Message For Future Generations

Mark Earls and Domenico Vitale have created Message For Future Generations a depository of planners' wisdom about Account Planning.

2008 AAAA Account Planning Conference Prep Rally and Post Show

AAAA Account Planning Conference

Paul Isakson and Kelly Thompson have created a Facebook group so we can all see who will be attending and better connect/make plans beforehand. We can also use this as a place to discuss expectations, recap thoughts/takeaways afterward, etc.

Additionally, they've proposed a cocktail gathering on Tuesday night at Shore Club's Skybar for people to meet, connect and unwind on the last night of the conference. The details and RSVP can be found here.

Pass along the links/info to others who might be interested.

**STANDBY FOR UPDATES SOON re: PLANNING FOR GOOD (PfG) 24 Hour Challenge @ AAAA Planning Conference.

AAAA's: The Many Shades of Planning

Just returned from a jam-packed 3 day session at the 4A's in San Diego. Got to hear a lot of great presentations. While my head is still swimming as I try to digest the mass amount of info, one of the things I went to the conference curious to hear conversations about was the many "divisions" of planning- account vs connection vs channel vs etc, and what people thought ideal relationships might be...

I leave the conference with more or less the same conclusion I had going in- there doesn't seem to be much consensus when it comes to how these various roles of planning work together. Some believe connection is wholly separate, and should be formally, from account, while others see them as two peas of the same pod...

But one theme popped up that probably makes the clearest case for me as to how they could work best as two separate roles. I heard from a few people the idea that a connection and account planner could ideally work together in a model similar to that of writer and art director teams: both responsible for different yet related parts of the process, bouncing ideas off one another until the best possible solution is reached. Not saying this may be the best in all cases, but a clearly defined partnership the way creatives work could be an interesting approach.


But in general, conversations I heard were few about connection vs account vs etc, and there tended to be little commonalities between them. Though, if any readers out there who attended were privy to some good convo on this, sound off...

On that note, keep up on the Connection Planning Conference in October to hear the plannerly conversations continue.

Everything Counts

I took this photo to document a brand that doesn't get it. I was annoyed that the label kept falling off of this bottle of water, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized that Aquafina still treats its packaging as a disposable throw-away. Aside from the crappy glue that turned their brand into an irritant, the bottle could be for Diet Coke, A&W root beer or practically anything else. Compare to Perrier.

Then Eric Ryan, founder of method, hopped on stage and showed us how he turned the household cleaning product category on its side. He talked a lot about the effort they put into packaging and it really struck me. Part of method's birth came from the insight that people are crammed on space and are trying to get a little cleaning done in between everything else in their lives. So they're not going to be patient with digging through the closet for some detergent. He realized that, if you design it right, people will leave their cleaning supplies out by the sink, on the counter, or in the bathroom. For method, the package is part of the product, not just the container around it.

Beyond Eric and method, the idea that "everything counts" rose to the top as a key theme of this year's conference. What's inside, how it's presented outside, and where it fits into our individual and collective lives. We heard it in the stringent efficiency of XS Energy Drink, and in Bruce Mau's compelling narration of the purpose behind Massive Change. This is inspiring as a subtext to the conference's theme of Creating Possibilities; we as planners are peering toward a future of opportunities that is only limited by our own ingenuity and inventiveness.