The Future of Planning: A new agency model

Account planning pioneer Stephen King made a crucial distinction between 'marketing department marketing', when the marketing function is bolted-on to the organisation, and 'real marketing', when all the company's resources are harnessed to link what the customer wants with what the firm can provide.

A new agency model

Simon Clemmow

The future of planning and the future of agencies are conjoined. Their future lies in the speedy execution of ideas with “real planning” at the heart of this process

One of the many seminal articles by the late, great Stephen King, co-founder of account planning, is titled 'Has marketing failed, or was it never really tried?' He identifies the failure of what he calls 'marketing department marketing', where the marketing department is simply bolted on to the standard company organogram and concerns itself with its own partial objectives, rigid processes and jealously-guarded techniques. He...

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