From backroom to centrestage

The chief strategy officer is becoming an important member of an ad agency, providing a sense of direction.

Traditionally, strategic planning as a function within an ad agency has been considered the lesser of the other two departments - client servicing and creative. The latter have been clearly far more high-profile and have hogged the limelight over the years.

While the trend continues, planning personnel, who are essentially responsible for providing qualitative and quantitative inputs on brands, are slowly but steadily coming into their own. From being back-room boys adept at pouring through research and data to arrive at interesting consumer insights, planning personnel today are finding a seat at the central table of an ad agency, providing not just inputs on brands, but also giving it a sense of direction.

In the process, strategic planning has come of age in India. And agencies are increasingly appointing chief strategy officers (CSOs) to help them navigate through the rough and tumble of advertising. Even national planning directors, as some agencies choose to call their senior planning personnel, are part of the central leadership teams of their agencies, helping their boards take crucial decisions on both brands and business.

Sample this: In recent months there have been some key appointments in the planning department across agencies. Senior hand S. Subramanyeswar has taken over as national planning director at Lowe Lintas, while another hand Gautam Talwar has taken over as CSO at Rediffusion Y&R. Dheeraj Sinha, who was CSO for the Indian arm of WPP agency Bates 141, has now additional responsibility as regional planning director, Asia. At McCann-Erickson, Delhi, senior hand Jitender Dabas, earlier with JWT, took over as planning head, and at Mudra West, Amit Kekre, earlier with McCann-Erickson Mumbai, was appointed the head of planning.

Clearly, agencies are realising the importance of strategic planning and the role it can play in enhancing its overall output. Sinha of Bates 141 says, “The trend has been on for a while. Most clients are demanding strategic planning inputs on their brands. This is what is driving the phenomenon.”

Most senior planners are in agreement with this. Sourabh Mishra, chief strategy officer, India, Saatchi & Saatchi, says, “Strategic planning is an important value-addition to a client’s business. Even internally, great creative ideas are based on sound strategic thinking. Clients recognise this and are increasingly asking for strategic planning resources to be assigned to their businesses. The CSO, as the leader of the discipline, has emerged as an important pillar within an agency as a result of this.”

Madhukar Sabnavis, country head, discovery & planning, Ogilvy & Mather India, says, “Definitely, planning has come a long way from its earlier days and planning heads today find themselves on the boards of agencies. This, in a sense, does speak a lot of the journey of the discipline in the last decade or so. It has evolved.”

Nowhere is the planner’s role felt more than during new business pitches. Quite often, say industry sources, the responsibility of understanding what a client wants and how to interpret it best is left to the planner though a client servicing executive does provide crucial support. Subramanyeswar of Lowe says, “In pitches, the challenge is mostly to find new ground for the brand. And good strategic planners are good explorers. They’re the ones who go to the jungle and not the zoo when they want to know how a lion hunts. When you go exploring without any hypothesis, you always discover the unknown. That is when you’ll come across magical solutions. Most strategic planners at some stage start loving pitches as it gives them a relatively free hand.”

This point is endorsed by Talwar of Rediffusion, “The contribution of planning in new business development has grown. They are leading pitches today.”

But Sabnavis of O&M argues that the contribution of planning to existing business is also equally high. “In O&M, for instance, we take the triumvirate approach where creative, servicing and planning work together on brands. A client gets the best of all three as a result of this.”

While most key agencies are attempting to follow this model, it is only a few who have found the right balance between the three. Quite often, say industry sources, the lines get blurred between client servicing and strategic planning. But planners argue that the forte of client servicing essentially lies in managing people and business, while strategic planning is all about providing key consumer insights. “So a planner will help client servicing and creative interpret a brief and help them translate it into a brand thought,” says Sinha of Bates 141. Client servicing, on the other hand, is all about managing relationships, he says.