I was reading AdWeek this morning and saw this article about MediaVest’s (part of the Publicis Groupe) decision to rebrand media planning into “Truth and Design.”

As Lisa Donahue, CEO of the new organization Truth and Design, said, “"Planning is bad," she said. "By its nature, planning has the heritage of a plodding, rigid and linear connotation. What we're implementing is a fundamental shift in mind-set where planning becomes design, which does not have a linear connotation and is more creative with less of a building-block approach."

Another negative concept is "collaboration," at least when that consists of the client gathering hired guns from its various disparate marketing and communications firms in a room to generate big ideas and formulate action plans.”

So I have a couple of thoughts on this whole thing…

1. Planning is not a dirty word and I disagree that it is rigid and linear.  Planning, if done correctly, orients the actions of marketing to achieve the goal(s) originally set out to accomplish.  When you sit in the client chair you’re held responsible for P&L, achieving shareholder value, customer expectations, etc.  If you can’t stand the heat in the kitchen, then get out – fancy terms don’t change the fact that the kitchen is hot.
2. Collaboration is not the about gathering “hired guns” and generating big ideas.   It’s about ensuring buy in from those involved… getting alignment and support, so when the heavy artillery comes in, people hold the line and don’t run.  It’s about creating a team, and leading that team to achieve a goal.  Meeting in a smaller room with fewer people is the same as meeting in the big conference room with more people.

Frankly, clients are sick and tired of hearing all of this mumbo-jumbo.  Call it what you will, but clients are still going to plan and collaborate.  Frustration sets in when someone throws in a red herring to try and get us all to look somewhere else and then charge us a ton of money for the same work as has been done in the past. 

Let’s focus on what’s important – selling stuff and exceeding our customer’s expectations! 

Scott