PSFK Skills of a Rockstar Planner: Communicating Ideas

The second video in the PSFK series published last summer is below. Once again, I looked back on the video with a new perspective and felt it was important to share and summarize their comments with my readers. As account planners, our audience is the creative team. We are essentially making ads to the creatives, hoping that they buy into our findings and ideas. Therefore, it's no surprise that the qualities needed to deliver an effective Creative Brief mimic that of a successful piece of marketing communication. The thread that runs through their responses is that account planners need to simplifying their message and sell the idea in a way that seduces the listener. This thinking can even be extended to the brand. Look at the top three most valuable global brands; Google, IBM and Apple. Can you simplify each brands' message in a few words? Google = internet search, IBM = computer intelligence, Apple = innovative, functional design.Now let's extend this to the interview process. Ada Alpert's coaches her candidates to be able to walk through their case studies during interviews, first mentioning the problem, answer, insight that lead to that answer, strategy then walking the interviewer through how you got there to solve the problem. So in essence, it's your job as a planner not only to sell the strategy and the creative work, but to also sell the idea that you know how to sell ideas. Pick case studies you feel passionate about and believe in without hesitation. I wrote about the first PSFK video in the series here and stay tuned for the rest of the series.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sn40fvPDWeE&w=640&h=390]