I have a theory

"Everybody's got a plan, until they get punched in the face."

That's about the gist of every white paper I've ever read on the topic of advertising. I hadn't thought about my age old tussle with agency planners/strategists until earlier this week when I caught some Tik Tok or FB videos (I don't know the difference) about Killer Mike Tyson and how he took down so many of the world's best boxers with blazing speed and obscene sledgehammer power.

I also had the fortunate opportunity to meet with a new potential client who had several meetings with agencies and was left underwhelmed with their planning/strategery credentials.

Couldn't help to think back on the oh-so-many battles I fought with the "experts" in the room, telling me how the advertising should look and feel.

"Blue?" I cringed, "OK, got it. thanks."

That one is for my old Team One teammates, who often fought alongside me when challenging the royal wisdom of the Planning Department.

In my later years, the battles grew even hotter, when the age difference made it so apparently futile, I'd throw up my hands and walk out of the room. OK, we didn't really have rooms at Chiat, more like Yurt-like arenas, cordoned off with chiffon like veils that would have been equally at home at the Mondrian Hotel lobby on Sunset.

"Yes, of course. While shopping for tortilla chips people will scan the mile-long aisle of brightly colored bags and go with the one that celebrates memory-making moments with friends, family and loved ones."

Good night nurse, it's hard to listen to well-paid professional people talking that BS with a straight face.

BTW, I just discovered what I consider to be the best lime-flavored chips that no one, Particularly the folks at PepsiCo, have ever heard of. Salty, crispy and completely devoid of any fabricated "community-inspired, chip-eating"experience.

You are welcome.

You are welcome again: https://amzn.to/44uYpXd

The point is this, word choice and nomenclature are important. I was never sold on Planner or Strategist title. It's too declarative. Meaning once a brief has been decided on, or committed to paper, it was more like it came down from Mt. Sinai and been chiseled into stone. By a 27 year old Communications Major from the University of Colorado/Boulder.

For my money, these folks should be called Theorists. 

They have a theory on how to best solve a marketing problem. As such, they ought to be able to prove their theory. With passion. With focus groups. With unjustifiably-expensive quant and qual testing. 

You know, just like the creatives.