Open-ended responses to the 2011 Planner Survey, asking planners to detail what they do at work.

1. A lot of people have expressed an interest in what different planners actually do. So to try to get at that, I'd like you to think about your last full day of working (probably yesterday) and describe in as much detail as possible exactly what you did. Sure, this won't capture the breadth of your job, but when we put everyone's descriptions together, we should have a pretty clear understanding (especially for newer planners) of how we spend our days. Describe when you were working alone or with others and what type of projects you were working on (more quot;
traditionalquot;
vs. digital? Client work vs. new business?) I'm going to publish the descriptions so make sure not to reveal names.Presented brand position, architecture, taglines, and visual identity system options to client. Expected it to be a 4 hr meeting but took about 9!!Alone : Category packing analysis Focus group Guide Focus group Recruitment In group: Brainstorm for new packing ideas Layout approval Focus group operational strategy - Lead internal strategy department initiatives to build the capability - Develop thought leadership materials for external consumption - Consult on clients' brand strategy initiatives (i.e. brand foundations, brand architecture) - Input to new business proposalsI wake up around seven. I have to be fresh, so I head downstairs. I have to have my bowl of cereal. I see everything, the time is going. It's ticking on and on, Everybody's rushing. I must get down to the bus stop. I must catch my bus. Then I see my friends. They're generally kicking in the front seat or sitting in the back seat. This is the first of many important decisions I must make in this day. Where do I sit? I need to make my mind up. Which seat would be wisest for me to take? Indecision tempers all of my ongoings throughout the morning. It is very difficult indeed. I wait for the last weekday of the week so that I can have passive relaxation with my friends.morning -open my tweetdeck and check the news on tweeter, then facebook, my RSS dashboard -benchmark on financial apps on iPad afternoon -work with an account manager on a presentation on both digital and print proposition for an insurance company which want to redefine its offers (statistics, insight, promise) - meeting with a client about his social media strategy Worked with others editing a client presentation. Worked alone on a new business pitch. Worked alone looking through my Google Reader for interesting news/trends to post to the company blog and twitter account.I spent the day living life with two people, to understand their needs, wants and experiences, then met privately with a client to structure a presentation.Coordinating with junior who is in the field to revise methodology, downloading on insights thus far to feed to other junior who is working in parallel on stakeholder interviews, coodinating digital insights report and competitive analysis with president and freelance digital strategist to identify key points we want to make to the client and anchor the presentation around, brainstorming 3 hours with startup company about her concept business, the target, and strategy for putting together a compelling business presentation to get investors, rebooking travel to meet junior in the field, reworking project budget hours and price to account for additional staff, recruiting potential interns for summer...no wonder I'm tired. Research (lots of internet scouring, harassing my friends and contacts, more full fledged focus groups, etc) Competitive Analyses Brainstorming Client Relationship Building/Management Writing for my own blog, blogging and tweeting for my company, setting up brainstorms and creativity sessions, reading surveys, managing accounts...I do a lot of biz dev things and I manage our social media for the company. A lot of what I do is task oriented and I feel like it doesn't have an end goal, ie obtaining a new client. Sometimes I am able to reach out for new business but in a cold call type of manner, which is hard for someone without klout. Team meeting to discuss strategic deliverables. Writing detailed project plan/timeline Writing/revising brand strategy and digital deliverables Researched the auto industry, focusing on current perceptions of domestic vs. imported brands. Compiled a list of key dates in the UK market for a campaign timeline. Read blog roll, including topics from marketing, to design, to technology, to food, to fashion. Worked to develop ideas for partnership or proprietary tools that would map events trending in real-time, for potential client use. I workshoped with the CEO of the network (top five in the world...) to reposition our own global brand and present a packaged tool to attract new business... Then I rushed to one of my clients (European Bank) to present a new brand positioning for their Private Banking activities.Creating user experience flows and prioritized feature sets for a new online education startup.Brand development: - on one project, ensuring that the ad agencies creative work matched the brief we wrote; - on another, reviewing the quant data we commissioned; - on a third writing up the output of a decision workshop we ran with a group of CEO's yesterdayWinning business, keeping clients happy, doing the workAbout the daily plan I spent, it was combined by various of activities. Starts with handle my clients progress include the planning (which is usually starts from proposal, for new clients) and followed with daily controlling for the execution process by my team. other activities are studying new objects or industry to fullfill my weekly task to create journals for blog and our internal education material. And the last one is I did public speaking in internal HR development and also outside the office, to do lecturing at university and other public community, specially about brand and marketing topics.My day, yesterday: Spent time reviewing my twitter stream for the latest thinking, reading articles, watching videos/ads. Spent time understanding/discussing consumer insights on the category I'm working on. Spent time bringing a brand proposition to life in a 'moment of truth' touchpoint story.Qualitative research - organize, implement, analyze, report findings, produce 30 minute documentary films.I am usually on two-three projects at one time. I usually come in and have fieldwork being set up for one project while writing strategic report/analysis/briefs on another project. No day is the same.www.the15pagestrategysolero.esHelped a client to think about describing their sustainability efforts in a fresh and interesting way. Ran a workshop with a client to think about their authentic brand personality. Met a new business prospect and talked about bringing service innovation to a dull and transactional b2b category.Developing a series new product written concepts and presenting them to the client to meet a new need in an emerging market. Collaborating with the creative team to bring each concept to life visually.My job consists of writing screeners, monitoring recruits, writing discussion guides, creating stimulus, moderating (still learning) attending research, writing the first draft of the report, working with my team to finalize/optimize the final report, attend client meetings etc.Connecting the dots between consumer research, expert insight and desk research. Also launching new business ventures born from this knowledge. Researched for a biotech client. Attended a meeting with a potential hotel business client, listened to their brand challenges, wrote a proposal and sent it out. Browsed through several music documents in order to prepare for a workshop session I have tomorrow. I went to Paris to talk to a man about innovation and strategic packaging design. I then had a meeting cancelled so went to see Ralph Lauren's car collection on exhibition near the Louvre. Wonderfully inspiring stuff! I do brand conception and consulting, meaning I work on the ideas, meanings and values that stand behind a brand and try to figure out how to best communicate them according to the target demographic. Sifting through loads of info Writing blogg posts Trying to reach new insights Writing customer portraits This should be done via personal interviews !Get briefed by the Head. Do Analysis and Desk Research. Gather insights with a medium-weight planner, and went to a meeting with clientWell, yesterday I've worked at home, my company is very flexible and we can do that sometimes. I was working on a presentation of a research. The research was about a product testing. I started working 11am and worked until 1pm, than I had lunch and watched a TV show. 3 pm a got back to work and it lasted until 8pm.BenchmarkingArrive in the office and have a team WIP meeting. Talk about current projects, and the future of planning in a digital world. Discuss how people will connect with media in the future. Attend a client briefing and discuss the way people purchase the client's service. Agree to write 'reverse brief'. Attend client meeting for half a day. Discuss current ad campaign in market and reactions. Review annual marketing plan and progress details like objectives, campaigns, budgets. Attend creative presentation to another Client with creative and account service teams. Client had changed strategy for campaign, so extensive discussion about new brief required. Evening - attend viewing facilities to watch focus groups for another client.Brand strategy Comunication strategyI do customer interviews, brand DNA workshops, creative brief writing, qualititative focus groups, customer survey work, brand personality recommendations, positioning work, customer profiling and segmentation...just about anything that has to do with brand core definition, targeting and messaging architecture.Today I spent most of the day constructing the strategic section of a deliverable that dealt with the positioning of an online travel agency with an eye towards differentiation and adding emotion. Findings were based on 14 focus groups conducted nationwideYesterday I worked on a discussion guide for upcoming qualitative research, worked on a final results ppt report including quant and qual results (so spent hours going through data), coordinated meetings with clients, got an RFP from a new client. And today I'm off to more primary research - pretty typical 2 days.I was finalising a strategic deck for a pitch, identifying the opportunity for the brand in the market and how they could use their equity to make the most of it.Worked on a client's business model with client. Worked on an upcoming seminar/workshop (How Brands Grow) with collaborators. Worked on future blog posts.putting together brand strategy presentation, reworking the recommendations, reordering the sections to tell a compelling story, creating positioning maps. presenting to client.Half a day's group training session on creating brand voice for clients in the morning. Afternoon was spent working on a discovery findings presentation which involved analysing insights from interviews done with management teams for a client project. The afternoon also involved a conference call with the (same) client and the account director on the project to discuss changes to a staff survey we are writing for the project. After the call I worked on amending the survey.The morning began with catching up on emails, blog reading, followed by a new business breakfast meeting with potential creative partners for a sportswear brand. I met with another partner for lunch to go into a initial project planning meeting with another client, a chocolate brand to discuss business needs, definition of growth, and determining project and brand priorities aside from business needs. This lasted until about 5:30, when we called it a day, heads exploding. A Day of Brand Planning: >Interviewed new client prospect >pitched the prospect (our) capabilities package >negotiated prospects budget and goals for 2011-2012 >suggested a brand scheme example based on a similar company >suggested a timeline for the prospect >closed the client after 2 weeks engagementI spent the first half of yesterday putting the finishing touches to a presentation that was going to the CEO of a large high street retailer. It was a piece of work that I've been working on for a month that defined a) how they should structure their messaging on pack to help consumers navigate b) how to communicate premium in a consistent and relevant way and how to manage their multiple ingredient brands across their categories. I then spent the afternoon developing some thinking on different approaches to consumer insight