Presentation made to the Account Planning Group in Belgium about 98% Pure Potato - a book about the origins of account planning in advertising. This deck includes slides originally presented to the planning departments of J Walter Thompson and Adam and Eve DDB the agencies from which planning first came though it has been simplified because I only had an hour. The overall message is that if account planning could emerge in London in part as a rebellion against 'scientific' advertising from America, couldn't Belgian planners consider their own revolution?! Such a revolution is long overdue

1. 98% Pure Belgium
John Griffiths
May 3rd 2017
98% Pure Potato
- the birth of Account Planning

2. We need to talk..
 About the ideas that led to the invention of
account planning
 About the people who made it happen
 About whether planning is a success of a
failure
 And about the book which tells how it
happened..
 But first.. What about the name – what is
with potatoes?

3. Smash Martians
 A long running campaign created
by Boase Massimi Pollitt
 For a Cadbury instant potato product
 Winner of the poll: Ads most loved
by the UK public
 One of the first campaigns planners worked on
 The ads which started qual pretesting
 John Bartle was the client research manager at
Cadburys before he went to TBWA then foundered BBH.
He wrote the foreword to the book
 98% Pure Potato was a joke in some of the ads

4. Why call the book 98% Pure Potato?
 It’s a scientific joke! Catches the idea of
making something right ‘–ish’
 British humour – planning started in London
(a very British invention)
 The book was crowd funded –
so the publisher didn’t make us
use a snappy title like
The invention of account
planning to make it easier to
locate among the other
boring business titles!)

5. Smashing Mad Men (and women!)

6. We need to talk about Mad Men
 The TV series which defined 60s advertising
but which was really all about the 1950s
 American corporatism
 The art of the hustle
 Post-rationalisation
 Sophistication – those martinis and bourbons
 Sexism – women as objects and 2nd string
(oh and dumb housewives)
 Madmen is the way popular culture
remembers a golden age of advertising

8. Enter the Britpack
 Its about energy
 Intellect – with evidence
 Irreverence and humour
 It doesn’t depend on American corporatism –
actually it wants to challenge US dominance
 It takes women seriously as colleagues and
as consumers of products and advertising
 It uses qualitative research to answer the
why questions which surveys can’t

9. 2018 – the anniversary year

10. So we wrote this book
 Published in July 2016
 Crowdfunded by Unbound,
distributed by Penguin Random
 Co written with Tracey Follows
former chair of APG,
former CSO of J Walter Thompson
..which tells the story of how
account planning began by letting
those who did it tell the story

11. What is it?
21 interviews with the earliest planners we could find at
J Walter Thompson and Boase Massimi Pollitt – with a
sideways glance at CDP
9 interviews with expert observers: creatives, agency
managers, researchers, suits, clients – even Stanley
Pollitt’s daughters
Time period: 1963-1980

12. 1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
Timeline Planning Pioneers
Where from Pritchard Wood Boase Massimi Pollitt J Walter Thompson Where to
Stanley Pollitt Account management Stephen King Marketing Dept
Tony Mortemore Media researcherGlaxo analyst
Roderick White Marketing Dept
Peter Jones Media researcher
David Cowan Researcher
1st planning experiment 1966
King designs T Plan 1964
Tony Stead Media Planner
John Bruce Media Planner
David Baker Media Planner
Doug Richardson Media Planner
Planning Dept opens Nov 1968
BMP opens Oct 1968
Planning dept built in
Peter Jones
John Madell
Jane Newman
Jim Williams
David Cowan
Head of Planning
David Cowan
Tony Mortemore
Tony Mortemore GFoods
Christine Gray
John Siddall
Lee Godden
Jack Krelle copywriter
Ev Jenkins
Doug Richardson 1st Planning Director
after King
Paul Feldwick acc exec
Jan Zajac
John Siddall
James Best
Leslie Butterfield
Stanley Pollitt dies
Terry Prue
David Baker Account director
later JWT global planning head
Jack Krelle CDP Aspect SRU
John Siddall CDP
Tony Mortemore CDP
Masius media
BMRB researcher
Dorlands acc exec trainee
NY Researcher
Unilever mktg trainee
Southern TV analyst
Jan Zajac Kirkwoods
TBWA JWT CDP
Jim Williams SJIP Y&R
John Siddall Reflexions
John Bruce Lepper Stirling
Leslie Butterfield AMV BDDH
Roderick White
Lansdowne ADMAP
Jane Newman Chicago Chiat Day
John Madell MWP
Doug Richardson O&M NY Bell Pott
Ev Jenkins McCann Lowe
Terry Prue HPI
David Clifford CDP
Cathy Simmonds CDP
Key
Tony Mortemore
David Cowan
John Siddall
Jan Zajac
Christine Gray
Lee Godden
Ev Jenkins
Terry Prue
NOP research trainee
All the rest can be assumed to be
hired directly as graduates

