Planning the future: Make it Barça

Dan O’Donoghue, Adrian Ruiz-Mediavilla and Declan O’Reilly

To consider the future of planning, this essay first relates the history of the development of the advertising agency.

Planning the future: Make it Barça

Dan O'Donoghue, Adrian Ruiz-Mediavilla and Declan O'Reilly

1. "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - Georges Santayana

"Where did our love go?" - The Supremes

Account planning was introduced into agencies by Stanley Pollitt and Stephen King.

Stephen added value to the client by offering strategic communication advice linked to business effects and explained the notion of the enduring brand, whereas Stanley introduced qualitative testing of (mainly) television advertising.

Stephen's approach was essentially trying to get clients to understand that brands were created through consistently communicating to a target...

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