Data: 29.10.2007
There’s never been a better time to be a planner
an interview by Sergiu Floroaia
 an interview with Andrew Hovells, planner at Public
My guest is Andrew Hovells - planner at Public since 2003, where he worked on brands like Morrisons, Northern Rock, DFS and Stanley Tools. You might know him as the Northern Planner.
What is the latest piece of thinking that you consider pure genius and why? And I'm not talking about advertising campaigns exclusively.
I’m going to be cheeky and pick two.
The first is ‘Heroes’. The comic book genre has been done to death –at least in comic book land. I think the premise of what would happen in the REAL WORLD if people got comic book powers is fresh, meaty and pure genius.
The second is the thinking behind Lurpak in the UK . Food culture in the UK is confusing. We’re supposed to be excellent cooks, buy ethically, be healthy and somehow fit this into busy lives. Lurpak helps is simplify the confusion by showing us that the secret is simple – quality of ingredients. This common sense voice allows them to talk about all sorts of things, like faddy diets. The secret to losing weight is just to eat a little bit less! Love it.
With all this blogging and all this information that keeps us "a step ahead" aren't we losing sight of what's important and relevant. How much is it just procrastination or intellectual masturbation as John Steel called it?
There’s never been a better time to be a planner. Thanks to blogging you can rub shoulders with all sorts of great thinkers, and work out some ideas of your own in public, and allow the feedback to refine it, or tell you your wasting your time for that matter. That has to be a good thing - so long as we all remember that planning isn’t about coffee mornings and clever blog posts. It’s about hard work, rigour and making hard choices. It’s about meeting the people your intend the work to be aimed at, it’s about evidence. It’s about rigour The explosion if information and choice has left many people in agencies confused, it’s up to planners to help them make sense of it all. I find that exciting.
We're always talking about maintaining our creative edge, but what should we do to keep our feet on the ground?
Make sure you’re always in touch with the real people beyond the walls of your agency. That means reading what they do, watching what they do and meeting them as often as possible. Some of that is making sure you watch – and ideally do – as much of the qual research as you can, but some of that is wandering around the kind of places they hang out and watching what they do, how they talk what they’re all wearing.
It’s easy to be seduced by a wonderful creative idea, and forget it will be totally uninteresting, or irrelevant to the people it’s aimed at.
Also, a friend of mine uses the phrase, “Stay close to the money”. He means spend as much time with the people who’s livelihoods depend on your strategy. When you have to present a TV campaign to a bunch of surly sales managers, who’s bonus depends of the success of your ideas, you’d be amazed how unimportant the size of the logo becomes.
The best thing that ever happened to me was having six months between agency jobs. I was bored, the money began to run out, so I spent some time in a call centre. 8 hours a day on the phone talking about plumbing and drainage insurance, in an office with many people who didn’t have a future beyond doing this kind of thing forever. Doses of reality like that are invaluable.
Many times it's not only clients who think a planner is just another useless expense, some agency leaders think they can always manage without the help of a planner. What's the best argument for having a planner in an agency?
That’s a good question. It’s fashionable to talk about making sense of the fragmenting media, making the work better etc – and all those things are true, and invaluable. But in my view, the biggest value a planner has is making life easier. No one wants endless rebriefs and redrafts. The more times the client has to rebrief you, the more frustrated they get – and eventually you get fired. They want the right work, first time. By bringing the consumer into the equation, planners allow everyone to work to the same agreed goal – what will work - and get there so much quicker. That helps the age old suits v creatives conflict too. From a client point of view, planners also help clients feel like campaigns are less risk thanks to this ‘proof’– and that’s invaluable since they’re putting their neck on the line. They have a board to answer to. In other words, planners help great work get through quicker. That benefits everyone.
What do you think makes a great planner?
A healthy interest in everything and no ego. I think planning as all about connections, between brands, markets and, most importantly, real culture. The more stuff you’ve read, the more chance you have of finding a connection that’s interesting.
And creatives have to fight for their ideas, suits have to fight creatives and clients. There’s no room for more egos in there – but a non-threatening sounding board goes down well.
What's the movie that any planner should watch? What should he learn from it?
Glengarry Glen Ross. A sobering film about the hard life of a sales man. It reminds you lucky you are to be in an interesting rewarding job. It also reminds you how tiny brands are people’s lives. All those people out there face all sorts of issues everyday that agency people sometimes forget. No one gives a stuff about ‘brands’ they’re getting on with the everyday grind of real life.
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