Experience Planner

Last night, I read an article from Admap titled “Planning: the challenge of complexity” from R/GA’s executive vice president of strategic services Anne Benvenuto. Anne’s purpose of writing this article in May 2007 was to inspire other planners to look for a deeper meaning in their clients’ brands. Instead of earning a relationship with the customer, bring the brand alive and have it interact with the customer, create a new and meaningful experience. Anne recognizes that an experience is longer-lasting, that it requires more than just saying and listening but that it also has to interact with the customer. The experience makes things happen and the exciting part of this interaction is that the customer creates these experiences where ever and when ever they want.

Planning: the challenge of complexity - Anne Benvenuto

Well it is now closing in on Q4 of 2009 and it is surprising to still think of this as a “new” idea. Anne suggests “if there’s one thing we all know about the times we are living in, it is that they are changing far faster than ever before”. That is still true today and if this is the case then why aren’t more agencies chasing these opportunities. As planners we need to be ahead of the client, ahead of the customer, and ahead of the trends. We need to set the landscape and determine where our customers are moving next.

Anne recognizes the complexity of this type of responsibility, but she also has not suggested that we work alone. She wants us to work better with our team, with our technologists and our creative team. Learn to collaborate, pull together ideas and be ahead of the curve, and as a team, succeed.