we all geeked out to this campaign. and all of the other tbwa/chiat/day work as well, specifically snickers, starburst and combos. so when jon lee, deputy head of planning of chiat, came to speak, we were pretty thrilled for his presentation and case study walk-through.
jon talked about 'understanding the issue.' this was a really well-coordinated match between ad school curriculum and speaker, mainly because we got to actually go through tbwa's famous Disruption process for an assignment. Disruption systematically allows you to see every angle of a business problem and figure out where the spots of opportunities are- so it was perfect.
before going through Disruption, which i'll go through quickly in a second, we got some advice to becoming great (junior) planners:
1- i am not an expert
2- i will question everything i see, read and hear
3- i will not get caught in my own underwear
4- plagiarism is my friend
5- achems razor is not a cool term used by medical dramas
these are self-explanatory. and they were needed. if there's one thing ad school helps with, it's confidence, but the real world is awfully different. being told to consistently humble ourselves and to always question everything - as so much of what we 'see, read and hear' is never bulletproof - are reminders that i use to this minute.
back to Disruption. we looked at 5 areas to asses how to understand the issue:
category (what is the environment that the brand works in?)
marketplace (what does the consumer/brand interaction look like? what are the forces at play)
communications (what is being said by whom how and where? what does it look like?)
brand (what's the brand's history, what does it stand for, what is the issue?)
consumer (who are they? what relationships/behaviors drive the category?)
after you go through an analysis of each of these "planets," essentially you find the convention(s) in each and figure out how to disrupt that convention and then position the brand in a new way that is fresh to the category, marketplace, communcations, brand or consumer.
that was probably the worst explanation of Disruption ever, so to really do it and yourself some good, read 'Disruption' by jean-marie dru and 'Beyond Disruption' after that. they're both great and take you through some awesome cases.
