Les Binet and Sarah Carter are planning royalty. Starting out at the iconic BMP, the agency which evolved over time to become adam&eve today, they are the planners behind many famous campaigns. Not least John Lewis which lasted an impressive 14 years. A few years ago their popular myth busting column turned into the well known book ‘How Not to Plan’ taking conventional wisdom and turning it on its head. I catch up with the dynamic duo to pick their considerable brains on the topics they think marketers least understand.
Talking points from this episode:
- The real godfather of effectiveness
- How John Lewis changed Christmas
- Les & Sarah pick a favourite ad
- Why vignette ads are a cop out
- What the John Lewis econometrics reveals about the campaign
- Why you should make people feel something not show them feeling
- Jon discovers the Long & the Short of it
- The best way to really upset Les
- That famous key visual
- Can you ever achieve both long & short at the same time
- Why consumers don’t give a s**t
- How myth busting inspired the book
- Being turned down by Marketing Week
- Why there are more P’s than Promotion
- How to involve planners early
- The BMP Philosophy of planning
- How not to get caught Short
- Why 60% of campaign results are long term
- How not to be consistent
- Knowing what to change and when to change it
- What advertisers can learn from designers
- A little plug for Orlando’s fluent device work
- It’s only advertising and no-one died
- The case for animals and music
- How not to make sense
- How not to change your pricing
- Why EPOS data switched spend from communication to price promotion
- Digital attribution is the new price promotion
- The more detailed the measurement the worse the marketing has got
- Jon shares his only Effie case study
- How not to be different
- Why how you say something matters more than what you say
- Les takes down the idea of loyalty
- The one topic which wasn’t covered in the book
- Finding things to get angry about
