Thinking and Doing

Prompted by comment elsewhere, Team Staufenberger have been re-reading our tatty old copy of Stephen King's 1974 Planning Guide and its unofficial companion: a Jeremy Bullmore speech to a conference of Kraft bigwigs in 1972.

We see the two as related because the subject of the Bullmore speech is one of the many topics that the Guide covers, namely a stimulus/response model of advertising. This is fairly standard stuff these days, but the way both King and Bullmore talk about it suggests it might be a useful guide when thinking about this year's hot-topic: consumer generated content. As Gareth over on Brand New points out, there's a difference between genuine co-creation (consumer response to brand stimulus) and an aspiring ad creative/film-maker/musician's self-promotion.

And on a less serious note, we also had what might be descibed as a Jerry-hits-Tom-with-spade moment: we were sagely observing (bottom of page 6 of the Planning Guide) how it could have been written in 2006 (tech advances making product improvements short-lived, retailer-power squeezing manufacturers and so on) and then...

Blam!

...at the top of page 7: our grocery shopping is now self-service. Where once we were served by a man behind a counter who would recommend what to buy, we now have to decide on our own. Things have certainly changed on that count.

There's also a point that Captain Complexity will no doubt appreciate: an ad, as a stimulus, is a combination of all aspects of the communication including "pictures, movements, symbols, tone of voice" and more. Which sounds very similar to the idea that execution can be strategic: "We wanted to make decisions about fonts, colours and vocabularly part of the upfront strategic conversation." (Full text of the Honda paper available at the apg.)

Anyway, for those who want to have a read for themselves, you can download them here:

Download JWTPlanningGuide.pdf

Download JeremyBullmore.pdf

(If anyone has any objections to these being available here, drop us a line) 

Comments

[Charles Edward Frith]

Thank you for posting these. I feel quite sentimental for London right now. Vive L'Internet!

[Faris]

Hi Patrick

Nice one - will have a proper read of these when I'm back.

I was similarly struck watching a video that Bullmore and King put together in the early 70s as a JWT training thing how little things had changed - the strength of the retailer consistently being the driver for the development of stronger brands since their inception etc..

But...hasn't Sainsbury's started rolling out self service check-outs? Isn't this the self service world of t'interweb?

Or do you mean that the man behind the counter has been replaced by the thousands of reviews online we can refer to?

[Patrick]

Hi Faris

Not quite!

To clarify: once upon a time, to do your grocery shopping you'd go to a shop, not unlike Arkright's in Open All Hours, and tell the person behind the counter what you wanted. You might ask them their opinion or you might not. They might offer it anyway. And then they picked the item off the shelf and put in a bag for you.

The point King was making is that with the advent of the modern supermarket, the mediating influence of the shopkeeper/assistant is drastically reduced or removed entirely. Because we now pick things off the shelf ourselves. Simple as that.

It just struck me as a really sharp reminder that - contrary to the freshness of the whole thing - it was written over thirty years ago. And that that world was different to ours in so many more than the obvious ways. Like the internet. And Pop Tarts.

[Faris]

I get you - that element ties it to the past.

I think you're right to remind us mate - those two are too good for our own good - we need to make sure we all keep on thinking if we are going to navigate the communication challenges a connected world brings with it.

Now then - Ggggggranville! Fetch the pop tarts!

[darpanmajumdar]

hi
i am student of advertising from india ,i cant download the planning and jeremmy pdf ,so there is some problem,
help me
with regards
darpan

[Lee McEwan]

Where has the book got to?