What modern marketers can learn from JWT’s long lost 1974 strategic planning bible
While most modern marketers prefer to gaze into the future, Shane O’Leary reminds us that looking back in time is just as – if not more – important.
Many young marketers are entering our industry having never been taught the fundamentals or history of marketing. Their knowledge base is over-specialised around digital communication tactics.
Some see everything new and shiny as optimal, and everything that came before as the domain of luddites and, god forbid, old people! This has a knock on impact, particularly in agency land, where the average age is probably somewhere around the early 30s and many senior marketers get out before they hit 40.
Mark Ritson refers to this as the ‘tactification’ of marketing. He has argued at length that a sort of creeping anti-intellectualism (I’m looking at you, Mr Vaynerchuck) means “marketing seems to be devolving into a base tactical pursuit devoid of strategic thinking.”
Brilliant! Well done Shane for this act of sanity. I remember very well joining JWT in New York and being handed The King Papers. Merry Baskin published this great source digest on advertising strategies and the chronology of the craft. Well worth a read. Puts that young lad Ritson into context too.
https://barbanouille.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/a_history_of_planning.pdf
one of the best articles I’ve read on here. great job Shane
This is hands-down the most informative and inspiring article I’ve ever read on Mumbrella. Absolutely necessary that agencies continue to have this conversation and continue to apply this thinking with clients across the board: creative, media, PR, marketing.
I thank my lucky stars that my clients are well aware and informed of these. Devastating to think that the fundamental tenets of marketing are so often overlooked / never even learnt by practitioners today.
Agree with above. Excellent piece. Thankyou.
Excellent article. Just one point: it wasn’t Churchill has claimed ….. history would repeat itself, it was George Santayana.
Thank you for sharing this.
This is absolutely true – as an industry, we have totally forgotten what our role and value is.
Bravo sir. Finally, someone writing something meaningful about marketing and its history. There is way too much focus on digital and social media in the mix these days and far too many graduates I work with lack strategic marketing abilities (or the ability to think outside of online).
This piece is exceptional. A very timely reminder. Thanks Shane and Mumbrella.
Agreed
Outstanding article founded in the truth and so relevant for today.
Thank you
BTW Bezos suggests that you should build a business strategy around the things you know are stable in time. Thats funny (Ironic)!!!!!!. Hes completely changed how we see retail and the internet in the future. Hes the biggest change agent possibly aside from Jack Ma of Alibaba, the world has ever seen. Furthermore he wants to take us into space!
The only thing he possibly recognized wont change is that humans consume.
What you said about Bezos was exactly the point. People want things faster and easier. That remains a constant, so if you can do that, you win. He didn’t change anything about people wanting fast and easy, he changed how fast and easy it could get.
So HOW Amazon is a success would be new, thanks to new technologies. But WHY Amazon is a success is thanks to a customer desire that humans probably stepped out of the primordial ooze with.
The same principle(s) applies to selling. Those old, old books by the likes of Frank Bettger showed the same techniques that still apply and work today. And if you have never read (or God forbid, heard of) Think and Grow Rich or How to Make Friends and Influence People then shame on you!
Everything old is new again. Even people!