Solutions Planning
The more brains, the better
Marketing and communications are undergoing an ongoing, perpetual revolution. That’s not news. However, most approaches to solving marketers’ issues remain fixed in a traditional mode: Account Planning. While we agree with the merits of account planning, and are really great at it (our Strategic Planning group has won more Advertising Research Foundation Ogilvy Awards than any other agency), we go further.
We call it solutions planning.
In its simplest form, it’s getting our best brains together up front to come up with the best possible solutions to a marketer’s challenges. With no preconceived hierarchy of “best” answers.
For the Navy, those solutions resulted in a site where moms of kids considering joining the Navy can freely talk about real concerns with the moms of Sailors who are currently serving. For Kaiser Permanente, it was advertising that turned the category upsidedown. The solution set can and does involve every potential medium – all driven by a deep understanding of consumers, business, metrics, media, engagement through experiential marketing, and the complete digital spectrum.
