Are Planners the new Creatives? Are Dogs the new Cats? Is Up the new Down?

Last year I was part of a panel, chaired by the lovely Jess from Contagious, at the PSFK London conference. We discussed  "Are Planners The New Creatives?" To be honest I found it a tricky motion to debate. Its one of those sound-byte questions that sound easy, but actually call into question much deeper issues about advertising, creativity and where exactly is this industry  going. My own opinion then, as it still is today, that if anyone is "the new creative" than its actually Technologists rather than Planners.

Anyway...

The IPA Strategy group held a similar debate earlier this week: "Who makes better Planners? Planners or Creatives." Defending Planners was David Golding from Adam+Eve, and proposing Creatives Dave Trott.

When you get a brief from clients I often ask "what's the real exam question?" When you get a brief you have to really dig in and work out what it is that you are actually being asked about, what is the real  problem that you are being asked to help solve.

And I guess that was the issue that I had with the IPA debate - what exactly was being debated? Why were we spending an evening talking about it and what could we learn from it? A lot of the younger folk from the agency who came thought that the evening was great, engaging, entertaining and educational. Maybe I'm a bit old and jaded now, but it left me a bit empty.

What is Dave Trott so angry about? I totally get that this is his "brand",  but even so his rage just seem to be directed all over the place - angry about pontificating Planners who complicate the simple, angry with Creatives for forgetting the skill of strategy and business-problem solving and angry with the industry for rewarding creative work on account of creative awards won rather than effectivness or genuine imagination and flair. All good things to be angry about actually and in fact I would agree with all of them but how it relates to Planners Vs Creatives was beyond me.

I don't however agree with his assertion that all Planners want to do is big TV brand advertising. In my experience it is more often Creatives than Planners who are desperate for big brand glory.  

Trott's  main point seemed to be that the bottom 90% of Planners are pretty shit and the bottom 90% of Creatives are pretty shit. That's probably right.

But where does that leave us?

Are Creatives the new Planners?

No.

Are Planners the new Creatives?

No. But given that our creative end-product increasingly could be a blog, a widget, an event or an ARG instead of or as well as a TV ad, then we all need to think about what exactly we mean by the phrase "the Creative Team". Pairings work well for problem solving and ideation (apologies for that Americanism), but an Art Director - CopyWriter? I'm not so sure?

The definition of Planners and Creatives are in-flux so debating which one is better sort of seems to be missing the point. 

Anyway, Rory Sutherland did the best write-up of the night that I have found so far...

Comments

[Mikej]

Im going to say one thing. Who cares ????... we do and only we. Im sure Clients dont . They just want answers. The structure that we create at agencies should be created to come up with answers in the best way possible. Im a little over people putting everyone in a box. Shouldnt we simplify it by just getting a group of smart people together from different disciplines. Address what ever planning and creative process you have as a team and nut it out together. Everybody has personal strengths and those strengths have probably lead them to their position. But working together with no barriers will lead to better work. A different perspective always helps. I believe we should spend our time discussing how we all can work together to become better problem solvers. Not who sits where and whats their title on the door. Sorry to have a spit on your site amelia.
keep up the great posts

[Adam]

The link to Rory's post is broken:

http://community.brandrepublic.com/blogs/rory_sutherlands_blog/archive/2008/08/06/who-make-better-planners-planners-or-creatives.aspx

I'm wondering whether people should be defined by the sort of questions they ask each other and the world in general.

You have the Why? people, the What?, How?, Where?, When?

I do think it is important for people to have some kind of identity in the workplace. It is just that these old job titles don't accurately capture or describe people's core motivations and thus skills.

I also think there's a severe lack of awareness of people's different working, emotional, and thinking styles in most workplaces.

We don't understand each other and want to pretend we are all alike. Diversity scares people, it seems. A real shame, because that lack of awareness leaks into the work, then leaks into society, and represents itself as the defining problem of new work with associated pseudo problems.

[Tom Harle]

I'll hear none of this 'Dogs the new Cats' proposition

[Stan Lee]

I just finished reading Rory's piece before visiting your blog Amelia. Although very long, his piece is brilliant.

Given I'm well on my way to becoming an adland oldie I think it's time for me to start modeling myself on Rory. Without the dodgy bow tie of course!