and then in the evening I went to a presentation on consumer values with the hope that I could incorporate it into a new consumer values model.I pass most of my time thinking and proposing new behavior`s methodologies looking foward bonding insights to my clients' brands. we develop force multiplying ideas that work at the intersection of how brains work, people's identity projects, the cultures of interpretive communities and the priorities of clients.I came into work and finished pulling and organizing quotes for a presentation. Then I had a meeting. Then I put the quotes into a template and printed them out for said presentation. Then I used pictures that were created in focus group collages to inform more quotes that needed to be pulled. Then I put those in the template and printed them out. Worked on marketing documents, screener, proposalsattended a client work session run by a mid-level strategist on my team. we focused on defining the guiding principle for their brand portfolio architecture, as well as the role that their brands each play in the lives of their respective audiences. my role was to act as the senior voice in the room, being more professorial than worker bee. I started my day reviewing a pitch deck for a meeting we had later in the afternoon. It was a prospect that is new to their job, but who had worked with my firm in the past, prior to my taking over as the managing director of our SF office. She and I spent a good amount of time chatting about past employers (both worked at the same agency, but she left a couple months before i joined), past clients we had in common, etc. Eventually we discussed work, our firm's POV on brands and how we help companies, and what their specific challenges are. On the ride back i was on the phone with my CFO trying to figure out why HR is holding up a transfer we have lined up from another office in our network. Finished my day by sitting down with the team from my morning work session to discuss what went well, what didn't and what i need them to focus on to make the project run better. Closed the day with a decent zinfandel...at home, of course. research plan for qualitative and quant research to gain consumer insights moderating focus groups writing/delivering research reports working with design team to create strategically driven package design manage client relationships manage internal team of jr strategists Exploring -- looking for new approaches to solving a problem including reading, research and conversations inspiring - getting the right people excited about helping me solve it explaining - setting out the solutions in conversations or presentations recruiting - trying to find new partners and new clients to serve up more problems for us to collaborate on solvingClient wants to buy an award winning B&B but is concerned that its positioning as a place only for lovers may be too restrictive, even though the business has been very successful. Recently business has been dropping. Discussed with an associate; decided to do some interviews among past customers to better understand customer motivations and interviews among those who have frequented B&B's in this areas before but never the client's. When these are completed we may do some on-line surveys for greater accuracy.i was working on a new product development project for a global chain of shops in London before heading to China for the next round of research.Worked on my own to review Ethnography tapes from last week's fieldwork. Conference call with client F/U on a proposal sent out last week Creating a workshop session ppt deck on what an insight is, why you should care and how to do itCombination of new business development in assisting in the creation of a proposal and client work...My current project is to define a 6 months strategy to bring my client's brand back on track (after almost one year without a planner working on the account, things got a bit random). So, basically I'm analyzing all brand activities from the last year - communication and campaigns, insights from Facebook page, events, sales results and the output of a one day workshop with the client. For now is like a big puzzle and all the pieces have to start to find their place together. After I have my first findings and insights, I'll share them with my partner in some kind of 'brainstorm/ workshop'. Then I'll go back to design the final strategy (of course, meanwhile, there is a lot of conversation going on).I collect new references and distribute them to the creatives. I go to meetings with clients and build creative briefs adressed to the creatives at my agency. I deal with social media agencies that are responsible for executing my digital strategies. I analyze the reports those agencies send to me. I take care of the agency's online presence, updating and monitoring social networks and websites. I build online and offline strategies for clientes upon briefs. I come up with BTL ideas that the agency tries to quot;
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sellquot;
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to its clients. I build presentations for the creatives talking about new references and trends in marketing, communication, advertising and design. help clients reshape strategy and identify opportunity from white space.I approved contracts for 2 new projects with my corp lawyer. I thought about how to best market a new piece of research I'm releasing. I mucked around on twitter, and also asked twitterverse for research on a specific topic/target. I thought about how I wanted to spend my budget for the new fiscal year in 2012. I looked at some conferences I wanted to attend. I reviewed some video from a recent project with a colleague in a parallel division to get her feedback. I discussed some research I did relevant to another colleague's project with him. Had to deal with some calendar scheduling back and forth. I worked on the design of an infographic with one of our designers.I have recently moved client side in a Strategic Planning Role. Very rare to find a job on this side that actually wants you to be a planner but I got very lucky. The work is still challenging but people definitely listen more now that I'm internal. I work on Digital and CRM mostly in the company, both exciting places to be. Work on global brands and get to work closely with my agency planners. Best of both worlds with the added benefit of being more relaxed as a client.Spent half the day watching groups via focus vision (Russia early in the morning, Thailand late in the evening). Worked on updating the quot;
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consumer sectionquot;
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an onboarding deck for a new senior management member. At a management meeting, presented the consumer evidence (research results) of a business plan and advocated for why we should continue moving forward with this innovation project. Gave feedback to team on stimulus for upcoming qual study.Client-Side Planning: -Arrive at work, drink coffee, read e-mail -Worked on presentation to CEO on the innovation opportunities that have the most potential -- including financial potential, but also potential to improve the health of our brand portfolio -Reviewed packaging creative brief before sending to agency -Read a bunch of trend articles in preparation for helping sales team on retailer presentation -Left at 5:20PM - WHICH NEVER HAPPENED IN ADVERTISINGI work client side. Work closely with brand marketing team.Pontification.I work at client side. In my day-to-day, i spend some time analyzing our ROI at digital investments, creating new strategies with low cost (something like guerrilla marketing) to impact our consumers in offline actions, and spend some time to see what can we offer besides our products (reason to exist, and things like that)I work as a general manager for a spas association and as that instituion is in the beginning of its journey, my role regarding planning is finding news business opportunity, sinergies between our objectives and the whole market. My last full day of working was basically coordinating steps to implement a market research about spas and aesthetic clinics in Brazil and negotiating a national marketing action with Dove, our Spa Week Brasil's sponsor.Today I did something quite different from my job description, have filed documents for a bidding.We have a big fair to participate and we decide how we are gonna release the information about a new product and how we are gonna launch it between an specific trade; than we took some brief from the exportation department and align some information with the press assessors. After lunch I did a report a meeting which happened Monday and started a new scenario about our trade to help the commercial area.Bounce from meetings related to different projects all day. Constantly in a state of preparing research, reporting research and trying to make sense of it all. I'm used to work all day making researchs.i work inside a company that has a big adversting department, so i am like internal planner. my job is to understand what people need, wants, imagine, trust, etc so i work with our research department. then i translate it to the agency with a brief, non a typical client brief. when capaign it is finish i measure results. image indactors, qualitative, etc.I spent time with the director of design at one of the biggest global brands discussing how much brand equity is found in a brands' visual expressions, such as logos, colors, typography. I also spent time speaking with some of my global partners about an upcoming project to review best practices for developing authentic narratives. I was also asked to develop a presentation that identified and defined the elements evident in consistently great advertising (clear strategic thought, single-minded idea, strong story, etc...)create trend reports based on internal initiatives, educate sr staff on trends and new topics out there by going to a variety of conferences, work on rebrands & internal creation of programs like social cause. Almost all social media and digital campaigns, understanding how consumers use social media in their lives, how they want brands to integrate (and not), and writing...lots of writing. Content is a premium delivery mechanism.I compiled a huge, total ffing waste of time status report that I'm required to do monthly- which NO ONE reads. I edited 43 positioning concepts down to the 15 best to review w my SVP to get her approval on the 10 that should go into qual message research (focus groups) We did this over a long lunch, lots of edits from her, reversals of what I was asked to do previously. I'll need to revise again today and then have another hour long mtg w her to get final concepts I can actually put into research. We discussed a couple different ideas for upcoming ads we'd like to have made during upcoming shoot - our adds to what our agency is already slated to make. I cut out early after that. It was holiday weekend.Most of my day is spent working directly with brands teams ensurign that the insights we've identified are firmly embedded in the strategy and the work, and that our mktg is reflective of the brand strategy coming out of the insights. This covers everything from advertising to POS to experiential to digital to innovation and pricing. I developed a market test plan. I design the evaluation pre-post survey with my research vendor. And I briefed the media agency to get the media plan for the market test.since the last days I'm working in nnbb work, thinking of the strategy of our biggest client and inspiring and thinking with creative team through some great international stuff for a beer projectEveryday I walk in to the office curious and anxious for what I am going to create, analyze, or find out. It is almost scary how inquisitive I become even when writing the creative brief - dying to learn more about the person buying our product, what they do every day, and how my brand can become a piece of fabric in their life. I work at a creatively driven agency so spend a lot of time just working with teams, sitting in creative reviews and preparing client presentations. Yesterday I spent 6 hours in a consumer workshop looking for Olympics insights and propositions and then spent the evening watching some creative work get murdered in focus groups. Fun. Following up progress on a Global Research Project. Writing a Research Brief. Sitting with the ECD on some pitch brief and discussing ways in, relevant insights and ideas for a start.I do a lot of our proprietary business ethnography projects. We use this to find inspiration and insights for creative briefs and brand strategies. This week I took part in one of the brand strategy workshops with clients. A lot of clients in Russia (especially international companies working in Russia) has become very demanding in asking for robust strategies lately. So we have a lot of work on the branding side. Somewhat separated from the creatives. Because it may take a while from the brand strategy to the brief.I spent most of yesterday thinking abstractly about enhancing current internet behaviors for a digital campaign my team is working on. We held a lot of meetings w/ and w/out the client, had long conversations about crazy abstract stuff, and tried to poke holes in each others ideas. Prior to these conversations, I spent most of the day ready the brief, reconstructing the brief, and thinking about what type of sandbox I need to create (figuratively) for my team to come to an awesome idea. Also, in addition to creating the sandbox, I spent a lot of time asking - and answering - the questions of quot;