13. Our interviewees include advertising
thought leaders who have founded some
of the UK’s most successful ad agencies
 Boase Massimi Pollitt
 Gold Greenlees Trott
 Lowe Howard Spink
 Butterfield Day Devito Hockney
 Bartle Bogle Hegarty
 Howell Henry Chaldecott Lury

14. Why we wrote the book
From tablets of stone
To oral history
Avoiding hagiograpy
Not a text book. Or a history book either
But a way to learn about the founding principles

15. No other account planning book does this
2007 20081998 200019971987 2015
2016
This is a one off!

16. The authors..
Tracey Follows John Griffiths

17. BACKGROUND TO THE START
OF ACCOUNT PLANNING

18. Rebellion against ‘scientific advertising’
What is the role of the advertising?
How will people respond to it?
(American!)

19. Advertising in the
cultural mainstream
The ads were better than the programmes..

20. Planning seen as an intellectual
activity.. for {Oxbridge} graduates
Actually they weren’t as much of an elite
as you were led to believe

21. Two distinctive founders in 2 very
different agencies
Stephen King Stanley Pollitt
Whose proteges were better at it than they were..

22. Godfathers of planning!
The creative who co-creates
ads with customers
The twin who partners to
sell in target response thinking
and the power of the brand
John Webster Jeremy Bullmore
Creative directors at BMP and JWT

23. The function aligns with the business
model of each agency
JWT: no 1 UK agency BMP: the startup

24. The difference between JWT and BMP
 No 1 UK agency vs Start up
 Long term client relationships vs pitches
 Brand building vs Breakthrough advertising
 Marketing support vs Advertising specialist
‘Ad tweakers versus grand strategists?’
One of the goals of the book was to break through the mythology
of the standoff between the 2 agencies vis a vis account planning

25. Stanley Pollitt

26. Pritchard Wood
Peter Jones David Cowan Tony Moretemore
Creenagh Lodge

27. Goodge Street

28. 12 Bishops Bridge Road

29. Early days at Boase Massimi Pollitt
John Webster
Martin Boase Dave Trott Geoff Howard Spink

30. First graduate trainees into planning
Jane Newman Jim Williams John Madell
Chiat Day
US Planning
Thorntree project
Y&R
Brand Archetypes
Brand Asset Valuator
Madell Wilmot Pringle
Drummon Madell Research

31. BMP the authors
Peter Jones Adam Lury
Paul Feldwick John Grant
Mark Earls Leslie Butterfield
Adam Morgan Jon Steel

32. J Walter Thompson Berkeley Square

33. Stephen King
– theoretician
 Would have been a major influence even if he hadn’t started
planning (he didn’t do that alone either)
Major King ideas:
 The T plan – brand template rational/emotional/sensory
response (1964)
Evolves into the planning cycle – built around customer
response
 The ladder of indirect advertising effects
 An advertisement is a whole and can’t be filleted without
damage (so is a brand) that’s why qual research is so useful
 Emotional responses are more powerful than rational responses
 Advertising is most effective when creating long term brand
effects

34. Stephen King – father of planning
 Brings together marketing dept staff to put them on the front
line of advertising (not popular with them!)
 With media planners who look at the customer in the round
(this is effectively a promotion for them) Planners plan media
schedules for first few year
 Strong focus on research but planners do not conduct their own
groups (unlike BMP renegades)
 Department opens within weeks
of BMP opening Nov 1968
 Account planning name chosen
at JWT borrowed by BMP
 2 different agencies with
different business goals –
planning tailored to each

