Jon Steel si "Perfect Pitch". Nici nu stiu de unde sa incep. O carte care iti da energie si, cu siguranta, multe subiecte la care sa te gandesti. O sa aleg calea cea mai usoara si o sa mentionez doar cateva ganduri care mi-au ramas in cap sau pe post-it-urile lipite prin carte:

Cel mai inspirant brief de client: Steve Jobs si ce sta in spatele campaniei ”Think Different (brief care a inlocuit zecile de pagini de Power Point): ”We’re an iconoclastic company”…”And these people are just like us. They don’t care about being different. They like being different. I think we should recognize that and celebrate it. Thank them for hanging in with us”

Un pitch nu este despre gasirea raspunsului perfect, ci despre gasirea unui raspuns mai bun decat cel al competitorilor. Un pitch este despre a castiga si nu despre acuratete. Sau cum zicea Aristotel in latina :) “convincing impossibility is often preferable to an unconvincing possibility”.

O prezentare buna sta sub conceptul de REDUCTION. Prea multe detalii pot distruge o prezentare. Procesul de a vinde idei poate fi rezumat la cinci cuvinte: Truth. Beauty. Excitement. Significance. Persuasion. (Robert March, Physics for Poets)

Dupa ce in interviul luat de Russell Davies, Jon Steel denumea “simplicity” ca fiind abordarea Forrest Gump in planning :) acum spune “most emotionally charged moments are captured in the simplest of phrases: “I love you.”, “I do.”, “It’s a girl.”, “I’m leaving”, “He’s dead”.

James Webb Young: “In advertising an idea results from a new combination of specific knowledge about products and people with general knowledge about life and events.”

Cand ai gasit o idee nu te multumi doar cu generalitatea ei, ci incearca sa o distilezi. Ai nevoie de multa rabdare, de curajul de a o impartasi si altora si de umilinta de a recunoaste cand mai ai de lucru la ea.

Nu orice agentie poate castiga orice pitch. Este foarte important sa te intrebi daca chiar clientii sunt interesati de tipul de “work” pe care il face agentia ta, daca aveti aceleasi pricipii si valori si daca ei vor la fel de mult ca si tine sa produceti cel mai bun work.

Cum sa izolezi efectul marcii la masini? Scrie o lista de caracteristici tehnice pe un board si schimba numele marcii de pe board pastrand aceleasi caracteristici.

Si sa nu uitam… si asta e si pentru mine :) REPETITIA (inainte de orice prezentare).

Daca ai vreo 2 anisori de experienta in advertising, marketing sau/ si cercetare calitativa si vrei sa devii planner scrie-mi. Adresa e nume.prenume@leoburnett.ro (nu mi-am scris numele ca sa nu primesc spamuri) :)

Stefan Stroe, Head of Consumer Context Planning in Starcom has entered the blogosphere with his own blog. Check it out here. He'll be expressing his views combining all of the knowledge he's gathered while working and having fun in consumer context planning, strategic planning, client service, media planning, tennis and accoustic guitar. It should be interesting!

I was pleased to see that there's an account planning history written on Wikipedia.

And I wonder what's written in these books: here and here.

I couldn't link it at the time it was issued because of the server problems we've had, but here it is. Podio is hosting an worthy-to-hear discussion featuring Bogdana Butnar (Romanian speakers only): here.

John Griffiths is here in Romania. Thursday night, he managed to pleasantly surprise us by coming to the Leo Burnett offices without any prior notice. After a half an hour dialogue with the Leo Academy students, we went out for a glass of wine, something to eat and a talk or two. Discussions went from music to blogging (we talked about the Richard Huntington's "I don't get digital" blog post"), from blogging to planning (we talked about Romanian planners and about things that have happened after the first visit), from planning to Ceausescu jokes (hopefully, some of the ones we (me, Laurentiu & Florin) told made some sense). It was great to see that John remembered the names of almost everyone he had met during his first visit in Romania and the look of the streets he walked by. Moreover, John didn't forget the discussions everybody had with him at the first meeting of planners. "Stampila", for example, was a very familiar word (friends know why).

Unfortunately, as I'm having a presentation on Monday I won't be able to attend John's IAA training on extreme research. Fortunately, one of the bloggers will sum up everything for those who won't be able to go.

Nice to see that two Romanian agencies have started to blog. We now have the TBWA/Merlin blog and the McCann blog. As we know Gavrila & Headvertising have been blogging for some time now. Are there more blogs of other Romanian agencies that I've missed?

We all knew the success of Dero's "99 stains" campaign on the detergents market in Romania. Now IPA has recognized that indeed, it was communication that influenced the great achievements of the Unilever brand by awarding Bartle Bogle Hegarty with a Silver at the latest edition of the IPA Effectiveness Awards. I read the entire case study and it was great to notice that it emphasizes on the fact that it was the emotional approach that had a huge influence on Dero’s success. In a market that is driven by functional promises, Dero managed to achieve great results by proving a great understanding of the Romanian way of being: the humour, their relationship with the category etc. Respect! As far as I know, it is the first campaign that run in Romania that managed to win an IPA award and the first Romanian brand.

Check out the entire list of awarded campaigns here. Dero's best commercial of the campaign here .

I have just read the Jim Collins’s book “Good to Great”. There are a lot of interesting ideas in it, but I liked one in particular. He wrote an entire chapter about the hedgehog’s mentality.

“[…] an ancient Greek parable (says): “The fox knows many things, but
the hedgehog knows one thing” […] Day in and day out, the fox circles around the hedgehog’s den, waiting for the perfect moment to pounce. […] The fox waits in cunning silence at the juncture in the trail. He hedgehog, minding his own business, wanders right into the path of the fox. “Aha. I’ve got you now!” thinks the fox. He leaps out, bounding across the ground, lightning fast. The little hedgehog, sensing danger, looks up and thinks: “Here we go again. Will he ever learn? […] To be clear, hedgehogs are not stupid. Quite the contrary. They understand that the essence of profound insight is simplicity”

A parable about the triumph of simplicity upon complexity that I’ve enjoyed very much.

In London everything is based on experience and everybody understands that this is the only way to build brands. Wagamama, Nando’s, Natural History Museum, Domino Theatre, all of them focus on delivering more than a product or a service, or a piece of information…they try to surprise you with every small detail and to make you interact with them. In Romania communication must do a pioneer’s work in building experience as we still live in a world of one-way behavior, in which consumer doesn’t have the possibility to interact.

Nice pictures from this small museum. It’s extraordinary to see the beginnings and how the well-known brands became great and what impact they had upon a society throughout time.

We met John between a steak and a musical. We chatted a bit about planning, we received some valuable pieces of advice and we found that he will be back in Romania to hold qualitative research training for IAA.

Last week, I was in London together with Laurentiu. We attended one of the most interesting events I took part in the last years. And I said “took part”, as at the end of the conference we had to judge and to vote for the Biggest APG Thinker. The event has a blog. I didn’t have time to look at it but maybe you are interested: here.

19 professionals with extremely impressive CVs expressed their opinions on the Next Big Idea in their area of expertise (marketing, media, new media, research, planning, communication, brand thinking). And the winner was (as frequent blog readers may know) … Russell Davies, who had a very entertaining presentation (in the pictures attached you can see the way from his bicycle to the big prize). In the final, he competed against the winners of each section: Greg Nugent, Ivan Pollard, Chris Forrest, Mark Cridge, Trevor Beattie, Derek Day & Helen Edwards. It was an event full of interesting and original thoughts and with a very cool concept behind: a Pop Idol of the greatest professionals.