How not to Plan: 66 ways to screw it up

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The central thing about planning, is that there is no one answer or way of doing things. You have to be an entrepreneurial, as well as a long term thinker. And you have to apply your imagination, understanding and analysis in different measures according to the problem at hand. So in the sink or swim world of planners, strategists and their clients, now more than ever, there is a need for a practical handbook to guide us through all the main parts of the process. If you’re struggling to select what your Highlight or top priority for the day might be, Knapp and Zeratsky suggest this simple heuristic: This criticism might be fun once a month in a magazine article, but one after another (66 times) in a book gets quite tiresome. Especially, as they tend to blame the tool or channel as useless, rather than the way people use that tool or channel. (there’s plenty of examples of the things they trash, done well for anyone who’s worked in marketing). It’s particularly annoying because they “advise” you to be open-minded and consider multiple scenarios and contexts, then promptly don’t follow their own advice. When marketing efficiency is the focus, targeting and segmentation come to the fore. And that’s the second problem. Like many marketers, our clients focused on a tightly defined market segment. When shown how customers were defecting to the smaller brands, they argued that these weren’t competitors. Some were too cheap. Others too premium. They defined their market segment so narrowly, there was only one other brand in it: their big rival.

Deconstructing the campaign in this way revealed many serious weaknesses, for example: poor, often indecisive, political leadership; misperceptions within the Anglo-French alliance; the flawed structure for the higher direction of the campaign; a fractious relationship between the grand-strategic level (the War Cabinet) and the military-strategic level (the service chiefs of staff); and the complete absence of a level connecting the strategic to the tactical level. It also revealed serious disagreements both within the Cabinet and between the chiefs of staff, and the impact of deeply ingrained inter-service rivalry. A further revelation was a muddled and widespread misunderstanding of strategy, with a failure, particularly by the chiefs, to focus relentlessly and constantly on balancing ends, ways and means. Even more surprising was the degree to which decision makers indulged in wishful thinking and complacency.

It’s loosely based on the Planning Cycle and is grouped into themes that are important at different stages in the process, covering everything from how to set objectives, the 4 Ps, research and analysis, to briefing, creative work and media and effectiveness. It should offer trusty guide to any problem that crosses your desk in the first years of your career. oThe threat from competitors is largely a matter of size. Your biggest competitors will be the biggest brands in the market. Even if you think they’re in a different segment. First, a focus on efficiency, not on effectiveness. Big brands with high market share find it hard to increase revenue. So they focus on cost cutting. Our brand was just focused on short-term ROI. Its competitor had the same obsession. But cutting their budgets destroyed the foundations of their success.

Surprisingly, our brand’s marketing team hadn’t noticed. They were so focused on their immediate rival they failed to spot the little brands stealing their customers; the other brand probably suffered from the same blinkered view. At the tactical level, troops were sent to Norway poorly trained, inadequately equipped and without proper support, and in administrative chaos reminiscent of the Crimea. The result was predictable. A French officer in Norway commented, `the British have planned this campaign on the lines of a punitive expedition against the Zulus, but unhappily we and the British are in the position of the Zulus`.Use a task manager like Todoist to mark the Highlight for your day as high priority and move it to the top of your list.