One of the key planning tasks is supposed to be the having of insights. You can feel the tension in a planning presentation - when's the insight coming? will it count as an insight or merely be an observation? Pitches often become a kind of Theatre Of Insight. And I've never been any good at it myself. Never had one of those pithy insights that people point to as examples of planning excellence.
So I've liked the recent insight discussions over on Pink Air. First of all Jeffre mused on 'what is an insight?', and in the ensuing discussion, JD linked to Simon Law's excellent post about insight (with tons of examples) and Uli pointed out this brilliant piece by Jeremy Bullmore. Further discussed by Jeffre here.
This generosity and sharing from all concerned is one of the great gifts of the plannersphere. Not so long ago Simon's presentation would have been seen only within WCRS, the Bullmore piece would only have lived within a WPP newsletter and Jeffre's stuff would have probably just been in his head. But suddenly all that gets shared and we all get wiser. Does that count as insight? Probably not.
I was thinking about this over the weekend - well, a similar thing - as I tried to write up a piece on briefing and what makes a great brief...
I was wondering if people would be willing to share their brief templates (or lack thereof)?
I'll post the question this morning and see what happens... then share the whole thing...
Meanwhile, thanks for the mention!
Posted by: Simon | February 12, 2007 at 11:28 AM
Good idea Simon,
we had some discussion of that here;
http://russelldavies.typepad.com/planning/2006/10/the_perfect_cre.html
but I was thinking of asking people for a similar thing to stick on the plannersphere wiki. We should do that.
Posted by: russell | February 12, 2007 at 11:49 AM
Hi Russell, with all do respect all I can say is blahblahblah branding, and where's my picture of Arthur???
Posted by: Patty | February 13, 2007 at 04:37 AM
I meant all "due" respect, sorry!
Posted by: Patty | February 13, 2007 at 04:37 AM
Claudiu Florea from "Sparking Curious Mind" (http://claudiuflorea.blogspot.com), has one of the best definitions of what an insight is: "Ah, insights, everybody these days talks about insights. A consumer insight is like God - present everywhere but not seen, felt or easily understood. Verbatim judgments, linearly-observed consumer behaviour, or simply aphorisms for life are often passed off as insights. However, to get insights, you need deeper thinking. An insight is what connects the advertising idea to brand attributes via consumer life."
Posted by: the hidden persuader | February 19, 2007 at 08:10 PM