How to use research to develop campaign ideas

Merry Baskin

Merry Baskin introduces her article by reviewing the work of the account planner since the early 1980s when it was still a novelty.

How To Use Research To Develop Campaign Ideas

Merry BaskinBaskin Shark

When I worked for Chiat/Day in the early 1980s, account planning was still a novelty British import. My boss, Jane Newman, used to explain to wide-eyed new business clients that 'Planning subsumes the research function'. Well, she was ex-BMP, and one of Stanley Pollitt's first trainees, so to paraphrase Mandy Rice-Davies, she would say that, wouldn't she? The question is, how does that definition of planning stand up among those out there practising today?

How many contemporary planners would agree with it? How many would actually grasp the...

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