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why are we doing this?quot;
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what are we trying to accomplish?quot;
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is this a bunch fo bullshit?quot;
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what is the real issue at hand for this client?quot;
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Tissue meeting with prospective clients as part of an ongoing pitch for a financial services brand in the morning and presented and discussed our proposed brand positioning and proposition and creative territories. This will be a TV led campaign but will extend to all media. I reviewed creative work for a car brand based on recent consumer research work and worked with the creative director to make sure we are getting the message right. Also worked with the client service director and CD on our telco client based on a recent tracking scores that show the brand isn't performing well amongst their target so we need to figure out the problem and how we are going to fix it. Also worked on a segmentation project (alone) for a newspaper client to identify our target and who's market share we can steal from. I'd say 70% of my day was working with others and 30% alone. Yesterday I traveled with my team to get briefed on new pieces of business and brainstormed another client's brand character we're helping create from the ground up. As a Junior Digital Planner my role is part community manager, part junior planner. In the morning I check a client's campaign and moderate all user content, update all of the company social media profiles and find new content to post on these properties. Throughout the day I will read articles from my Google Reader where I track important digital blogs for trends and emerging technologies that could interest my clients. I work with the technical department in my agencies to discuss upcoming briefs and pass on any case studies that may be relevant. I pull together insight (inc research), develop creative start points, work out channel strategy, define platforms in everything from ad planning to social ideas to websites and even a bit of direct - anything and everything to do with planning (apart from really complex numbers stuff).I was answering the phone all day long and requesting some information about the client to pass it to the creatives. Almost only some project manegment stuff.Generel management, coming up with a new overall conceptual ideas, writing a workshop scope, creation communoication architecture, presenting at a meeting, flicking through twitter & news sites.- Receive presentation from media agency on media plan; - Discuss status of several projects with client; - Make time schedule for Effie case entry; - Define key regions based on statistics to allow media agency to target more specific; - Discuss alterations to a campaign concept with creatives; - Give feedback to PR agency on their PR plan.brief writing briefing creative team writing a blog post attending a focus group with a client writing a report on that focus group assitested a meeting to prepare presentations for Efie Awardswrite decks deal with clients work with creativesResearching the client's sales force. Looking for insights about behavior, the way they dress, gestures, how they talk to clients, attitude towards new clients etcYesterday, I was working through a creative work, after having written a brief. The creative team is not very digital, som me and the digital team was working through the idea, mulling it over for a couple of hours. After that, I spent about an hour writing a backbrief to a client who is not very good at writing client briefs. Hence I need to interpret what they want in order to determine the playing field. After that, I was working on ppt slides for a workshop on brands and branding for a client company, in order to establish common ground before presenting their new brand platform. I then took a couple of beers, watched a live feed from the global CCO and after that returned to the digital solution I worked on this morning.I made some admin decisions / moves like moving a favored candidate through the HR process; setting up a new employee; writing job descriptions and working with the CSO on allocations. I amended a strategy for a client. I gave feedback on a Facebook editorial calendar that another agency had created for one of our clients. I sat in two client meetings to discuss one strategy I had written and support a junior in their presentation of a strategy to a client. I went to lunch with a co-worker and tried to convince him not to totally freak out. I met with a new vendor. I began outlining a brainstorm for a client. -talk in meetings about the internet . -talk about research I did a month ago, again in meetings -meet with clients about how a qaunt rest will run -sit down with a app developer and see what he can do for us -Stop by the creative teams space and see if they are doing alright with concepting. As a junior planner, the main activity I do is desk research (although sometimes I have to do some coolhunting or inteviews in the street). Another main activity (but is not part of the routine) is communication anlysis. I also participate in meeting with clients and in others, such as work sessions, workshops (in these situation I go with my bosses). The agency where I work is more traditional, and their clients are too (most of them are related to the mass consummer market).Putting out fires and having the junior planners do the more exciting work!Looking at a brand strategy for a client, describing their brand values and personality. Uncovering new business opportunities. Pulling together new client welcome pack.Prepared an annual planning proposal. Researched potential new clients. Developed award show entries.Led a brainstorm on digital ideas. Met with a traditional advertising agency and media agency to agree a team approach to a client brief. Got frustrated. Tried to make sense of someone else's strategy.Discussing brand strategy with account director. Discussing campaign ideas with creative teams. Discussing pitch strategy with account director. Briefing research team. Management board meeting.I work on understanding the full business needs for a wide range of clients. I'm responsible for gathering full requirements, and then guiding and developing and implementing successful Integrated strategies, working alongside creative, digital, account and media disciplines. I present to client teams as well as manage effective delivery. Figured out how to approach a client with results and information they probably don't want to hear. Met with a new biz prospect that would require an extensive discovery phase. write millennial brand experience strategy identify actionable platforms to create brand experience ideas from Hard thinkingclient workManage the brand strategy of key clientsWork on competitive benchmarking of our agency's offering. Develop presentations for channel planning and programmatic development. Write creative and/or assignment briefs and brief creative teams. Oversee tactical implementation of client social media pages and day to day editorial calendar.Yesterday was Sunday :) I have a junior planner that helps me out through all the research bit and then I focus on the strategic output for our clients. 50% of my work is working in-house with my creative colleagues and the other 50% is brand consultancy for my clients. 30% research (alone) 20% talking with creatives about jobs 15% creating presentations (alone) 30 creating a plan for a brand or event (alone) 5% talking about the plan (me and my boss) 5% Met with whole company to go through upcoming jobs, met with head of Planning to update him on progress of various jobs, met with Account Service and Channel Planner for client for discussion on jobs on the go, Head of Planning gave presentation to planning department on trends and changes in Account Planning, globally and the increasing requirement for media expertise, reviewed creative concepts for a campaign, arranged time to write two key briefs this week. definning the strategy for the branding of a state owned companylots of admin stuff, outline research project, approve film scriptPlan research, oversee research, synthesize findings, design strategy, develop implementation plans, run workshops, manage clients, be awesome.Yesterday, I: -Presented a brief I'd written to the account team for feedback before taking it to the creative team -Wrote a blog post for the company blog -Finished putting together a social/content strategy for a client that I'd been working on for a few weeks -Did my timesheets -Reviewed work that a researcher pulled together -Discussed Facebook best practices with a client -Got ready for a conference I'm going to this weekPrepared for a meeting with new clients to take them through my strategic process. Met with our creative director to discuss what we'll enter in our countries Agency of the Year submission. Planned a trip to an Innovation conference that should be helpful for people 40+ (not me) but I have to go. Took my new clients through my strategic process (they were very impressed and this should be a kick-ass product launch). Worked on a deck to present the new (post-digital) brief I worked on with another planner here that our agency is launching. Surfed the internet for ideas.I analyze the client's business in relation to advertising/marketing mediums, then share this information with the creative team. So I spend 1/3 of my time learning about media, 1/3 of my time learning the client's business, and the other 1/3 fucking around with the creatives.Planning in all facets, digital, traditional, social media, I sit in creative departement, help creatives who have questions, works also internally, new studies, knowledge transfer, bridging gap between classic and digital teams, i'm not in a team, just floating around, working on every possible project and clientCheck e-mails Contact clients Updating the job flow Researching Start to put on paper the results and search for insightsI attended 3 focus groups and prepaired a presentation to client with account and creative people.My junior planners and I went to a conference being held in town for the morning. Got some inspiration about the future of advertising agencies by seeing people from all around the world talk about their experiments with different models. Got some lunch together then back to the office. Negotiated with a potential hire and skyped with another candidate. Reviewed progress on a project junior planner is owning.Cultural research reading, listening, observing connecting disparate ideas making sense of unorganized work managing client expectationsUsually start every day browsing my quot;
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twitter lists, engaging with some tweeps, going through blogs (related or not to ad industry) to see whats going on around the world. Then i focused on a 1st digital project we're doing for a new client but making sure we are strategically preparing the table for an upcoming quot;
