AP, CP, IS: The Strategic Triumvirate (Account planning is about relationships,Connection planning is about context, Interactive strategy is about behavior)

                    

As communications (or conversations as we’re now calling them) become more complex, so too does it strategic development.

Account planning. Connection planning. Interactive strategy.

All three are critical to ensuring the best conversation possible.

But what the hell are they?

That’s the question I’m often asked by junior planners or planners in study.

Here’s the most basic breakdown:

Account planning is about relationships: We spend time finding the right things to talk about to build the right relationships between things.
Connection planning is about context: We spend time understanding the experience the ideal consumer goes through in the shopping process and identify the proper media and messages for each stage of that process.
Interactive strategy is about behavior: We spend time answering the question, “what do you want people to do next?”

Now it’s not to say that context is solely the preserve of CP and relationships solely for AP. Any great strategist operates/thinks on all three levels simultaneously. However the demands of each strategy and the fast pace of the ad business mean that people need to be devoted to each one in order to properly meet deadlines. But again, just because you focus on one doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be fluent in the other. That said, the future of strategy is filled with planners who can step into any of these three roles and competently develop strategy for each. So while these represent job titles, we should start thinking of them more as ways of thinking about a problem.

ACCOUNT PLANNING
Account planning, the most widely known and practiced strategy, has a ton of blog space devoted to it’s history, principles, practices and future so I won’t spend anytime on it.

CONNECTION PLANNING
As best as I can tell (and feel free to help me with my story because I know it’s not 100% right), connection planning started percolating at the turn of the century when the idea of media expanded. Media became anything that carried information. That’s when we started getting the Mini on top of a Suburban to promote “small.”

If anything could be media, then people could be media. This was the next stage: looking at the interplay of people. I think this is where influencers really became a big deal (an attitude probably helped more so by The Tipping Point). With this development, the question, “Who are the right people for us to talk to?” really became a media question – which is why some people feel media agencies now own the relationship with the consumer.

I think it was around 2004 that the conversation started shifting towards experiences. Agencies, looking to move beyond the TV ad, started touting the experiences they could produce by integrating all these media around specific targets. “I Love Bees” and “Audi’s Art of the Heist” are examples of this.

Because of this short evolution, the connection planning process goes as such:

#1 Identify who does and should drive the business. Who currently drives purchases? Who influences those purchasers? Is there are another segment that could be more profitable?

#2 Identify the brand experience. What stages are there in the purchase process (even ones that go beyond purchase)? What do people seek/value at each stage? What are their current sources of information? Does the brand properly deliver on those informational/experiential needs? What is the mindset at each stage? Where are there opportunities for the brand to improve the entire experience?

#3 Identify what types of media will be more effective for each stage given the consumer’s mindset and information needs. This isn’t about picking media vehicles like TV, newspaper or outdoor billboards. This is about being media agnostic by describing the characteristics a body of media will need to properly connect with the target and deliver the information. Again, media can be anything. So if I tell a creative team that “informative media” are important at X stage, they have more room to think of interesting media than if I had told them “Brochures are need here.” Same would happen if I tell them “we need grassroots media here” vs. “We need to develop some wild postings.” The idea is to leave room open for innovation of media vehicles rather than just innovation of content. For more thoughts on types of media read John Grant’s book After Image.

#4 Deliver the info to creatives after the idea. The one weakness of connection planning (though manageable) is that it can info overload for creatives. My suggestion is to let the creatives develop an idea first then provide them the CP learning so that they can figure out how their idea fits in the experience needs of the consumer. It’s a bit like gardening. Let the seed you plant sprout first. Then give it the lattice to guide its growth.

INTERACTIVE STRATEGY.
Interactive strategy is interesting. It’s probably the most misunderstood strategy as it is the newest one to come under the wing of ad agencies. If I had to guess, I think most agencies see IS as data analysis and optimization of online behavior. This includes a lot of search engine optimization, banner placement optimization, conversion rates, etc. Lots of data, like I said. And sure this is important part of understanding the online space and finding insights, but this is a sliver of what IS offers to ad agencies.

Here’s how I look at it: IS is the glue of integration. This is the strategy that links up everything agencies do – online and offline. It’s about designing and creating functionality and mechanisms that spur action among the consumer to visit other executions, visit a showroom, play a treasure hunt game, share a video, participate in an event, customize a product online, invite a friend or opt into a newsletter – for example. Like I said earlier, it answers the question, “what do you want people to do next.” In short, IS finds ways to pull your consumers further into the rabbit hole.

That said, I think “interactive strategy” is a misnomer. It immediately makes you think only of the online space. This style of strategy should be called participation strategy because “getting people to do the next thing” is not limited to the online world.

***

So there you have it: one man’s opinion on the strategic triumvirate. As I said earlier, strategists of the future need to be fluent in the language and customs of each of these strategies.

I hope more of us start blogging about CP and IS/PS. Each is a rich territory for development and new ideas.

LINK