Redscout Presents Spur – Final Episode: What Is The Future Of Planning? Thinking As Doing.

The fifth and final episode of Spur points to the future of planning, where the role of planners will be less to only PLAN and more to activate and DO. It’s only through the doing that a planner is really engaged, proving the power of the plan by tying it to something tangible and useful: a new product, a digital tool, a book, a work of art. Planners are producing stuff, changing the discipline for the better.

The lingering question is whether this happens within the agency model or among the entrepreneurial start-ups coming out of planning. Does planning need an evolution? Or a revolution?

We present a spectrum of opinions on where the trends are headed: Paul Woolmington of Naked introduces the idea that there is a huge opportunity in account planning being in “constant beta”, able to adapt to today’s consumer needs and new media, whereas Dan Cherry at Anomaly sees more urgency in the situation: “Clients will increasingly actually be in competition with agencies”. John Gerzema and Gareth Kay caution against a radical rethinking of the model while Robin Hafitz and Douglas Atkin point optimistically to those planners who are taking their skills to entirely new places beyond communications and into consulting or entrepreneurialism.

Please visit Redscout’s Vimeo page t0 watch all of the SPUR episodes.

The responses we have had to this series so far have been thoughtful and passionate, it’s clear that change is in the air for the agencies and people involved in strategic brand thinking. Planners aren’t just keen to define and assert their role; they are positively mobilizing and producing (content, brands…. stuff).

Does planning need an evolution or a revolution? Can you really “plan” without doing something with that plan? Is there an inherent connection between planning and entrepreneurialism?