35. The memo

36. The big ideas that started planning
 Customer response – its not what the client wants to
say – its what consumers do with it
 Defining the role of advertising – it does different
things and works in particular ways
 Ads and brands are wholes which can’t be
deconstructed without distortion
 Advertising’s ability to build brand equity is more
valuable than short term sales
 Qualitative research delivers the why and a focus
that complements quant data
 More a philosophy than a function – planners are
individual – no template

37. The big ideas at J Walter Thompson
 Planners as strategists who deliver proven brand
value to clients
 The use of heuristics and processes to enable
capable planners at every level of ability and
experience to make the work better
 A focus on understanding how advertising works and
how to get the most from indirect effects
 Move towards integrated communications delivering
brand value through every channel

38. The legacy of J Walter Thompson

39. The legacy of JWT
 Focus on customer response – not messaging
 Long term advertising effects and brand building
 Intuitive grasp of how advertising reflected brand
personality
 Proven through IPA effectiveness awards
 The planning model which was most borrowed
when other agencies took it up

40. The big ideas at Boase Massimi Pollitt
 Planners as connectors of co-creation between
creatives and customers. The Webster bounce-back
from failure.
 The balance of relevant versus distinctive – creativity
never out of control or advertising over-researched
 The agency’s understanding of customers more
useful than giving away marketing services – and
kept clients loyal

41. The legacy of BMP

42. The legacy of BMP
 Era defining TV ads – largely because of Webster
 Humanity of the advertising – not just Brit humour
 Planning approach which was hands on with
advertising ideas – so not intellectual
 History of IPA effectiveness awards – it was never
about making ads in focus groups. BMP was
thorough
 Effective internal culture – Paddington democracy
 Intellectual entrepreneurs – look at all those books!

43. The twin hypotheses
 Planning is a global success – they even call planners strategists
now!
 Planning is a craven failure. It should be closed tomorrow to
save money – it makes no visible difference to quality

44. Account planning/strategy is an
established function – a global success
 Found all over the world
 In every kind of agency
 In many different roles
 BBC has planners – to manage audiences
 So does Ford and Diageo – marketing
companies. And Twitter

45. BUT
 Advertising a low margin business
 Planners have been corrupted by
 Post rationalisation and selling ads
 Where is the focus on the customer?
 Behaviourism has replaced cognitive models
 Bogus quant measures – pretesting, ad exposure,
big data
 Big agency networks and monopolistic media
companies (where are the startups?)
 Lots of terrible ads – with planning input!

46. What the book covers
The story of how it started
 What they actually did day to day
 Who they admired the most and why
 What they’re most proud of
 What they regret
How it relates to today’s realities for planners
 Skillsets
 Working with the account group
 Working with clients
 Building departments and culture

47. What planners are made of
Analytical +
Creative
(this is mandatory)

48. The higher powers
 The terrier mentality
 The listening planner
 The spare pair of hands
 The persuaders
 Those who improve the quality of the
conversation
(Skills only Jedi planners possess)

49. Looking forward – Tracey’s take
 How to develop planning talent
 Strategy – move up the food chain or
towards execution?
 Creative briefing: experimentation vs
effectiveness
 Consumers – humanity vs technology
 Planning consultancy or culture

50. SOME THINGS TO REMEMBER..

51. Planning a
British invention!
 Modern business, marketing, advertising,
market research started in the USA
 But account planning is a British invention –
the last significant innovation in how agencies
are staffed in the last 50 years

52. Consumer responsiveness is the original
and best planning idea – USE IT!
Customer feedback about products and advertising

53. The next book is about strategists in beehives
and a social model of planning:
“Its not how much nectar you find.
But how much you persuade others to carry”
Dancer (forager)
Dance Followers
(unemployed foragers)
WAGGLEDANCERS

54. The book that explains what
account planning is for (without
being a text book or a history book)

55. Get yourself a copy
And buy one for a friend!
Tracey Follows
John Griffiths
Published July 2016
publisher
distributor
www.unbound.co.uk
‘This book needs to read by everybody who cares about planning’ Reviewer
In hardback or ebook format

56. And who is this speaker anyway?
 Worked in advertising for over 30 years
 Got into planning and hasn’t managed to leave it yet
 One of the first planners to work through the line in the 1990s
on direct marketing, sales promotion, sponsorship and
integration. Yes digital too
 Has run my own consultancy Planning Above and Beyond since
going freelance
 I train and mentor ad people including SCA Brixton
 And has a thing about potatoes..