The old creative brief is dead, but agencies are stuck looking at old ways of strategy planning instead of breeding a modern day planner, according to UM chief strategy officer Sophie Price.
Price, who is also the vice chair of the Communication Council's Account Planning Group (APG), says her aim for 2016 is to look at how the industry can “modernise planning”.
“The vast majority of creative agencies are still stuck in the era of the traditional creative agency brief that gets passed to the creative and the creative comes back with their ideas and so on,” Price says.
“In the old days it was about putting an ad into the world through paid media – obviously that's completely changed. We're now looking at the ways ideas live in the world and what makes them spread.
“Processes need to change, thinking needs to change and the work that planners do needs to be involved, not just as the start, but right through the campaign architecture. These are all very different skills.”
Price will be leading the Sydney branch of the Communications Council 2016 IPA Campaign Planning Course, which she says aims to shift the way planners in Australia think.
She will co-chair the Sydney course with Coca-Cola South Pacific marketing manager integrated marketing communications, Leo Roberts, in what marks the first IPA planning course to include a client side speaker.
“Campaign planning is no longer something you can do in isolation of your partner or client because campaigns are constantly moving and evolving,” Price says.
“You have to plan for agility and those decisions have to be made as a broader team and not just as an agency. It's not set and forget – I think the days are gone where the client worked in isolation of the agency.”
The Melbourne course will be chaired by Publicis Australia CEO Andrew Baxter and Ogilvy and Mather head of strategy Gavin MacMillan.
Both courses take place over three days in Melbourne from 20-22 March and Sydney from 3-5 April. The course is designed for agency account managers and planners in advertising, media and PR with a minimum of three years' experience.
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