San Francisco office) exquisite strategy for

Apple Macintosh -’radical ease of use’ - helped create and sell the

award-winning ’1984’ spot and the success of account planning was

assured. Planning slowly began to spread to other agencies, often by ex-

Chiat Day account and creative people who found they couldn’t live

without it in their new jobs.

British planners planted the seeds in the US. It was easier to hire

someone who knew what they were doing - and the British accent didn’t

hurt either (it adds at least 20 points to your IQ). Rainey, Rob White,

Tim O’Kennedy, Merry Cutler, Nigel Carr, Jon Steel, Chris Riley, Damian

O’Malley, Ewen Cameron, Doug Atkins and Adam Morgan are just a few of

the British planners who pioneered the discipline in the US. The people

they trained in turn trained others and the fruits of their labour will

be in Boston on 16 July. If Stanley were able to be there, I think he

would feel quite bullish about his export.

Jane Newman started her career at BMP and worked for Ammirati & Puris in

the US. From there she was hired by Jay Chiat to introduce account

planning to Chiat Day. In 1993 she founded Merkley Newman Harty, from

which she recently retired.