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pitch llater this year. This specific client, related to fashion industry, is ready to make more room to digital so we're making sure to understand perfectly its industry, customers, history, in order to propose the right strategies.building a brand workshop, visiting a client site for a tour and interviews, and an agency operations meetingWrote and revised briefs, met with account and creative team to review those briefs, worked on a POV presentation for clients, got on the phone with client to discuss upcoming research, sat in few meetings to offer my perspectiveRun workshop to look at potential strategic platform for new product Edit award entries for campaigns we have done over the last year written proposals for research into how we can evolve a current brand platform Received brief for an upcoming campaign. Disagreed with CD who disagreed with my strategy Mentored other plannersCraft a strategic POV for a SS2012 product launch, which will determine the positioning of product and lead to a creative brief for client sign off.Listen. Digest. Comment. Re-work.Mainly client work Big idea projects - extended to digital and experientialMy role is to develop an integrated approach to planning, going from more traditional advertsing to digital and activation approaches. For this reason, I've been more and more involved with some channel planning thinking. Most of the work developed so far is for clients, in a global basis, focusing more in developing markets. Digital trend hunting, innovation planning, digital builds. Business strategy, business consultancy, business planning.65% of the days spent on meetings, the rest of the time you try to accomplish something and if some time is left, you start remembering that you are here to think. Working with creatives to open up the possibility of how we can engage consumers to interact directly with or on behalf of our client's brands. Trend research, engagement research, pushing a client to think different and engage with consumers in a refreshing way.Yesterday I recieved a few emails from our biggest client regarding social media statistics. I took down the relevant notes and moved on to review their project status, updating my project status copy. Then our agency held status, where everyone discusses the status of projects and what needs to happen that day. There is a new accounts sup so we took a few hours together to discuss agency priorities, position, and our task of setting up a formal process. The sup and I went to lunch, came back, and sat down with our interactive producer to organize some information for needed briefings happening the next day. Our CEO joined us and we discussed the next day's big call with the client. It was a very account management-focused day.I lead a truly ambidextrous team of brand, integrated, digital, technical planners. We design and shape the futures of brands. We give brands a story and a voiceTeleconference with client and outside agency to discuss 5 strategy opitions for unifying their brand to different customers. Working on a training presentation. Teleconference with colleagues in US discussing the plan for a workshop we're conducting with their client in our area of expertise. browsing twitter. Writing blog. worked on an sales incentive campaign for Volvo do Brasil, a fitness challenge for Exxon Mobil, and a campaign for IMAX Pirates of the Caribbean Designed a research approach for three different projects. Wrote a presentation Gave an induction to new clients Researched stuff on the internet Chatted to creatives Drank teaNew business research for a brand to determine the format of its television showbrand position in digital environment. Strategy of e-commerce for the client. Strategy for a brand experience for a BankI was working on two different projects encompassing different regions although they are from the same client. One project was mainly desk research for competitor review. The other was on the creative briefing phase. Depending on the project, I can only interact with the account people or be involved with the creative team.I spend a lot of my time these days figuring out how to make things work; taking our strategy and turning it into execution. Although my focus is ostensibly digital, a lot of what I do is help take digital strategy and make it integrated.Start the day checking emails. Address anything in the emails that is urgent (usually there's something). Continue work on a New Business pitch strategy. Lots of meetings with client teams and production on client communication, timelines and status reports. Possibly present some level of strategy, either informally to a colleague or formally to the creative group and/or account group. Hang out with the Creatives in (any) downtime and try to walk somewhere to pick up lunch with the IT folks.I usually work with new businnes. I read my emails and answered some clientes, after that, a Iah a meeting to discuss one company´s marketing goals, after that a I had lunch with another client were we talked about his target and products, this all were by myself. After that, I had a meeting with my fellows at the agency, where we discussed the openning of a fast food store and it´s strategies. Then I aswered some other client´s email, had another internal meeting to discuss a field research and that´s it.i mostly work for new business, so my last day was about taking a brief at a prospect's, finishing a presentation for another one and rehersing the presentation. i went to a meeting with another agency of the network on a 10 day pitch we took 3 days before for which we will work days, nights and week-ends until the end of it. I've been benchmarking a lot the reste of the time.I'm the lead strategist on one of our client accounts. Yesterday I was writing a strategic document to answer a new brief. I was working alone, however that document will be discussed internally as a group by the client account team before it is finalised and presented to the client. The project I'm working affects the client at a business level and not just at a comms level. This is very typical of the work that I do and of course more rewarding than writing propositions for a creative brief.(full digital agency) insight gathering & analysis company development from creative side pitch presentations & new business (doing keynotes + holding the presentations) digital concepts understanding of digital media, technologies, digital media buying feasibility design sparring creatives + concepts ux design usability following the digital worldunderstand the vision of my client. sheppard through the platform idea through to the creativeI spent the morning working on personas for the users of a site we are redesigning, first by myself and then with an interaction designer I am partnering with on the project. Then I met with several creatives to discuss new homepage designs for a different site (same client). In the afternoon I revised a brief for a direct mail campaign and then met with yet another team, on yet another site redesign to discuss our strategy and presentation prior to the client presentation on Friday. 1/3 I was working alone to finalize a presentation. 1/3 I was fixing some wordings and bugs within it with my boss. 1/3 we were talking about the client, what he needs etc. Between that I was discussing with some tech-experts about some restrictions we have to consider. It was a majoritian digital work we had to do, but we felt the need to get some inspiration by classic advertising, too.During my day, I never do one thing for long. In addition to being my agency's one planner, I multi-task as the management lead on 12 different client accounts and all new business leads. My role quickly jumps from basic follow-ups and design trafficing to the creation of in-depth strategy presentations and proposals. Yesterday, I spoke to representatives from 8 of my different clients, completed billing reports for 3, sent 1 RFP response, reviewed 4 completed design projects, and proofed 5 analytics/media reports. I think my days can be summed up as quot;
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life at a small agencyquot;
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.8.30 Walk in the agency, grab the free breakfast and spend the first 30 min of my day checking my feeds (mostly Twitter) 9.00 Review of a deck I'm working on at the moment with my boss (Strategy Director) 9.30 Work on this same deck for the next 3 hours. 12.30 Lunch is approaching, 30 min to check my feeds and emails. 13.00 Heading to the canteen to eat something. 13.30 Back at my desk checking stuff out 14.00 Start working on another deck that I'll present internally to my colleagues in 2 weeks time. 17.00 Inspiration session at the agency 18.30 Was a good day, I'm leaving! Working with a sister company on a global pitch; working with (another) sister company on a current client request; writing job descriptions; updating agency planning tools (creative brief etc); thinking about what I have not gotten to yet this week, including a presentation detailing a new virtual experience for a shared client.Yesterday, I monitored trends, read blogs, checked twitter, checked Facebook, read news sites. I gave a job offer. I sat through mind-numbing status meetings. I discussed POV and tone of message for a website to be launched. Project 1: early in the morning: Brief meetings with account executives and DGC Project 2: meeting with my boss to think ideas and review reserchs and reports about the brand that we were working in, review the category with a benchmark and the concept universe of the brand. We chat a lot and decide the concept umbrella of the campaign. We think in digital touchpoints and organize the steps of communication with the consumers.All digitaldigital, client work, user/customer experience planning as well as brand/comms planningReviewed creative work for client X, briefed a creative team on client Y, spoke with the PR team and media companies to align on an outreach program for client X, reviewed client documents for a research project for client Z, worked with account to tackle legal problems on client X, summerized finding from client Z. Whew.Working with our account team to flesh out the specific problems and challenges on a given project and then work to brief the team on the business problems. Then I work to identify potential solutions I am constantly monitoring the space for new developments and interesting functionality that we can leverage to gain an edge in the space (POVs, Competitive benchmarking) Part of this involves constantly monitoring the competitive space and work hard to be the resident authority in my sector. I then use that knowledge to provide key information and perspective on strategic direction. Planning, executing and coordinating pertinent research and analysis activities Analyzing and presenting the results of these activities to clients and project teams Benchmarking existing solutions against competitors Requirements gathering sessions and stakeholder interviews Provide thought leadership on site measurement and usability I also work very hard at becoming the jack of all trades to provide thought leadership to the team. Receive briefing from client. Do some trend, market and behavior research. Talk about the research with project manager and designer (we don¬¥t usually have copywriters). Brainstorm some ideas. Make the powerpoint. Do presentation to client.Mostly digital work, pretty much along the lines of modeling bought, owned and earned media - primarily existing global accounts, a bit of new bizFor new projects it's research, analysis and strategy; usually in that order. Strategy usually begins in planning then quickly bridges to include creative and then tech. For existing projects it's metrics analysis, strategy then optimization. Wrote and ammended a social media proposal. Wrote up a full campaign report for a LinkedIn Direct Ads trial campaign. Liased over a number of social media matters.Yesterday i took the trip to work with our traditional agency partners of a global brand. We were concepting out a communication brand strategy before each specialist agency began to share their executional thinking for their area of expertise. After the meeting, we caught up on the global communication messaging calendar where we attempted to list out the different messages going out across all channels over the next 12 months. I was responsible for updating the team on our social vision and messaging strategy across social channel engagement PLUS our campaign roll out messaging plans.Lots of meetings. Too many meetings. Not enough time to think. Lots of telling people the right way to do things. Lots of feeling disappointed in others. Some good brainstorming with creatives. Figuring our ideas and how to share then with clients so we get by in. Very little traditional planning or research.I mostly work alone - yesterday I spent a couple hours working on a social media initiative that involves a lot of client contact (this is not a strictly planning project), which can be frustrating. The rest of the time, I was putting together a POV report from more subjective online research - not getting a lot of feedback internally, which I find a little difficult to handle. I like to check in and have people check in with me.Developing user testing research proposal for designer furniture client. Developing agency marketing plan. Managing client response to brief.Based on some existing personas, I created an interview guide that I'm going to use to interview customers about how they user our client's website.developing business development pitch strategy creating a model to scale the planning group leading a multi-faceted, digital solutions strategy including a 12-person team1) Wrote a deck for an internal department meeting to recap a recent research project and suggest ways to make future research projects successful. 