How to Understand Planners - No1

We planners are an unusual bunch, so with tongue slightly in cheek I thought it was time to start explaining some more about us to the creative and account types out there. A Haynes manual may or may not follow...

How to Understand Planners - No.1 (in a series of some)

"Planners are Basically Kids"

You know that phase kids go through when they never stop asking questions?

"Why is that thing Red? ... Why? ... But why? ... Whay's that? Where from? Why? Why?..."

Yeah, that's us; and we won't change. We always want to know something about everything and everything about something. The best planners never lose that hunger to find out more and more things about a client's product, brand, market, competitors, customers, etc. Some of us actually enjoy reading up on entirely random topics and random viewpoints to give ourselves a wider view of the world. A good planner can find something interesting in even the most boring of topics.

We often tend to have the kid like habit of remembering completely random and trivial bits of information that nobody else could find any use for, and then finding a way to make them relevant to something we are working on.

We also like to draw things despite not having developed (in most cases) the ability to draw. Hence we usually end up drawing charts, graphs or tables that we can then fill with the random information we piled up from asking endless questions.

That said, like kids we love creativity; the fun of making something and exploring things other people create is there within us. Most planners I know love things like music, design, art, architecture, fashion and so on. We can be bluntly objective sometimes, but I assure you that just because we don't copywrite or art direct does not mean we don't get it.