French Planning 101 :
I’ve recently come across this really interesting article about French planning on this APG site. (The link is in the middle of the page) Even if I haven’t really worked in France as a planner, only two internships, I think that this article written by Luc Wise and Xavier Charpentier underlines very wisely the main problems planning is facing in France: the necessity to permanently justify your position, the role of the “intelectuel”, the fear of account handler to see planners ’stealing the most satisfying part of their job’… This article is definitely worth reading by every planner and especially the French ones. However I was surprised to discover that some English planners I talked with weren’t really aware of the difficulty to be a planner in a country with no formal planning culture. It’s maybe an interesting place to start… By the way does anyone know what happened to the French APG?
the article :
When the
French APG was launched in 2001, Fred and Farid wrote a scathing article in CB News, pouring scorn on French account planning.
This was of course fantastic news for the French APG, who had never dreamed they would stir up such publicity – in the words of Oscar Wilde, “There is no such thing as bad publicity”. But what was the crux of Fred and Farid’s article?
Apart from drawing up a rather amusing typology of French planners (ranging from the “Guru” to the “Wannabe creative”), the main charge levelled by Fred and Farid at French planning was that French planning was a huge scam - that French planners spent most of their time redefining their job description, in a rather pathetic attempt to justify their existence. The article contended that French planning brought no added value to the creative advertising process, and had no real raison d’être. In other words, French account planning was utterly useless.
This might perhaps seem surprising to UK readers. Nobody with any sense in the UK ad business questions the importance of account planning. After all, DDB London – one of the birth-places and bastions of account planning - has topped the Gunn Report on numerous occasions, whilst Mother – one of the UK’s most successful and creative agencies of recent years – has no account handlers and gives a prominent role to strategists.
So why is it that despite these
numerous, crystal clear examples of how planning can add value to the creative
process, we still seem stuck in a rather stupid and sterile debate about the
usefulness of account planning?
At first glance, it seems a rather difficult question to answer. After all, the underlying market forces that created the strong need for planning in the UK are at work in France too: for instance, the increasing complexity of markets; the need for strong consumer insights to cut through the clutter and connect with consumers; the development of integrated multi-channel communications; or the increased importance of branding and brand strategy. As a result the last ten years have seen a spectacular growth in French account planning, as more and more agencies create strong planning departments in response to advertisers’ demands for agencies with a strong strategic credentials
It seems even more surprising that account planning should be questioned in France, a country which gives great cultural importance to thinking, “esprit” and the art of eloquence. One would have thought that a society in which the “intellectuel” is still a dominant figure would prove an ideal breeding ground for account planners.
Yet this seeming paradox may actually provide a first clue to the problem. Indeed it may be precisely because French society places such a premium on intellectual thinking that planning has had such a hard time establishing itself in France.
For a long time French planning had a (not entirely unwarranted) reputation for being overly intellectual. Indeed, whereas an Englishman will tend to value thinking that is empiric, facts-based and pragmatic, a Frenchman will have a tendency to think along more abstract, conceptual lines. Of course, there is nothing wrong with this, but - at some moment or other – this type of thinking may arouse blank looks from creatives looking for more concrete, down-to-earth briefs. Indeed, as Andrew Perkins’ article on this website contends, the most memorable creative work is often rooted in tangible everyday phenomena.
This typically Gallic tendency to over-intellectualise things was probably magnified by the fact that in the early days of French planning, planners were not attached to specific accounts but had a more of a free-floating role. As a result they were less involved in the day-to-day business than the account guys or creatives. The French terminology – we say “strategic planner” rather than “account planner” - is a reminder of this historical legacy.
But an objective look at the reality of account planning in France today quickly disproves this stereotype. Planners increasingly work in closely knit account teams and whilst they continue to have the reputation for being the “agency intellectuals”, the fact is that most French planners have adopted a much more “Anglo-Saxon” approach to their day-to-day work. They use method and discipline to gain expert knowledge of consumers and brands ; they use this market understanding to produce the most relevant and effective communications ideas; and they apply this expertise on multinational brands steeped in Anglo-Saxon advertising culture (from P&G or Unilever to Playstation or Volkswagen). Same tools, same core skills, same clients: all this makes French planners not so different from their UK counterparts.
So if we do the same job as our esteemed British counterparts, how can we explain the lukewarm feelings French planning still encounters? Here we may need to look at a second cultural clue.
In the UK or in the United States there is no finer job than that of a businessman. Selling to the client, making money, being entrepreneurial (what Max Weber defined as the Protestant work ethic): these are all sources of great pride in WASP culture. As a result, there is no role confusion between “suits” and “planners” in most UK agencies. The suits get on with selling, the planners get on with the thinking – both are quite happy in their respective roles.
In French culture however, it is strategic thinking and intellectual culture – not money-making – which commands the greatest prestige. French account handlers are called “le commercial”, a term which most of them loathe. A French account handler will say “je suis commercial” with about as much enthusiasm as a teenage rock fan would say “ugh... that band is far too commercial”. Indeed many account handlers mutter their job description as if being “commercial”, conducting commerce, was a dirty word.
As a result, account people tend to get their kicks out of strategy rather than sales. It’s hardly surprising, in this context, that many account handlers viewed the arrival of planning in France with the utmost suspicion, fearing that planners would steal the most satisfying part of their job.
If the division of labour hasn’t always been clear between French account execs and French planners, the same could also be said of the relationship between French planners and creatives. The category of planner that Fred and Farid were particularly critical of in their article was that of the “wannabe creative”: a planner who wants to do the creative’s job for him. There has always been a temptation in France to develop what we sometimes call ‘creative planning’. In other words, have planners who find creative “angles”. The question here is that you need to draw a fine-line between inspiring the creatives and writing the selling-lines for them. “Stop trying to do my job for me” has been a common complaint of French creatives towards their planner colleagues.
So where does all this leave French planning today? For starters, there is absolutely no reason for French planners to be humble or apologetic about their jobs: a reality check clearly shows that we increasingly work in a similar fashion to our Anglo-Saxon colleagues. However, if we want to continue moving forward with success, we need to assert the unique benefits of account planning. Rather than acting as an ersatz for creatives or account handlers, French planners should continue to define key areas of expertise which add value to the creative process. As we enter a new age of consumer engagement, branded content and “media neutral” propositions, this unique role shouldn’t be too hard to find.
French Planning 202 :
A while ago I wrote a post called French Planning. As I have been interviewed, together with a few other French planners working in London to give our perspectives on British planning by Stratégies magazine, I have decided to write a second one. Overall I am pretty happy with the article, as the major points I wanted to make have been landed properly, however I just have one small concern about the title of the article. “La recette du (vrai) planning a l’anglaise” could be translated like this ‘The (true) recipe of English planning’. The problem I have with this title is that planning can’t be summarised by right or wrong as every planner will have his very own definition of the discipline. And the truth is, there is no magical recipe as every briefs and contexts are different. It is even truer for the digital environment as sometimes you will have to lead and sometimes you will have to work on a very small piece of the business. Anyway, sorry to be picky but I thought I had to precise this last point! You can have a read of the article here (in french) Voir cette photo and make up your own mind.
Note : the agency that was quoted in Strategies' article as an example of what "planning à l'anglaise" was in France was Pourquoi tu Cours (l'agence des idées) and we are quite proud of that
SUR : Contagious ideas
PAR : françois pérennès
ACCÈS DIRECT A LA PLATEFORME : PSST.FR
UNE INITIATIVE DE POURQUOITUCOURS?
AGENCE DE PLANNING STRATEGIQUE 2.0
DIRIGÉE PAR jérémy dumont