2) Researched freemium business models for a client project and started to write slides on the implications of my findings for the client's project.Digital, social Writing presentations- Pulling together a proposal for a mobile strategy project for an existing client - Doing a 'lightweight' strategy project for an internal client team, so that they can use that knowledge in their own work; liasing with other employees to pull together the complete picture. I’ve been working on trying to figure out what is the role of a brand in the digital world, how the brand behave, where the brand lives (facebook, twitter), how the brand manage their relationship in the digital world. My last full day, I sat in a meeting to discuss our digital strategic plans for 4 brands that we are working on - specifically what pieces of research/audits we had, what we still needed, and who was responsible for them. The rest of the day, I worked on a methodology for social listening, as well as helping another planner on a social listening brief.Worked on a proposal for a research project Wrote a POV on why we should create a Youtube brand channel for a client attended a status call with a counterpart planner I study trends and solve complex problem into simple, well organized, emotionally touching, convincing stories for both internal and external (clients) audiencesAt the agency at 8am. Start reading Twitter list and news on the web. After that, begin to plan all day tasks and to do list. Meet with Directors of Creative, Development and Operations to discuss new project. Meeting with a prospect. Meeting with a client. Around 4PM start working on a communication planning for a new client campaign. 6PM meeting with Planning and Commercial team. Till 8PM, continue to work on presention. Home. Im sometimes disappointed for the ways we are taking. We are not doing well and still going on the same direction that took us here so yesterday i had a conversation with my boss about how we should act and think, and about planning but his too worry about selling what we cant sell anymoreDevelop communications strategy, present to creative teams, sit in on the creative development and help them as they move/progress on things. Support and help them with insights/direction when needed. Help them sell in work. And develop the strategic sell-in to lead into creative concepts.A lot of reserach or working with research team to create POV on any subject. To give thoughtful guidance to clients about our thinking, and why we're approaching an audience/project the way we do.I'm in the middle of doing research for a larger trends deck for one of my major clients. They often are interested in teens as a target audience across many brand categories, so yesterday I spent my time trolling the web looking for interesting articles and facts and what not. My sources tend to be kind of scattered, but for this I started by looking into Iconoculture and then used links from interesting articles on the site to go all over. I also follow quite a few other planners on Twitter and find myself looking at the articles they post. As I'm going through all of this, I'm making notes in my cliche moleskin for possible trend topics and starting to form the story I want to tell in my head. Yesterday was light on normal, tangible work, but I've found that spending days just reading everything you run across on the web can be super helpful. From there, I also found bits and pieces that were interesting for my client teams and sent off a couple emails to them.flew to client meeting. talked about a project that is out of skill scope, but think we can bring value. Trying to add some dollars to our bottom line. Some frustations with narrowness of client organization, but happy they are considering us. Met with team after to assign work. Checked facebook. Flew home . A little new business from an existing client. - oh also wrote a digital brief for different client on lunch break. My last day job was finishing a social media plan strategy that was develop to respond the following question: How social media can be used for that brand and for what? What this work for my brand and how the brand should act and manifest itself inside social media? Research, strategy and tactics.Yesterday I wrote a short proposal for a $30k strategy job; lead 2 brainstorming exercises; produced a POV on web best practices, another on email list rentals; checked in on a team planning/designing a web solution for a new client; presented a entrepreneurial business idea to a panel of company executives. It was a busy day, but fairly representative.I started the day with a weekly status meeting with my company, our partner creative and media agencies and client. That lasted an hour and we reviewed ongoing projects. I spent the rest of the morning working with the AD and CD on another client to get ready for a first round creative concept presentation the next day. At noon, we had a 2 hour call with the same client that I had the status for, and they quot;
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briefedquot;
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us on 4 new brand and product campaigns that are coming up. We are their digital media agency, so we also learned more about what their primary agency is doing in terms of a new brand architecture and tagline. I spent the rest of the afternoon starting initial digging on the new campaigns we were briefed on--getting the lay of the land in the new categories.I work on 100% digital work but it's really understanding how to create digital campaigns that work well within the integrated marketing mix. Also, leveraging social media listening and other tools to understand the consumer and develop engaging tactics. Here lately (the past year) I've found myself involved in a great deal of social media projects. Everything from social strategy (one project was global), approach, creative content, audience analysis, and how that fits into the overall communication strategy. My days seem to be mostly filled with consumer trend research, decks on audience behaviors and pop culture, creative briefs, and setup slides for creative work (adding a little storytelling to strengthen the creative ideas). Finnishing a project, a lopt of stress since our team is short in staff and some people can't cope with the pace of deadlines.I'm a digital planner and my last day consisted out of refining a deck for a global strategy for my client.Researched a lot of technology trends. PPT decks. Reading psychology articles. Keeping up with blogs. Yesterday I met w/ creatives to review digital work (digital agency). I have fast & slow days, since we're not always AOR, so yesterday happened to be slow. Just got thru a big push of projects.I finished the consumer insights section of a new business proposal for a DTC digital AOR prospect.Researching, digging for insights, writing decks, and managing social media. Digital New businessCatching up on current events (general news, related industries, client's industry), Conference call briefing with the client on two projects, meeting to review creative for upcoming client presentation, internal meeting with planning and analytics department to align on all projects, writing first draft of agency brief based on earlier conference call, review competitive overview presentation put together by a junior planner on our team, read some related material to current projects, etc...I started my day reading some blogs & tweets before getting a kick off meeting of a new project (1h lasted) Then before lunch I was thinking of a project and gathering some information via Internet. In the afternoon I had a brain storming with one jr planner about a little campaign we are working on, first it was about finding an interesting mechanic for a contest but at the end we changed everything due to our session. For the rest of the day I was involved in preparing a comms review for a telecom client together with media planners. I'm in a digital agency. The day started with responding to emails from the copywriter, UX lead and designer in the team with revisions to various aspects of my current project. I spent quite a bit of time looking at the work, making suggestions, challenging the creative to go farther, making a case as to where we should go based on objectives and client feedback and generally arguing different points of view. We are getting to the stage in this project where we need to go beyond early concepting into proper comps of the work so now the big picture needs to matter as much as the tiny details and making sure everyone was aligned to that task. At lunch time about 8 of us headed out to pick up sandwiches and sit in one of the nearby parks to eat and generally have good chill time. Had a team phone call to look over changes since the morning's emails and discuss other to-do's on the project discussed before. After that, had a new business meeting with the creative director, content strat director, account service, and COO. As I was still in war path mode, it was a testy conversation just to make sure we were all aligned about how we plan to organically grow new business opportunities through dinners, guest speaker sessions, mixers, and attending events / professional groups. Its all about meeting new people and presenting with the golden triangle of CD+AS+Strat. Unified front. After that there was some conversation about new big project we won and resourcing and generally getting ducks in a row as we wait for contract negotiations to be complete. In between that and a few more emails on the main project I was configuring my web server, checking the twitter feeds for sneaker updates, a little facebook, a little RSS skimming, a little IM'ing with my planning mentor back in Amsterdam (as he was watching football & tv shows before bed). Comunication analisys, market research, revising if the creatives were following the strategy, brainstorming to create a mobile app, studied the analytics of the clients to track changes e help to take actions.manage a team of planners, so less 'doing' more 'coaching' - execept new biz, then I'm often 'the' plannerI talked to our managing director about our all agency meeting, and we discussed why only 8 people showed up to a discussion with Gowalla the day before. I had lunch with a Group Creative Director to discuss a new AOR account as well as his wishes for staffing an existing client for which we are digital agency. I met with a Senior Strategist to see how her big global social media toolkit for a major client is going, and if she needs help or support. I then met with another Senior Strategist to review the creative set up for a brand campaign presentation we have tomorrow for an AOR client. I went to an all agency meeting and announced the Team of the Quarter and had a beer. I talked to a Group Strategy Director about new client where we are digital agency to see how things were going and discuss needs. I called a candidate for an interview but she didn't answer. I met with a strategist who I'm working with on an innovations/trends project to discuss our plan of action, and then I met with the Group Account Director to discuss said trends project and our need for a Senior Strategist on this account. I don't get to do many things at work because I'm constantly in meetings and talking to people, helping people. I actually do work at night. And AOR = agency of record, but I assume everyone knows that.New business Primary research Stakeholder interviews Presentations to clients Strategic planning Finding consumer insightsIt's client planning time so I helped build a strategic framework for communicating our year to them. I had a couple staff meetings, participated in 2 brainstorms, worked on a global summit presentation and attended a social media lecture.Planning in digital realm, doing client work AND new business> all of my work is post-digital > say hello to the team. > discussing with our managing directors about the happenings of the last weeks > planning the following