Hi friend – Rob here.

Today in Salmon Theory+: a summary of 'A Masterclass In Brand Planning', by Judie Lannon and Mary Baskin.

(Inspired by the works of the one and only Stephen King, the strategist guy, not the horror guy.)

This book has reduced my anxiety reading the trade publications by about 90%.

Let me explain.

You know how every now and then the narrative comes around to 'a big new problem'?

Well, this book puts any 'big new problems' into perspective because these were the problems being discussed in... the 1960s.

The role of strategy, what a brand is, how to do integration, ways to think about effectiveness, all of the things we still worry about.

This book gives you the right mental models to slot lots of new problems and simplify them so you can then try to solve them.

Martin Weigel argued recently the JWT Planning Guide is the only guide you ever needed.

If you want a book-shaped similar recommendation, this would be my item of choice.

Let's get into it.

📝 TL;DR:

1. Focus on what comes out, not what goes in
2. Look at impact as well as impressions
3. Every brand has layers of meaning and memory
4. Think defensively, not just offensively
5. Wrap best practices in best judgement
6. Start with the whole, then break down the parts
7. Human truths are the ‘what’, cultural truths are the ‘how’

1. Focus on what comes out, not what goes in

This is probably one of my most mentioned bits of wording at work in recent years.

Don't worry about what ads do to people, worry about what people do with ads.

This doesn't mean "talk about them", which is rare (but not impossible).

It literally means what do they do with ads in their minds, before all else.

Or, in other words: what we say is not always what people take away.

You gotta ask yourself:

Do people notice the advert?

Recall the brand behind it?

Register its message?

Reinforce or change their attitudes?

Recall it at key in-market moments?

Feel compelled to act on any of the above?

Consider this ad by B&Q and Uncommon Creative Studio:

You probably don't get to work like this by imposing on the creatives that you need four words, a logo, and a visual metaphor, it's a morale killer.

But i can imagine the brief was quite simply: "people are afraid to do DIY until they have an actual tool in their hands, then it becomes less scary".

And boom, the products are now the gateway to going from "can't do" to "can do".

See the difference?

Worrying about the types of ads we do is the creative's job (means).

Worrying about what those ads do is the strategist's job (ends).

Proceed accordingly.

2. Look at impact as well as impressions

I was recently chatting to Joe Burns about comms planning, and he had a cool way of looking at it.

His thesis: comms planning comes before the idea, media planning comes after the idea.

I quite like this.

Comms planning is about understanding people's mental and emotional barriers, and designing a blueprint to overcome them.

Then the idea needs to flex across those different barriers while being consistent, relevant, yet distinctive.

And then the media planning is where you have more granular channel considerations and efficiency-type chats.

Here's the thing though: if you start with the media planning alone, it's easy to look at where you get cheap impressions and call it a day.

Without considering you may have a comms planning job around trust, or credibility, or reinforcing price premium perceptions.

In which case, you need an idea that lands that, and you need a media plan which is less about cheap inventory, and more about costly signalling.

But you can't get to that before doing the comms planning analysis, which informs the idea, which then informs the media.

In other words: you need to combine impressions with impact, otherwise you get something that saves you money, but may not work.

And by the way, there's more to comms planning than simply doing v764 of this (also via Joe Burns):

3. Every brand has layers of meaning and memory

Back in my VCCP days (some *checks notes* ~35 days ago), we'd talk a lot about three core areas of a brand showing up.

Communications, distribution, and experience.

Now, you can split it however you want (everything is communication, yadayada), but this helped me a lot to see the macro view of things.

And it relates to the above quote in that senses, reason and emotions get dialled up in different ways.

Communications (e.g. message) and distribution (e.g. media) tend to lead with emotion, followed by reason, not so much the senses.

Experience (e.g. retail, product) tends to lead with the senses, followed by emotions and reason.

I purposefully left reason for last on all (despite what people will say in research), but the point is simple.

All brands are born of some sort of truth or functional bit, but what really matters is the layers of what you add on top.

The layer of meaning, whereby you attribute the brand importance beyond the thing it does (e.g. stop you feeling hungry).

And the layer of memory, whereby the totality of emotion, reason and senses make you more likely to encode, store and recall what that brand is about.

Ideally, memory that is associated with particular entry points which correlate (and possibly predict) future purchase decisions.

That'd be nice, wouldn't it.

4. Think defensively, not just offensively

This feels like one of the most under-discussed topics around the role of advertising, especially for big brands.

When i worked on Cadbury, one of the big lessons i heard was the role of having 'new news' through new activations and the occasional NPD.

Which led to lovely, and highly effective, campaigns like this one:

Part of it was because of end consumers having something new to try, which grows penetration (or in some cases reduces penetration drops).

But the real kicker was that it was a way to get the retailers to keep giving them shelf space, because novelty creates a reason to stay visible.

