Plan B™
The Agency Alternative
ONE INDUSTRY SACRED COW THAT DESERVES A SKEWERING OVER HOT COALS:
The ‘Proprietary Strategic Planning Process’. At Plan B our primary concern is the effectiveness of the thinking we produce. To that end we believe that every development process must be grounded in diligent strategic planning.
However, we feel that the born-in-the-eighties, plug-and-play, ‘proprietary’ planning process templates that the traditional agency world still tout – (you know, the one’s that brought us ‘New’ Coke, Pets.com and probably Jerry Seinfeld for Microsoft) – have become increasingly irrelevant in a marketing and competitive landscape that changes at a pace unimagined twenty years ago.
Plan B isn’t about following rules, cues or formulas because ‘that’s the way it’s always been done’. There aren’t any dead guys’ names on our door – so we’re never bound to obey the gospel of the self-proclaimed ‘marketing gods’ who laid down their laws a quarter century (or more) ago.
After all, if you never question why things are done the way they are, you’ll never do them better. You’ll resist trying new approaches. And, of course, you’ll repeat old mistakes.
Our ‘Grounded Innovation’ approach, is a loose description of a fluid methodology that is, well, ‘grounded’ in the rigorous pursuit of timely and actionable knowledge – of the consumer, the brand, the category and the way potential channel and messaging strategies might positively affect and influence them.
We then seek to transform that knowledge into innovative opportunities, via bold strategic and creative leaps.
Yes, we believe knowledge is the key to powerful innovation, but the routes to and sources of that knowledge must be varied and customized to each specific challenge.