IPA - MODERN BRIEFING / EVENT DEBRIEF
3 July 2012
IPA brings together some of the industry's brightest to talk around 'The modern briefing'
The IPA Strategy Group kicked off its first morning briefing in a series hosted in collaboration with Contagious. Aimed at planners and strategists, the series was designed to cover current and pressing topics within the industry. Today's sold out event, hosted by Contagious co-founder Paul Kemp-Robertson at London's Institute for Contemporary Art, saw six speakers take the stage, covering various topics around 'the modern briefing'.
Glyn Britton, strategy director at Albion London, talked about process and its importance, covering how it can help to solve business problems, producing a solution that can be anything from ad to an app. Most crucially, Britton says it's about 'solving problems in multi-disciplined, self-organising teams, in an iterative and collaborative process', whether that is taking a more traditional or agile attitude towards.
Michael Dick, head of strategy at MEC covered the relevance of insights, and how they need to be actionable, inspirational and clear. And briefly touching upon data, Dick remarked that it's important 'not to confuse data with insight'.
Richard Huntington, director of strategy at Saatchi & Saatchi London, gave a few very outspoken tips for speaking to audiences. He stressed that the times of using pen portraits to bring the average consumer to life are long gone, and that a very common-sense approach is the most useful. According to Huntingdon, 'advertising is in the humanity business', so it's important to treat people accordingly.
Patricia McDonald, newly appointed executive planning director at Isobar UK, spoke about a shift in participation, and how that has been disrupting industries across the board, from airBnB to ASOS. Importantly, a business problem is a need that can be met by creating behavioural change. Network insights, according to McDonald, have become more important than individual insights, modern briefings need to understand the nature of the consumer networks that they hoping to communicate with. Citing social technology theorist Clay Shirky, McDonald stressed that behaviour is motivation filtered by opportunity and that any problem should be reduced down to a 'what, how and why'.
Jason Gonsalves, head of strategy at BBH London, talked about media and how it was 'too important to be left to media agencies'. Crucially, everything is becoming a media channel, and all brands in the modern world are media brands. There are plenty of opportunities for brands to rethink their approach to media; whether that is utilising packaging, content, or a print ad. The key is to ensure that the best medium is used to express any idea. The modern brief should accommodate people's experiences of media and ideas in order to create value.
And our very own Dan Southern, senior consultant in our Insider division at Contagious, talked about a modern approach to briefing trends, taking our recent work with KRAFT's Project Fly as an example. Unlocking the drivers of trends should help people to avoid 'dude, we should do...' mentality, where technology and innovation is prioritised over experience.
During the panel discussion, each participant was invited to give a piece of advice to the audience. Being opinionated was mentioned multiple times, even though to they should be 'lightly held' according to Glyn Britton. Be interesting - after all, interesting things happen to interesting people. Follow the money (in the client's organisation, not the salary) was another tip. Create your own future was another one. And, what can we say, read Contagious of course.
The next event hosted in collaboration with the IPA Strategy Group is yet to be announced.
Glyn Britton, strategy director at Albion London, talked about process and its importance, covering how it can help to solve business problems, producing a solution that can be anything from ad to an app. Most crucially, Britton says it's about 'solving problems in multi-disciplined, self-organising teams, in an iterative and collaborative process', whether that is taking a more traditional or agile attitude towards.
Michael Dick, head of strategy at MEC covered the relevance of insights, and how they need to be actionable, inspirational and clear. And briefly touching upon data, Dick remarked that it's important 'not to confuse data with insight'.
Richard Huntington, director of strategy at Saatchi & Saatchi London, gave a few very outspoken tips for speaking to audiences. He stressed that the times of using pen portraits to bring the average consumer to life are long gone, and that a very common-sense approach is the most useful. According to Huntingdon, 'advertising is in the humanity business', so it's important to treat people accordingly.
Patricia McDonald, newly appointed executive planning director at Isobar UK, spoke about a shift in participation, and how that has been disrupting industries across the board, from airBnB to ASOS. Importantly, a business problem is a need that can be met by creating behavioural change. Network insights, according to McDonald, have become more important than individual insights, modern briefings need to understand the nature of the consumer networks that they hoping to communicate with. Citing social technology theorist Clay Shirky, McDonald stressed that behaviour is motivation filtered by opportunity and that any problem should be reduced down to a 'what, how and why'.
Jason Gonsalves, head of strategy at BBH London, talked about media and how it was 'too important to be left to media agencies'. Crucially, everything is becoming a media channel, and all brands in the modern world are media brands. There are plenty of opportunities for brands to rethink their approach to media; whether that is utilising packaging, content, or a print ad. The key is to ensure that the best medium is used to express any idea. The modern brief should accommodate people's experiences of media and ideas in order to create value.
And our very own Dan Southern, senior consultant in our Insider division at Contagious, talked about a modern approach to briefing trends, taking our recent work with KRAFT's Project Fly as an example. Unlocking the drivers of trends should help people to avoid 'dude, we should do...' mentality, where technology and innovation is prioritised over experience.
During the panel discussion, each participant was invited to give a piece of advice to the audience. Being opinionated was mentioned multiple times, even though to they should be 'lightly held' according to Glyn Britton. Be interesting - after all, interesting things happen to interesting people. Follow the money (in the client's organisation, not the salary) was another tip. Create your own future was another one. And, what can we say, read Contagious of course.
The next event hosted in collaboration with the IPA Strategy Group is yet to be announced.
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