Wicked!

It was my girlfriend's birthday this past weekend and it proved a great excuse to indulge just a bit. I took her along to a Belgian Chocolate Making course on Sunday which was great fun. They talk you through the history and the process of making the best tasting chocolate ever, they have a professional chocolateer make truffles, caramel and chocolate in front of you which you then decorate in by dunking in bowls of warm chocolate and toppings etc. Stuffing myself with chocolate at 10.30am on a Sunday morning did make me feel a little queasy to start with, but I soon got into the swing of things! I would definitely recommend it to anyone who has a sweet tooth (a must). The other event of the weekend was a trip to the relatively new musical Wicked.... and I absolutely loved it! I've seen a number of the old classics but this trumped or equalled them all. If you haven't heard anything about it, the story is The Wizard of Oz story, as told from the Witches side. It was highly amusing, the music was catchy and vibrant, the acting was generally of a very high standard and the set was impressive. They even managed to pop in a bit of social comment about the insidious human trait of gaining and retaining power over a society via the identification and persecution of a minority group. A packed theatre and standing ovation at the end (it was a matinee performance) said it all.

Everyone wants Planners!

Everyone wants Planners!! Although this may not be exactly the case, there is certainly a rising clamor from an ever broadening vista of agencies from a range of different sectors for Planners. PR is certainly one of these and I have recently heard a few persuasive arguments that it could be a very interesting proposition for ambitious and innovative Planners. There is an argument that PR is positioned in an area of knowledge and experience when it comes to understanding and influencing the modern day consumer - empowered, opinioned and fickle.

It appears that the PR agencies’ methods of understanding and influencing the consumer are very different from many traditional agencies. PR agencies tend to substitute the more traditional methods of segmenting, watching and telling with listening to, learning and reacting. It is well documented and oft repeated that today’s consumers are constantly bombarded from all sides with brand messages day-in day-out so today’s challenge is to make your brand stand out, to be different and relevant. For PR it’s the how, where, when and through which channel which takes prevalence over the brand/story/message you are trying to communicate, and this seems utterly relevant for today’s consumer. This is not to mention the control they are able to exert over the media (the power of the written word still remains, even in today’s cynical world). For example, an ‘expert analyst’ of the FMCG sector stating that a certain company/brand has shown strong sales figures and brand loyalty in the past year surely holds far more power than the MD, or the Advertising campaign of said company claiming the same thing.

Does this mean that PR is at the cutting edge of marketing communications – and the cutting edge that all Planners should aspire to be at… or have I just been beguiled?!