Naturally, this is an opinion piece. But more than anything it’s a question to planners, to agencies, and a question to all the future brands I’ll have the privilege of working to better.
My question is this:
What is your… What is the agency’s… What are each of your respective clients’…
Decision making RESEARCH:PLANNING:GUT ratios?
And which ratio yields the best results?
I believe great research is inductive, objective, and nearly scientific. Great research provides clear hindsight.
Great planning is deductive, a bit more subjective, and requires synthesizing many factors to draw out conclusions and hypotheses. Great planning expresses profound insight about human nature.
Gut and instinct comes from the experience of testing one’s intuition. This is what people, clients, and agencies seem to pay the most money for. With great gut comes the ability to predict what’s going to work before it hits its intended audience. With great gut comes the power of clear foresight.
As I conclude these thoughts, Information Society’s “What’s On Your Mind (Pure Energy)” radiates through my headphones, by utter coincidence.
I believe it’s important for those who don’t craft final creative executions — but are a part of the creative development — to share what they view to be great work. I think if a person is in a position to help guide any creative product, the people crafting/executing the final output deserve to know the creative point-of-view of everyone involved. It seems like a good way to build friendships and creative trust in a group dynamic.
Here are a few of my favorite pieces of work, expressed in videos. These, to me, are in the same league as “Imported from Detroit” and “A man your man could smell like”. It’s work from Virgin Atlantic, Dell (from ’07), and Call of Duty. It’s emotional and original to me; the work comes from a clear point-of-view, and it’s conceived from specific creative territory (which I have to assume is also a planned territory). These executions are not speaking to everyone, but they are clearly and elegantly, speaking to some. One can see how the concepts have longevity, and can be naturally articulated in other contexts. I think this work is beautiful and interesting; and I also believe it maximizes the investment in building brand equity.
In business… Culture attracts talent. Culture keeps talent. Culture attracts clients. Culture creates interest. Culture generates buzz. Culture creates energy. Culture can make up for lack of process. Culture can make up for lack of strategy. Culture can make up for less than perfect talent. Culture can increase profit margins. Culture can increase salaries. Culture [...]
The prestigious Oxford Dictionary added LOL, FYI, and OMG! (exclamation theirs) to its curated collection of words this year. Acronyms, and words in general, are just groupings of symbols that, when unlocked, open broader definition, right? Efficient transportation for communication, that’s a good word’s job. And, generally speaking, in order for a word to do [...]
Radio. It’s an industry full of smart, passionate, and talented… “radio people.” Just like me, they grew up with a deep love for the medium, and they’re walking through life seeing every interaction through the lens of potential radio content. “Radio is a lifestyle, not a job,” that’s what people in the industry say. My [...]
- Will the rate humanity gains knowledge plateau because we will begin to spend our time focusing on analyzing existing information rather than increasing net new information? (Although one could say that newly synthesized information is net new.) – Again reinforces Einstein’s quote that imagination is more important than knowledge. – It’s not just about [...]
The obligatory Facebook post: The first time I ever instant messaged anyone I was using my Apple IIC connected to a telephone and an external modem. The receiver of the telephone had to sit directly on top of the modem for the system to work. I was about six, using software called Telix. It was one of [...]
I grew up in Wausau, Wisconsin — home of Wausau Papers, Wausau Insurance, Google VP Marissa Mayer, and famous flamboyant pianist Liberace. It’s in the center of the state, about two hours West of Lambeau Field. The population is roughly 40,000, and in downtown Wausau is the best diner on Earth, The Mint Cafe. Every [...]
Here’s more evidence that Google has a profound power to track and sway public opinion in bold ways. This link (200 years of books to track our culture) is another great example of how much insight can be gathered from data aggregation and visualization, that’s nothing new. But what’s stopping Google from aggregating things like Gchat [...]