weeks > recapture the last big workshop and looking for the homework of one of my senior planners > brainstorm a little with a creative concept > bang on the table cause something went wrong > thinking about the direction of the vision of one of my clients > 30% little political work on every day - working with other agencies, helping our partners at the clients, ... > most of the time doing client work but new business for them, building the project caused by strategic visions and plans digital strategy, brand development, campaign planning and management, copy writing, proposal writing/pitching, article writing, presentations on digital, digital advocacy, social media training. My clients are a mix of public sector, charities and commercial brands. Reserarch, strategy & then part of the creative solutions.Working on digital Insights and strategies for different companysDigitalPrepared presentation for meeting summing up strategy for a massive new digital program for a financial institution. Shared intro with clients in 3 hour meeting (30 mins was me, the rest was the intracate details of how project would actually get made - with was mind-numbingly boring for me and the clients, but a necessary step to ensure site gets built properly. Then sat in meeting with creatives and producers to try to salvage an idea that turned out to not be against the rules of Facebook - but this is the idea the client had bought, so we had to get round it. The creatives would have solved it without me, but lucky I was there as their ideas were heading off-strategy. Finally, agency management presented their vision for the agency and progress to date. Really impressive people, and good progress.I help the client figure out what it is they should do, which is not always what they want. And work with tech, creative and other specialist people (e.g. UE, analytics, SEO, media) to help deliver this in the most effective way. To enable this process I provide stimulus in the form of research and moderate 'ideation' sessions (sorry) such as workshops and brainstorms. Then I help craft the final output and convey this to the client in what is hopefully the most effective way.New business planning 1 h Presentation to Client 2 h Preparing presentation 1 h Brieffing the team for thei assignments 2 h Drawing wireframe 1 h Internal planning meeting, developing tools 1 hyesterday i really dive into consumer insights. that's probably the most recorrent stuff that we do at our agency. understanding, capitalizing and getting fully into people's live. I was primarily working on a digital/social media project for a pharma client. I was given the responsibility to conduct an indepth research on consumer behavior online and their social media consumption habits. We used the insights that we got from these conversations to guide our strategy. Well, yesterday me, the AE, Director of Accounts and Creative Director flew to our client in Cincinnati where we had a three-hour working session with her. We got questions answered, finalized concepts and generally put the campaign in motion. We also had the opportunity to meet with another branch of their business where we delivered a capabilities presentation and outlined next steps for starting a new working relationship. My role specifically was to first and foremost be familiar with all the research we've done for our current client. This came in handy while working with their partner traditional agency because we ended up having disagreements about what the research actually meant. During the capabilities presentation, it was my job to explain our Discovery process and the work we had already done in the other part of their company, familiarize myself with this new market and target audience and have thoughtful questions to engage the client in conversation. digital plans, new businessWrote creative brief Presented creative brief Wrote strategic setup for creative presentation Influencing and developing communications strategies that inform creative messaging ideas and executions within digital media. Bringing consumer context and understanding to the assignment. Inspiring creatives creatively.Composing target profiles, working with media department on context planning projects, writing creative briefs, trying to get different departments to play nice together.Worked on new biz with a group of creatives, strategists for digital/social piece of business for a couple hours. Spent some time after writing a portion presentation for it alone. Spent about 1.5 hours reading nothing in particular to keep up on trends, news, case studies. Managed current client work with account manager for a social engagement client that is in progress. I work in a digital agency, so my work is fully digital oriented. However, we are very involved in any other form os communication of all our clients and we maintain a coos relationship with the other agencies (branding/traditional, in-store/promotions, pr agencies, media, etc) As part of that close relationship (clients stimulate this interactive synergy between partner agencies) I am involved in branding projects in general and with a specific lens over digital. After that work is done, the daily work starts (which I guess is the question asked here). In my case, I create digital strategies that take under consideration the target insights in general, and the digital behaviors in particular. With that information we design digital architectures, points of contacts, and other strategies for particular campaigns. I also frame the key message strategy for all forms of communications (social media through Community Managers, website, OLM, OLV, mobile, direct/newletters, etc) By the end of the day I don't even want to check my yahoo mail!!! :)i worked with my clients to develop a richer segmentation approach to how they look at their target. in a 2-hour meeting, i convinced them to reject their old segmentation model in favor of a richer, psychographic model i developed, largely for the powerful insights we could then tap into.Yesterday my day started with a client presentation for a digital campaign. Then I worked on making changes/suggestions to a deck containing ideas for a social media campaign. At noon I attended a vendor presentation that introduced us to new technology available for ads on mobile devices. In the afternoon I read research decks.I worked on creating a channel strategy with our UX lead, helped a junior planner on creating digital profiles for our account, and started 2012 planning for the account with the account lead.Met with media partners, worked on new agency procedures, built a case study on a past project, approved client social media messaging before sending to client, managed various client social media projects.I spent the most of the morning brainstorming a way to map out the digital environment of a target audience with the heads of digital strategy and media at my company. We use this as a way to communicate to our client what the customer expects to see from their site, as well as identify opportunities in the market. The middle of my day was spent building a presentation about Facebook best practices and strategy for a client. The afternoon I participated in a meeting with our labs team where we reviewed ideas submitted by coworkers and voted on which ones would become projects in the lab. In between all of these activities I answered requests for powerpoint slides and case studies.Research into how social media impacts on television viewing, new business meeting to promote company credentials and take a brief, communicate the benefits of an existing strategy to the client that is being carried out.I solve communication problems for clients using tools which help me evaluate the situation (develop insights), plan for a solution (brand planning, comms planning etc etc), and evaluate the outcome and turn it into more insights. Daily, I work within the broader team to structure a project (how are we going to get things done), coach the broader team on what we're doing and why, and fight the good fight to retain a high quality of work amidst constant budget & resource pressures. Sometimes I actually do the work which means doing research, and documenting outcomes in a way that tells a universally understandable story in a fun way. So, my days mostly consist of meetings with people to either structure projects, review work, or present work to clients and gain feedback. As a regional planning director, I'm also involved in meetings to set global planning vision and also to review finances for my region and discuss various billings vs hiring vs performance issues.Checked into the office after lunch, helped out analyzing a few alerts our social media monitoring team had to sent out, and spent most of the day juggling ideas and references with our creative director, for a presentation we need to make next week, on a campaign to launch one of our clients' new website.I'm a digital strategist. I'm responsible for creating social media/digital strategies for clients, with recommendations. I present the strategy, sell it through and then work with creative and accounts to get the work made. I was a planner in a traditional agency, and this is much more tactical. I do miss a lot of the bigger picture work I did, but this is much more stable (money is more easily tied to strategy when it's more tactical) and I get to work with brilliant people who are in a similar life stage as I am.client work, bringing the brand perspective to digital clients, inclusive, briefing traditional agencies. Segment trends Competitors benchmark Consumer insight research Brand study Strategic proposition Tactical actions development KPIs definition Implementing and optimizing resultsDeveloped a customer journey using qualitative insights in time for a briefing session. Set up the online tagging of a Social media campaignUnderstand organisational objectives and produce insight driven user centred creative communicationsI'm a digital planner, so the core of my time is spent on: 1) creative planning e.g. campaigns, creative brief, talking to creatives, presenting creative to client. 2) experience planning e.g. customer journey, quot;
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how to make 10 activities 1 campaignquot;
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, talking to UXP or IA, presenting user journeys or activity maps to client. 3) data planning e.g. measurement & analytics, KPI & target setting, research briefs, presenting results to client. The ideal day would be to spend 1 hour reading industry news to learn and keep up to date (e.g. mashable), 3 hours on work (see above) and 3 hours meetings. The reality day is reading in your free time (e.g. wired), 7 hours meetings, and 3 hours work in the evening after everyone else has gone home :-)I have been working on a website rebuild for one of our key clients. Yesterday, I conducted some primary research (man on the street interviews and survey monkey) followed by some secondary research on the consumer (e.g., reading a mintel report). After some of the research I sat on my own for about an hour and just thought, jotting down some ideas on my pad. After ruminating I went back to the brand team for a collaborative brainstorm.I'm working on a digital brief for repositioning an energy drink in APAC with a colleague supervising from another region.my work included managing 2 projects, giving the client feedback to a designer and a developer. then i started to research for a new product release campaign and i followed up the work of our social media departmentI spent the day presenting a new eCommerce strategy that outlined how the company should be utilizing its brand and brand content to reach its target more effectively.Yesterday I started the day by having a look around on blogs and twitter. Then I worked on a research project for which I have to collect and analyse stuff about digital data, trends, and behaviours, for different european countries on all platforms. This is the initial milestone of a wider project that is to be presented to a client. Then I have worked on another client project. We are trying to sell them a social media project so we first do the audit of the brand and its competitors (direct and not direct) on social platforms, try to understand how they integrate their different social accounts to a hypothetical hub, for local and global markets. We look at both the brand publications but also at the level of engagement of the communities.Returned from a 5 day training on gathering insights and presenting quot;
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as stories.quot;
