Once claiming his personal mission was to “survive advertising,” Pete Heskett, Southeast Asia Planning director of JWT, may well be one of the best sources of inspiration for budding planners.
In The Planning Lab, Heskett advises adventurous planners to be global in outlook and orientation, to conjure cosmopolitan ideas that focus not just on brand diversity, but on cross-cultural connections brands inspire.
“Great planners are voracious consumers of culture in all its shapes and colours,” Heskett writes.
As planners are prone to be lackluster outside of their expertise, Heskett drills the importance of taking another look at the other aspects of advertising. He specifically cites his own inspiration, Pau Yi Min of PPGroup Taiwan, whose agency requires all staff to be a producer at some point.
Heskett has seen the demise of a number good communications and marketing ideas from planners. “If planners could learn to become producers, then the sky is the limit. We wouldn’t have to call it Planning anymore,” he adds.
