A Master Class in Brand Planning: The Timeless Works of Stephen King

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The Market’s Evolved, Why Hasn’t Planning?

By Merry Baskin, Brand Planning Consultant, Baskin Shark Ltd

 

 

 

 

 

What’s in a Name?

Quick, what’s the difference between a “neologism” and an “aphorism” – terms that have recently featured in planner blogs?⁶

Although he would probably have despised the idea of his thinking being reduced to an ‘-ism’, the man who helped to invent account planning (both the name and the discipline) gave us plenty of both, and his anniversary speech offers up at least three memorable and noteworthy examples.

The paper you are about to read, therefore, has many merits: historical context, planning lore, witty apothegms and visionary wisdom-a King classic in fact. For one thing, it lays to rest the mythology surrounding the choice of title for our discipline – one of the most obfuscating and unhelpful ones ever invented. For the record:

Tony Stead thought of the name “Account Planner”. We started by not knowing what on earth to call it. We thought of “Brand Planner” and we used that as a code name for quite a while. Then people said that “brand” suggests that we were only involved in small packaged things⁷ so Tony said “Why don’t you call them Account Planners?” And that was that. That was at a meeting of one of our Away Days in July ’68. There was a lot of discussion going on and by the time it had emerged we had a department of 23 people. It was very easy to cast because it was taking people from the Marketing Department and a very few key people from the ...