Truth, Lies, and Advertising: The Art of Account Planning [Hardcover]

". . . I was glued to Jon's book. Best practice, common sense, and extraordinary intelligence throughout." -David Wheldon, President, BBDO Europe. -- David Wheldon, President, BBDO Europe.

"A very smart, very funny look at what works, what doesn't, and why, in the sometimes maddening, sometimes inspiring business of advertising. One of the brightest books about the subject in a long, long time." - Geoffrey Frost, Director of Global Advertising, Nike Inc. -- Geoffrey Frost, Director of Global Advertising, Nike Inc.

"Jon Steel is one of the top five account planners in the world. The depth and breadth of this book reflects his vast personal experience and exceptional talent. It's not just a great book about account planning, it's a great book about advertising." -Jane Newman, Partner, Director of Strategic Planning, Merkley, Newman, Harty. -- Jane Newman, Partner, Director of Strategic Planning, Merkley, Newman, Harty.

"Jon Steel's book is the perfect insight into a discipline that for some time has been misunderstood, misused, and maligned by most agencies and clients in the U.S. So, run it up the flag pole, put it to groups, check it against the norms, the answer is the same-Truth, Lies, and Advertising should be read by anyone who has to make or approve advertising." -Rick Boyko, President, Chief Creative Officer, Ogilvy & Mather, New York. -- Rick Boyko, President, Chief Creative Officer, Ogilvy & Mather, New York.

"The beauty of this book is that it discusses the theories and practice of one of the brightest minds in advertising today, yet never loses its irreverent tone. It's a great book for the advertising industry and a must read for planners." -Rob White, Director of Planning, Fallon McElligott -- Rob White, Director of Planning, Fallon McElligott

"Account planning exists for the sole purpose of creating advertising that truly connects with consumers. While many in the industry are still dissecting consumer behavior, extrapolating demographic trends, developing complex behavioral models, and measuring Pavlovian salivary responses, Steel advocates an approach to consumer research that is based on simplicity, common sense, and creativity--an approach that gains access to consumers' hearts and minds, develops ongoing relationships with them, and, most important, embraces them as partners in the process of developing and advertising.

A witty, erudite raconteur and teacher, Steel describes how successful account planners work in partnership with clients, consumer, and agency creatives. He criticizes research practices that, far from creating relationships, drive a wedge between agencies and the people they aim to persuade; he suggests new ways of approaching research to cut through the BS and get people to show their true selves; and he shows how the right research, when translated into a motivating and inspiring brief, can be the catalyst for great creative ideas. He draws upon his own experiences and those of colleagues in the United States and abroad to illustrate those points, and includes examples of some of the most successful campaigns in recent years, including Polaroid, Norwegian Cruise Line, Porsche, Isuzu, "got milk?" and others.

The message of this book is that well-thought-out account planning results in better, more effective marketing and advertising for both agencies and clients. And also makes an evening in front of the television easier to bear for the population at large."

Jay Chiat, founder of the prestigious Chiat/Day advertising agency (which created campaigns for the Energizer Bunny and Fruitopia) called it "The best new-business tool ever invented." A newly defined discipline that combines aspects of four traditionally separate areas of advertising and marketing, account planning is one of the hottest topics in advertising today. This book by account planning pioneer Jon Steel provides advertising professionals and marketers with their first practical look at a tool that is reshaping the ad industry.

"Jon Steel is one of the great practitioners in advertising today. This book captures the essence of how to understand and connect with other human beings -- not just to sell them something, but to create strong, long-lasting brand connections. It should be required reading for all planners, creative people, and account people."-- Lee Clow, Chairman of TBWA Chiat/Day, Chief Creative Officer, Worldwide

"A very smart, very funny look at what works, what doesn't, and why, in the sometimes maddening, sometimes inspiring business of advertising. One of the brightest books about the subject in a long, long time."-- Geoffrey Frost, Director of Global Advertising, Nike Inc.

"Jon Steel is one of the top five account planners in the world. The depth and breadth of this book reflects his vast personal experience and exceptional talent. It's not just a great book about account planning, it's a great book about advertising."-- Jane Newman, Partner, Director of Strategic Planning, Markley, Newman, Harty

"The beauty of this book is that it discusses the theories and practice of one of the brightest minds in advertising today, yet never loses its irreverent tone. It's a great book for the advertising industry and a must read for planners."-- Rob White, Director of Planning, Fallong McElligott

"... I was glued to Jon's book. Best practice, common sense, and extraordinary intelligence throughout."-- David Wheldon, President, BBDO Europe

"Jon Steel's book is the perfect insight into a discipline that for some time has been misunderstood, misused, and maligned by most agencies and clients in the U.S. So, run it up the flag pole, put it to groups, check it agains the norms, the answer is the same -- Truth, Lies, and Advertising should be read by anyone who has to make or approve advertising."-- Rick Boyko, President, Chief Creative Officer, Ogilvy & Mather, New York

Jon Steel is Director of Account Planning and Vice Chairman at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, an advertising agency whose clients include American Isuzu Motors, Anheuser-Busch, the California Milk Processors ("got milk?"), Hewlett-Packard, Nike, Polaroid, and Porsche. Jon began his career in advertising as a 21-year-old account planner with the English agency Boase Massimi Pollitt. By the age of 26, he was appointed to BMP's board of directors. In 1989 he left the United Kingdom to become the first Director of Account Planning at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners in San Francisco. He has been profiled by Adweek as "West Coast Executive of the Year," by Advertising Age as an "Agency Innovator," and by San Francisco Focus as one of the 100 smartest people in the Bay Area. In 1995, Jon Steel was inducted into the American Advertising Federation's Hall of Achievement for executives under 40.

