Tod Norman, partner at brand response agency Watson Phillips Norman, on why great planners have to be dumb.

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Lest we forget:

I think we've typically thought about marketing as the creation of moments – communications, events, spectacles, launches, etc. Similarly, I think these moments make up only a very small part of the view customers have of a brand. Instead the vast majority of what informs a person's view of a brand is the day in, day out usage of the product/service.

[via]

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Shaun McIlrath, Creative Director at Hurrell and Dawson on how to do Direct:

it is your job to help your clients be uncorporate – to be human. You can do it through comms, or by working within the company to help make it more accessible and helpful to the customer – but do it, because it will make their behaviour more distinctive and their comms more engaging.

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James Gordon-MacIntosh with an interesting post (I agree with some, not all, of it) on the move to zero media spend:

The media that they would have bought is being replaced – for many of them – by the creation of original, engaging content that the brands themselves generate and own.

Read on and let him know what you think…

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Richard Moss, EVP at Weber Shandwick, on their recent hire of DDB's Leo Rayman into the role of European Head of Planning:

The PR industry has transformed itself in recent years, by putting measurement at the heart of its agenda. Today insight is increasingly being adopted as the new agenda as clients provide increasingly complex challenges that require much deeper insights into the influences behind today’s customer behaviours. As a result we are commissioning research reports, buying into new consumer panels and uncovering new streams of data in a way that never happened before. And this of course is the issue. Does a fantastic publicity person, also have the necessary skills to sift through all of this data and identify what is relevant or not? Can a creative guru, always separate dreams from reality? Can the slick account man, say no?

Historically the PR industry hasn’t divided its roles in the same way as the ad industry. But as clients see the growing importance of advocacy within their marketing mix and recognise that PR is best equipped to deliver against their needs, things are changing. Every agency man knows that clients buy on trust and for the PR industry that trust is coming from demonstrating, consistently it’s ability to navigate client brands through an increasingly complex and cluttered world.

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Richard Huntington:

We need real attempts to prove the commercial value of immersing people in a brand's world and having them interact with it and share it with others, not to mention the means by which to model the sales effect of digital activity and prove its contribution to the client's bottom line.

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Hugh MacLeod with a seminal post on social objects:

From now on you won’t have the TV Commercials to rely on to start your conversations. People are ignoring you. The only way your product is going to spread is by word of mouth. The only way it’s going to get word of mouth is if there is something in it for the person talking about it.

The person you want talking about it is not doing it for the money. She'll only talk about it if it serves as a Social Object. A "hook" to move the conversation along. A hook she can use it as a way to relate to her fellow human beings.

You should read all of Hugh's post.

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Carrying on from Tom Hopkins' missive on the subject, comes a much more practical how-to guide from Iain Tait on how to do digital planning. Go read…

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Following my post from a few weeks ago, Revolution have been kind enough to publish an article about Flybe's eCRM programme, which I spent a good part of last year and early this year helping to create. There's also an artitcle from marketing Direct which covers some of the same issues. Don't let people tell you data isn't sexy. It is.

(and yes, I know I've just contradicted my previous post)

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Rory Sutherland, again:

There's no point in being a peacock with a moderately good tail. Go for great or don't bother at all. That's the principle that creatives understand and accountants don't.

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