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Was on an emotional high, with the key takeaway being that I do love what I do. However, I returned to my digital agency, where I love the people but the work tends to not be inspiring or quot;
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big.quot;
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I went through my email, reached out to our summer interns to make sure they did not have any questions before starting. I got my weekly quot;
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hoursquot;
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from the different project I work on - that never add up to either how much I should spend on a project and / or 40 hours per week. Sat in a status meeting on one project where we learned that the lead / traditional agency on the project wanted to share an quot;
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ideaquot;
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for our Facebook work (aka, we would have to use this idea). Also found out in this meeting that the lead / traditional agency wanted to reach out to me to work on the marketing plan for this project, but I was supposed to tell them no, according to the account director, because we are not scoped for this exercise. I was then left out of a client review of wireframes for a site update for which I had crafted an extensive brief. I proceeded to question the point of my role if only to brief and then be kicked out of the process. I spent the rest of the day catching up on emails, finding the wireframes on the server and sending through my comments on them from a strategic point of view and meeting with co-workers to determine what the work week will look like, so as to schedule my workload appropriately. I work at a digital agency. I work on very few clients. My dominant responsibility is new business. I perform a lot of quick and dirty quant and qual research (e.g. In-depth Interviews, Focus Groups, ethnographies, surveys, secondary source mining, etc,). I'm responsible for distilling this research into insights, a comprehensive digital and sometimes brand strategy, briefing and coaching the creative teams and finally authoring and presenting the pitch deck.All planners are Lazy!Starting out with a 5 hour workshop with the client to explore new opportunities in social/digital. After that get cracking on some buzz monitoring reports and global social brand strategies.Checked e-mail, briefed the Creative and Media team for a national digital campaign, joined a meeting with a cliente about Mobile Marketing strategy, conducted an internal meeting about Social Media strategy for a client and conducted a brainstorm for a pitch.brainstorm write creative briefs consult clients consult other teams manage others review their workWrite crative briefs, organize brainstormings, write creative rationals & strategic documents.Pitch planning - and writing New hire interview Pre-planning research / document review Jr. employee briefing Digital / social networking Thinking / dreaming On a daily basis I work with a team of individuals to strategize for and meet client requests. We work 100% in the digital realm. Though I am a member of a team, I work mostly individually, completing tasks and manage clients. I participate in and lead brainstorms. Lead weekly and bi-weekly client calls at which data and recommendations represented and discussed. I also compose and plan communications across multiple social platforms. Each communication is followed up with insights and recommendations. Often, in-the-moment client requests or situations present themselves, for which I have to quickly problem solve and execute new strategies. stuffI start by doing research on new clients, work with creative solutions for them and then i created a keynote on a target audience in Social Mediathink and do.I started the day briefing a creative team on a banner assignment. This involved presenting a pretty boring brief but making it interesting in the briefing with a bunch of thought-starters. I followed that up by reviewing some wireframes for the same client but a different assignment. I got to weigh in on calls-to-action, relative importance of features, and the content strategy behind it all. After that I spent some time creating a few brand platforms for a new subbrand within one of my client organizations. This involved reviewing the research we've done and notes I've made and identifying the most interesting, appropriate, and distinctive pieces. Next, I met with a planner who is leaving and go a full download on a channel strategy project she's leaving behind that I'm picking up. Then, I spent time with an interaction designer debating a diagram showing the entire digital media landscape of one of our clients. It's complicated, but our clients don't want it to be. So we had to figure out how much we could simplify without making the chart worthless. Finally, I worked very late with a creative director and an account director preparing for the presentation where we will present those brand platforms I wrote early in the day. It's to senior people, so we worked on the content, then the flow, then the presentation format.Making sense of the things no one else on the team understands.Most of the day was spent crafting a multi-year digital strategy for a client. I worked independently for most of the project but shared the deck with my boss and the analytics team for feedback. Wrote a client brief for market research Assessed client competitor advertising and marketing strategies Developed programme for internal research and analysis Made a start on writing some white papers Looked through client documentation as pre-cursor to working on their new proposition development projectI pitched for media business, meet new clients and help my team during the pitchedComms Planning to roll out an international campaign together with (social) creatives, account and production teams. Strategic proposal for existing client on how to explore new business models for them.Review a brands current evolution per changes in consumer behaviour in Nigeria Do informal brainstorming sessions with creatives as regards unlocking a Big idea for a brand Checking out some key research report that just came indoing research and read articles, blog entries and so on on my own. write down the end of my new business presentation and go prensenting it with an account director of my agency. Get back to work and beginning to work on a new pitch, doing some researches about the brand, the market and the digital presences on this type of market. Decided on priorities for optimisation of a branded utility tool Wrote recommendation for marketing and communications opportunities for this tool I help clients and brands steer a path through a complicated set of choices. We use creativity to give them incremental advantage and a more interesting path. Planners think about what should the team do for a project, how to deliver what the team would end up delivering for the clientsworking alone with others digital client work new businessRan the prospects list with the staff, closed a small website deal, Planned wrote & published a search term portfolio for a travel company for this quarters activity, mentored a young staff member in SEO about minor meta tags, planned SEO for a wedding site, researched 2 templates for a low cost job, updated ppc campaign for a sports travel group, planed some SEO optimisation work for a client, reviewed the business funnelI help to energize a team to find and bring insights to our clients and our internal teams we work with. My day could be spent researching, pulling measurement data, analyzing data, facilitating a session and working with team members to collaboratively push all of our thinking to the next level.Developing a years direct and digital strategy to help maintain brand leadership in an FMCG marketplace. Involves workshops with clienst and agency partners (especially ATL). I will also either write or contribute to creative briefs during the day and generally be a quot;
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for the account to bounce things off/test ideas.I work in digital projects for social media. And how my agency is tiny, I do the planning and the production of content. So I start my day with a research for news and informations, for then post them. After that I make the planning of the week and e-mail it to approval with clients, if needed meeting. then I post the to-dos needed to me and my colleagues. Right now I'm working with a new account, so daily I check the layout, html and fmbl production. And I have weekly meeting with clients. On my free time I search for new functions, news, and play some social games.I created a digital strategy for a pest control brand, celebrated winning a big new business pitch (for which I had done a quick online research panel session and presented the consumer insights in the pitch), l sat in two team meetings to 1. understand and plan for upcoming online advertising projects and 2. review analytics deliverables for my telecom client. Creating an online video distribution strategy. Leading a team in creating a mobile app distribution strategy.I work mainly with new clients, receiving briefing from them and working on their digital or social media strategy. So, in an average day, I have 2 or 3 meetings, with clients or with my team at the agency, the rest of the day I read on the internet about new social media tools or case studies. I also help some account executives or community managers to solve some minor problems on implementation or execution.first of all, i have always my twitter open to have an eye on what's going on. i try to save time everyday for strategic watch. Yesterday, i did that when i arrived at the office. Then i focused on my main subject which is thinking of a relevant communciation operation on the social media for a french brand. i did a benchmark and analysed the different strategy involved to measure the best practices. I've prepared it along the week and i prepared a brainstorming document to go with it with the values of the brand, the target and the market (concurential brands...). this document was acted by my boss and i can now start the begining of the presentation. Twittering Bookmarking Reading Benchmarking Writing lots of slides on power point brainstorming with creativesLong hoursMeetings followed by meetings! Client calls, internal creative reviews, writing strategic deck or creative briefs. Working with creatives to make their work better, chatting with account folk about business objectives and client needs, being the connection point between account, creative, UX and media departments to build cohesive stories and push internal communication.Got briefed on a large global digital campaign for a client, and then started working (alone) on the creative brief for that project. Ran a creative brainstorm for another global campaign (me plus five creatives). Attended two client meetings. Had four internal meetings. we interview people from the client's organization and try to identify whats the problem we should be solving and do research (mainly deskresearch) about competitors, consumers, trends etc., Then, working with a parter (most of the time) we come up with strategy that should solve that clients needs and produce a keynote to present all that. Cull consumer insights in service of a digital creative output.- Started off the day with a department status meeting (We are planning for our Planning offsite.) - Half an hour of work time. Prep for my next meeting. - Lunch meeting on mobile opportunities for our client. I think it's great but a lot of work has already been done by a team and client hasn't bought it yet. - Work Time: I'm finessing a positioning deck to be presented next week - Did Timesheets (We have to have them in each Friday). - End of Day creative review: this takes a few hours. This a bit contentious. The team's work is 'on brief' but it doesn't culminate in a compelling idea. I spend the next two hours and part of the weekend discussing feedback and suggestions for ways to approach the work.I work with my team to define and execute digital engagements across platforms, for existing accounts and prospective clients on a daily and weekly basis..Website reporting, social media behavioral analysis, social media strategy presentations, integration with digital properties, trends seminarI worked on creating a competitive review of social media activities so I could compare my brand's efforts in social channels. I also worked on a brainstorm to try to figure out the deliverables for a social media strategy. Developing an editorial mission for an online magazine with content living across platformsWrite decks (sorry, I want to go in depth, but don't have it in me)Mentor junior account team, produce Powerpoint decks, whitepapers, and creative briefs, and read.Truthfully, I don't remember my last day. That's like asking a student what they learned at school yesterday. I would say this: Project after project after project. As a digital planner, everyday is different yet everyday is the same. I'm constantly changing projects and everything needs to be done quickly. Quantity is more important than quality, unfortunately.I led a digital campaign planning workshop for my clients. 