Chapter 1: No Room for the Mouse The Failure to Involve Consumers in Advertising Communication The consumer isn't a moron. She's your wife. David Ogilvy Confessions of an Advertising Man

POINTS OF VIEW

This may seem like a strange way to start a book about advertising, but I have a degree in geography. One of the few useful things I learned as a student of geography was a navigational technique called triangulation. The basic idea is that if you are lost (in my case a most frequent occurrence), it is possible to fix your position quite precisely on a map with the help of a compass, a pencil, and three landmarks that are visible to you in the surrounding countryside and that are also marked on your map. The compass is used to orient the map so that the landmarks on the map line up with the real landmarks, and pencil lines are drawn on the map as if to join the real landmarks and their representations on the map. The three lines should intersect, ideally at a single point, but most often they will form a small triangle. If it's a single point, that's exactly where you are on the map. If it's a triangle, you're somewhere inside it, and your problems are over, unless, of course,!
the triangle you have drawn appears on a part of the map marked "military firing range." I should point out that this is a technique that works very well in an area where there are church steeples and easily identifiable hilltops as convenient landmarks, so it is tailor-made for English geography students. But it doesn't work too well in a desert, and the reason it does not is the point of this story. Triangulation needs three landmarks to work, and most deserts just don't have the landmarks. Maybe there's a far-off mountain, but if that's all you can see, it's useless. It allows you to know which direction to walk, but you have no idea how far. It could be 10 miles, or it could be 100. Two landmarks are better than one, but there is still a huge margin for error. Three are needed to work properly. I mention that because in most fields of human endeavor, the chances of finding a solution or uncovering the truth are increased as more perspectives are taken into account. A commercial that was produced in Britain in the mid-1980s illustrates this point quite graphically (see Figure 1.1). Produced by Boase Massimi Pollitt, a London advertising agency, for The Guardian newspaper, this commercial was shot in grainy black and white, more like a documentary than a commercial. With the exception of a simple voice-over, it is silent. It opens on a slow-motion scene of a rough-looking skinhead sprinting down the sidewalk of a dull terrace in an old industrial town. A car slows menacingly at the end of the street, perhaps in pursuit. A woman, standing on her doorstep, flinches as the skinhead runs past her, and a calm, matter-of-fact voice-over says, "An event, seen from one point of view, gives one impression." We now see the same scene from a different angle. The skinhead darts past the woman, and this time we see that he's headed toward an old man, who is wearing a long overcoat and hat and carrying a briefcase. The old man raises his briefcase to defend himself as the thug makes a grab for him. The voice-over speaks again. "Seen from another point of view, it gives quite a different impression." The commercial fades to a third scene, another replay of the same action, but this time shot from high up on a building across the street. We see that right above the old man, who is completely oblivious to the fact, a large tray of bricks is being hoisted up the side of a building. It is swaying dangerously, and the skinhead has spotted it. He races down the street. The voice-over continues, "but it's only when you get the whole picture that you truly understand what's going on." The skinhead grabs the old man and pushes him back against the wall to protect him as the bricks crash to the side-walk. The commercial fades to black, and the name of the newspaper appears, still in silence. "The Guardian. The whole picture." John Webster, the creative director of Boase Massimi Pollitt and writer of that commercial, told me that he once received a request from a teenage boy, who had been arrested for some petty crime, for a copy of the commercial to be shown in court in his defense. Sadly, John never heard if it helped secure an acquittal, but if so, it would have made for a very unusual advertising effectiveness paper. That story is an interesting example of the broader applications of the idea that without perspective, nothing is certain. It's true in journalism, and if you read any good detective novel, watch a courtroom drama on the big screen, or take any interest in military history, you will see a similar process of triangulation being used by Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters, by detectives to solve their cases, by attorneys to get convictions, and by generals to win battles. It is the premise of this chapter, and indeed of the rest of the book, that the same methods of analysis are fundamental to success in advertising. In simple terms, there are three important perspectives that advertising should embrace: the client's business perspective, the agency's creative perspective, and last but not least the opinions and prejudices of the people at whom the advertising will be aimed. The very best advertising represents a successful collaboration between all three of these parties and points of view, but, when any one of those perspectives is allowed to dominate at the expense of the others, the quality and effectiveness of the campaign will surely suffer.