In other words, for leading brands the role of advertising might be as defensive (protect what's there) as it is offensive (gain what's not).

Meaning: it exists to continue securing what's already there (shelf space, salience, etc), in order for competitors to not take it instead.

This became a fundamental part of how i see the role of advertising for brands, especially in relation to other things like product and distribution.

Now, this doesn't give you an excuse to not be creative anyway, because creativity can boost difference, meaning and salience.

And those, in turn (and in varying degrees depending on the category), can grow your pricing power.

In other words, proper advertising gives you a bigger chance of profit share growth, not just volume growth (which you can get by discounting like hell).

Think of advertising as a defensive move, not just an offensive mode, in order to (ironically, or not) defend your own bottom line.

5. Wrap best practices in best judgement

Judgement will always be more important than technique – especially true in a world increasingly ruled by Generative AI.

Once you think of Generative AI and its role in strategy as that of, er, generating things, you realise its power is predominantly technical (for now).

You ask for domain expertise on a topic (e.g. what SEA farmers care about), and it delivers, though there are limitations.

Namely, that the data it's drawing from is imperfect, irrational, incomplete, because the humans who produced it are those things too.

So, assuming said data is actually legit (a hygiene factor), it's based on laws of averages and therefore unlikely to give you competitive advantage.

But you know what gives you competitive advantage?

It's not the cacophony of Generative AI data.

It's good ol' judgement and common sense and yes some creativity on top of what is fundamentally a mathematical bruce force exercise.

Things your brain can apply and reframe on top of the barrage of information that Generative AI can give you.

To be clear, i have also used Generative AI to help me decide on a situation, and to justify its decisions.

And you know what, it's pretty good at that type of logic, most of the time!

What's interesting is what happens when you apply your own judgement on top of what the logical thing might be.

Who knows, you may end up with, as Rory Sutherland says, psycho-logic.

Often the best kind.

6. Start with the whole, then break down the parts

One of the first things i learned by following Dave Trott's writing is the importance of gestalt.

"A school of psychology that emphasises the processing of entire patterns and configurations, and not merely individual components", per Wikipedia.

And this is fundamentally how people understand brands, products or services, and indeed communications.

Yes, there are biases at play (e.g. peak/end rule), but they essentially colour what we perceive to be the entire thing.

At a macro level, this is why a terrible customer experience might be enough to not believe what a brand says in their ads, even if the ads are lovely.

But even at a more micro level, it dictates how people perceive ads and other forms of communications in the first place.

Unlike us in a meeting room, they're not deconstructing the endline, and how it relates to the headline, and what the visual does to reinforce it.

They see something at a glance, in a matter of seconds, and register a full impression of some kind of what they saw.

Of course, this isn't an excuse to not care about craft, and those details can matter.

But it is a warning sign to not over-worry that people will scrutinise them as we inevitably do.

Someone recently told me that it's possible the best way to present an ad to a client is as follows:

1. Say you're gonna present an ad
2. Show the ad for 1-2 seconds, tops
3. Hide it again, and ask for feedback

Or, if you want the social or mobile friendly version:

1. Say you're gonna present an ad
2. Pass them a phone, get them to scroll past it in a feed
3. Lock the phone, and ask for feedback

Because let's be honest, this is what the real world will ever experience 90%+ of the time.

7. Human truths are the 'what', cultural truths are the 'how'

This is an eternal debate when it comes to global work vs local.

To what extent do we need global CMOs vs local ones?

Where does global oversight end and local autonomy begin?

I like how simply the above is laid out as human truths and cultural truths.

How i see them being different:

• Human truths are universal and foundational
• Cultural truths are more local and contextual

Interestingly, another way of looking at it is by looking at ends vs means as well.

Human truths are end states, things we all ultimately aspire to somehow.

But cultural truths are more practical in 'how' you might fulfil those ambitions.

So for example, ambition to do better than our parents did feels universal enough.

But this may be achieved in different ways:

• If you're in Middle America, the way to get there might be through greater financial stability
• If you're in Mainland China, the way to get there might be through a high-status job
• If you're in Metropolitan Germany, the way to get there might be through better work-life balance

Of course, these need vetting through primary research, but they're different means to achieve the same end.

A neat example of this to finish us off: MWcDonald's.

• (Possible) Human truth: A recognisable brand creates a sense of belonging
• (Possible) Cultural truth: A kawaii twist makes the McDonald's experience taste better

And that's one way of simplifying the age old question of the role of global vs local in marketing communications.

(By throwing some kick-ass burger and anime references at the problem, of course.)

📝 TL;DR:

1. Focus on what comes out, not what goes in
2. Look at impact as well as impressions
3. Every brand has layers of meaning and memory
4. Think defensively, not just offensively
5. Wrap best practices in best judgement
6. Start with the whole, then break down the parts
7. Human truths are the ‘what’, cultural truths are the ‘how’