30 people from around the world came together to learn about new trends in digital technology, mobile culture, and in campaign planning. But most days, I sit in meetings, get asked to pull together a couple of charts with some insights on them, which are then mostly just used to tick a box that the account team thinks the client wants. At 5pm I actually get to start working.a lot of teaching other disciplines what planning is and how we help make their work better and bring them great insights. the rest of the time is 1) fighting for appropriate time on projects, 2) making sure teams don't forget to include us, 3) finding insights because we know the team needs them whether they ask or not, 4) fighting the good fight.Digital client workTrained in MAS - Account Planning: I plan digital led campaigns in the small digital shop I work in. Worked on a presentation for a Mobile Strategy. Worked with creatives on a concept for a pitch. Had a brainstorm on an exciting new project. Searched the internet for interesting things. Sat in a couple very boring and useless meetings.Yesterday I ... - wrote key learnings from review meeting with client and advertising agency - facilitated a brainstorming session with a creative team to develop campaign ideas for an FMCG brand - checked a debrief document from another client on our digital campaign ideas together with account team and gave recommendation how to proceed. - wrote an internal newsletter on trends going on - did some sparring with a planning colleague on a new business presentation There is a mix of new business, building a brand deck for an existing client, working on a few small projects for that same client... and I also had to leave to find a place to live... I'd sum it up as being prepared to answer any question that comes your way, being smart, being resourceful, and having people (teams and clients) trust you.Email, check in with teams, write back to a few clients, attend a work-session with team members to set the course for next phase of a project. Review deliverables and provide feedback and encouragement. Get biz admin stuff out of the way, paperwork, financial stuff etc. Brainstorm, read some blogs, write some scopes of work, check twitter, check personal email. have a snack, do it all over again, play a game of ping pong and go home. Yesterday I was working with the creative team on a digital content strategy for a financial services company. It's a boring category so my job was to understand audience attitudes to the category (and the lack of), what the barriers are to caring, what other stuff the audience actually does give a shit about and how we use all this to develop motivating digital content pieces. I developed a proposition (although this isn't often such a focus in digital agencies) and we worked out a few interesting creative ideas for content / functionality that makes people think differently about the category and their lives. I then developed a rough channel / touchpoint framework and basic distribution strategy to present to the client. They're one of those clients that seems to care more about how you roll something out than what the emotional hooks / ideas are (bit frustrating). My day started, as it usually does, with checking e-mails and my RSS feed for anything new and interesting in the world - could be related to digital marketing or about something completely different! Most of the day is then taken up with completing a content strategy for a client's new website - this is based on research, including an audit of all their existing digital content, as well as sector best practice and the overarching digital strategy my colleague and I developed for them.The last chunk of the afternoon and part of the evening is then taken up with reviewing a site map for the same website with the user experience and project management teams to ensure it is on-brief and ties into the strategy.For a iconic worldwide brand, I wrote the brief for a tvc that the client didn't bother to have written for us.Having a full-day meeting with 15 clients in Brussels working out the communications planning for the rest of 2011 in Europe. Lots of listening, talking, advising, questioning, directing. Almost the entire day was meetings. The day included preparing for pitches and proposals -- both for new business development and for the growth of current accounts. The types of work were: social media strategy, mobile, and customer research. A combination of preparing my own work and sharing/discussing with the team.mostly digital, working very closely with the client to understand their business and deliver solutions that go beyond communications and beyond digital to support their business needs.I'm a social media strategist at a digital agency. My role is akin to a modern day connections planner where I help to write briefs in conjunction with traditional planners. I think work with creatives to concept the campaign making sure to infuse social media into creatives thinking. How consumers use social media, stats about channel usage, psycho and technographic information and then build the deck to include target audience, social media landscape and how a campaign not only lives but what the platform it will live will be like. After working with creatives I then work with technologist to help ensure the platforms we build are technically possible, in accordance with current policies (e.g. Facebook or Twitter). Once this all hashed out I'll build an engagement strategy that includes a conversation calendar, the voice of the brand in social media and areas the brand has permission to discuss on an ongoing basis. I'm at times a planner, content strategist, creative, and a technologist.Write briefs, brief creatives, read blogs, write presentations, think about stratgies, evaluate creative workpitch meeting at a major car company in the morning, steering committee meeting for major food client in the afternoon, phone calls in between on the topic of brand creation in the mail-order fashion business, occasional updates on the status of internal knowledge-sharing tool, update on 2nd pitch quot;
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meetingLast full day working: Talked to a couple of media reps (I'm temporarily running media planning at my office as well). Briefed a Flash designer on some simple creative for a launching campaign. Prepared some digital trends info / talking points for a client meeting. Took a look at some concepts the creative director prepared for the client meeting. Sat through a 3.5 hour client meeting / brainstorm session. Had drinks with the client.Online Campaign analysis. Phone calls and emails to clients. Meeting with CEO. Lunch. Helping creative team. Write proposal. More emails. worked with a junior strategist conducting consumer research to provide insight to a client developing a new entertainment/mobile technology. These insights will assist in planning strategy, campaigns and tactics along with the brand work that follows in the next phase. Presented final insight findings to a financial services client as we prepare their digital strategy along with the account/pm team based out of another office. Coached a junior resource in brand strategy work and another in approaches to social listening/client communication. tried my best to stay out of troublecreative brief + case study for a most famous award in France (EFFIE)I'm short on time but I work about 50 / 50 alone and with others. I write planning summaries (approaches to campaigns), I read through a proposal for an account i'm being brought in to help on, I had a new business meeting with an app development agency about potentially helping them strategically within their very techy pitch..I liaised with someone in marketing about how to recommend search to a global client at a basic level.I presented at the social media kick-off session with one of our clients. I outlined the process of discovery through social media listening. When the meeting was adjourned, I jumped to conducting social media listening. Using radian6 I put in relevant keywords and pulled data and proceeded to score posts to get an idea of topics and sentiment. Got in early around 7:30 to make some progress on a mobile trends deck for one of our international clients, went to a SCRUM for a new product/service we're developing with another one of our clients to talk about how we want to run demand testing for the new product online. The SCRUM included CT, Planning, PM, Media, Creative, etc. I spent the middle of my day working on questions for the demand testing, continuing to refine the almost-done mobile trends deck while eating lunch at my desk. At 2:30 I went to a meeting to kick off the demand testing round with copywriting, then spent the last two hours of my day in meetings with our technology director and a senior account person going over my mobile trends deck for final changes before we send it off to the client later in the week. I left around 5 for a bike ride, but am in early again today to keep up on everything. In chronological order: - Published a long-form article on mobile strategy that I'd written in the past month to our ~4k subscriber list. This happens monthly. Worked on a bit of promotion around that content. - Weekly meeting with President and Board to review various issues (sales, marketing, strategic direction, personnel management, etc.) - Met briefly with a few account managers to review their blog posts (I manage our editorial calendar and content strategy). - Meeting with an agency partner to discuss a current project and the strategic direction we're recommending to the client. This meeting included two Account Managers from my firm--my role is consultative. - Kickoff meeting with our team (President, Account Managers, Creative Director, Developer) and new client for a large project. My role, again, is consultative during the strategic stage. - Led a meeting with client services team that included some information architecture planning exercises. This is part of our ongoing enrichment/education program that I oversee. - Met with our development team. This is a weekly meeting to review the ongoing status of projects, review any technical issues related to individual projects or overal CMS/component releases, etc.strategy planning, organisational change, product development, client liasonI feel very proud of my job in the end of the day even though I have to live together with failure and success every single day!Training a new planner one-on-one, meeting with a client to discuss strategy, working alone on numerous sales proposals/leads and client budget tracking & planning, checking in with my supervisor, planning a meeting agenda for the next dayI get in earlier than most (8) so I like to get in, check my e-mail and chat with who ever is here. Then I had a huge unfinished project (competitive set/audit on a new client) to complete from the previous day. So I started digging into that, solo. I did have 3 media planners working on this with me so I checked in with them a few times. Mid-day, a media planner and I planned our weekly planning/media meeting, where we share cool stuff we've done. Then I worked on getting my research and deck done til 5:30.i am currently defining the process and day-to-dayI spent a couple of hours studying for the IPA excellence diploma course that I have just started followed by pretty much non-stop meetings on all kinds of different projects from national to international, a lot of them with an digital aspect. Also picked up a couple of pieces of internal work. Finished off with a presentation to the agency. I attended a client meeting with a new digital client. Also started constructing personas for another digital client, still working on those today.Lots of meetings and running around, not as much heads down work. I often stay late to get things done or work from home. The line between personal and professional life is kind of blurred (and I like it that way). The types of projects I work on are digital, with some extension into offline. Almost all