Digital Strategy. Let’s start the discourse.

August 14th, 2009 • Underway

You know how these things start.

You discuss with friends, you drink wine and finally you’re convinced you got a ‘really good idea the world definitely is waiting for’…

About 6 months ago, the people on this picture asked themselves what digital strategy is. Is there a digital planning? If yes, what makes it different to what we did since the 1970s? There were a lot of question marks.

The only thing which was clear was, none of knew if there is a real genuine digital planning approach. We knew we did something different…but we didn’t exactly know what. And I believe this open question made us structure a workshop for traditional account planners which took place last friday and saturday: An open discourse in which we asked

What is digital planning? And how is it different to traditional planning?

What do traditional planners have to know to deliver great results in a digital world?

Can traditional planners integrate digital or is digital part of the traditional planning approach?

As I said earlier: This workshop wasn’t only about ‘teaching’ digital to traditional planners. It was about defining something for us. About understanding challenges in nowaday’s traditional agencies. Simply because we don’t believe digital planning (if there is one) is ‘winning’. But because we think traditional planning simply evolves and turns into Planning +, 2.0, XP, Vista or iPlanning (you get the idea) as digital turns into mainstream.

Strategy is Planning…kind of
20 senior strategic planners followed our invitation to the event at Leo Burnett, Frankfurt. The forum for it was the account planning group Germany (apg) as the association for the small group of planners in Germany. And it was our group in the first place which did already show that the traditional planner business is changing – Planning = Strategy? This formula doesn’t work anymore. Strategic work has to be done on different levels. AND strategic thinking in digital is to some extent part of the creative process.

Nevertheless, we believe planners will stay the core of strategic thinking in digital era agencies – but in a broader strategic realm. The mixture of professions in our group showed that

• Björn Sternsdorf – Freelance Digital Consultant
• Alexander Wipf – Head of strategic planning at Leo Burnett, Frankfurt
• Dirk Reinhardt – Senior Planner at Leo Burnett, Frankfurt
• Shailia Stephens – Freelance Strategist, Coach and constant Motivator
• Angela Becker – Brand consultant at Ogilvy, Frankfurt
• Gerald Hensel (myself) – Social Media Strategist, Neue Digitale / Razorfish, Frankfurt

Acts not ads

Personally I think the Leo Burnett slogan of ‘acts not ads’ comes close to what we tried to define as the new era of planning. As nowaday’s planning takes place in a dynamic environment with feedback mechanisms, you have to think 3D as a Planner 2.0. No matter whether you plan for traditional, digital or 360° projects – it’s not about what we say, but what we do. Brands have to fulfill a purpose in nowaday’s environment. They cannot simply say ‘We’re good’, they have to make the consumer solve his personal problem or they will fail.

• Planners will have to create useful stuff with a purpose, not ads
  
• Planners need to listen to their consumers, conversation is taking place in a concept we call ‘reality’
  
• Planners aren’t strategic monopolists anymore in this struggle to build products, not messages

More than ever, consumers want to get a sense why to spend money. To be able to deliver brand experiences and interaction (in digital and real life) Planners have to accept that the strategic sphere has grown bigger over the years. Many new specialists work strategically and are key interfaces to be able to develop acts, not ads:

• Tech consultants – Define what’s possible in this complex, technological world
• Information architects / Concept developer – Micro strategists for specific task-based strategic decisions
• Content strategists – Professionals in rolling out a message over time
• Social Media Strategists – Interfaces to the conversations which take place out there
• Business Analysts – As people defining why, when and how a strategy was right or wrong
• Etc.

In fact, some of the most interesting insights for our traditional colleagues were the many, many new job description we introduced them to. What is an information architect? How does he interact with a strategic planner? Sometimes it’s the little, obvious things (for us) which have a stronger impact than complex models on Powerpoint Charts.

What I hope we achieved

I am a bit proud of our work, I have to admit. Strategy is a key discipline for every major agency and the definition of what lies ahead cannot be summarized in one of the many ‘Everything’s going to change’-decks and videos (I especially hate this one!!!). In fact, I believe that the new found arrogance of too many (especially social) webworkers is a big barrier to a reasonable development of a common understanding of strategic work in our age. Twitter….alright. But there a couple of other things which will still be valuable and core elements of strategic work – traditional planning elements which will continue to exist and continue to be essential.

Traditional planners aren’t old school now. They simply have to understand the new dynamics of the environment, they are part of. They should understand that they stay key players in modern communication, but that they interact in a broader strategic framework together with other players from different disciplines. Strategy will be one, not digital and traditional. I hope we brought this message across. And I know that all of us digital guys have also learned a lot from this open, interested and inspiring group of strategists.

I would be happy to continue this discourse. The first workshop already showed that it’s not about teaching tools, it’s about getting a common understanding of what we do. And this is essential in the way agencies approach clients and define their role and their products.

If any traditional ad people read this article, I am happy for input on what you’d be interested in next time. Give us a feedback on more specific questions (use comments under this article). And maybe we might want to discuss this in a future workshop.

Thanks a lot to Shailia, Angie, Alex, Dirk and Björn. It wasn’t always easy to do what we did. But it was definitely fun, inspiring and exactly the right thing to do at the right time. It’s great to know people like you.

Tags: apgdigital, Planning, Presentation, Strategy, Underway, Workshop

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