Last night saw planners from across London (and Rob, who made the trip down), gather for StratStock - the IPA Strategy Group's first stab at trying to show "how the other half plan".
Key thing for me from the evening was actually the simple fact that, when it comes down to it, planners do the same thing in most places. There are nuances of style, models and method (though those are as much to do with individuals and their agencies as it is to do with discipline), as you would rather hope.
But fundamentally, we're all out there doing pretty much the same thing - trying to pull as much information into one place to understand a client's business, brand, market and consumer in order to sell more stuff. Which was strangely both refreshing and something of a relief.
There will be a bunch of people who blog about the event far more intelligently than me (and links to those pieces will follow shortly - Nick Fell, Tim and Paul have all popped a pieces up), but top marks go to David Bain of BMB who came up with the little model above to demonstrate how they judge ideas - neat and worth bearing in mind, I thought.
