Understanding Strategic Planning: What would you ask?

By Alex Goh,
Associate Strategic Planning Director,
M&C Saatchi, Kuala Lumpur

You’ve been briefed to come up with a
communications plan for a
Outline the steps you would take from that briefing to
response and what the final output might include.
“
”
new product launch.
UNDERSTANDING STRATEGIC PLANNING: Question 1
Image credit: http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2013/02/26/grocerygirl_wide-2a46dd8052c534f1dc04f3fbdb65647ff28e2210.jpg

(Most likely a) BRAND EXTENSION
The focus here is on leveraging the existing equity of
the current brand name.
A thorough understanding and assessment of the
brand equity is thus crucial.
(Most likely a) LINE/PRODUCT EXTENSION
Thus, we are probably looking at getting existing
customers to buy more, or to attract new customer
segments.
existing/new customer segments is crucial.
MARKET PIONEER
Interested in being the first-mover, a thorough
understanding across category, competitve,
consumer and brand is crucial.
A key factor to consider is whether the category we’re
looking at involves high vs. low involvement decision
making, and whether the category presents low vs.
high barriers to entry.
NEW MARKET ENTRANT
The idea here is likely to be focused on getting a slice
of the action (or increasing group market share) by
taking advantage of an unmet need or an attempt to
translate market leadership elsewhere into the new
market (superior product or strong resources).
A thorough understanding of the category dynamics is
crucial.
ALEX GOH
EXISTING BRAND NEW BRAND
EXISTINGCATEGORYNEWCATEGORY
The development of all communication plans will
require delving into category, consumer, competitor
and brand dynamics.
As the scope of coverage is rather extensive (and time
always a luxury), by first identifying the nature of the
product launch (with the simple 2X2 matrix below), it
will help define a focus area to dedicate our efforts
into.
By first identifying the nature
of the product launch, it will
help define a focus area to
dedicate our efforts into.


The development of all communication plans will
require delving into category, consumer, competitor
and brand dynamics.
As the scope of coverage is rather extensive (and time
always a luxury), by first identifying the nature of the
product launch (with the simple 2X2 matrix below), it
will help define a focus area to dedicate our efforts
into.
(Most likely a) BRAND EXTENSION
The focus here is on leveraging the existing equity of
the current brand name.
brand equity is thus crucial.
(Most likely a) LINE/PRODUCT EXTENSION
Thus, we are probably looking at getting existing
customers to buy more, or to attract new customer
segments.
existing/new customer segments is crucial.
MARKET PIONEER
Interested in being the first-mover, a thorough
understanding across category, competitve,
consumer and brand is crucial.
A key factor to consider is whether the category we’re
looking at involves high vs. low involvement decision
making, and whether the category presents low vs.
high barriers to entry.
NEW MARKET ENTRANT
The idea here is likely to be focused on getting a slice
of the action (or increasing group market share) by
taking advantage of an unmet need or an attempt to
translate market leadership elsewhere into the new
market (superior product or strong resources).
A thorough understanding of the category dynamics is
crucial.
ALEX GOH
By first identifying the nature
of the product launch, it will
help define a focus area to
dedicate our efforts into.

EXISTING BRAND NEW BRAND
EXISTINGCATEGORYNEWCATEGORY
Assuming the most
typical scenario…

INVOLVEMENT: Project leader/Planner
or delegated across Brand Management
and Planning.
OBJECTIVE: To collate all applicable
info resources and initiate setup work for
keystone research pieces, with a focus
on developing a consumer segmentation
model.
DELIVERABLES:
Key findings across category,
competitor, consumer, and brand
Keystone research: Agency analysis of
proprietary info – best practices and
access to thought leaders across the
network, Agency consumer and/or
expert research.
Secondary analysis: Analysis of all
available and applicable secondary
resources – e.g. trend and category
reports, analyst reports, ad banks, client
proprietary consumer research, etc
ALEX GOH
1. DISCOVER

2. DEFINE

3. DEVELOP

Client review and approval

4. DELIVER

5. DIAGNOSE

As with any and all processes, this flow
is merely a starting point. Adaptations
to each unique situation will likely have
to be made, subject to available time,
resources and expectations.
The focus for Stage 1: Discover is:
•  To identify, collate and bank-up all
available resources and information
•  To q u i c k l y d e t e r m i n e t h e
informational needs that are also the
most time consuming (e.g. research
setup; Agency network reach-out)
and get this activated first.
To quickly determine
the informational
needs that are also
t h e m o s t t i m e
consuming, and get
this activated first.


ALEX GOH
The focus for Stage 2: Define is:
•  To capture immediate team
impressions (individual-by-individual)
before the potential for groupthink
sets in.
•  With preliminary findings from Stage
1: Discover, to discuss and align on
possible communication territories to
explore with the team. Early
alignment (aka “buy-in”) is crucial
here especially when time is a
constraint and multiple initiatives
needs to happen in parallel.
•  To strive to be as “inspiring” as
possible – to ask oneself: “What is
the smartest bit of thinking, I can
share?” Getting the right spark going
here can make a big difference to the
end outcome.
INVOLVEMENT: Project leader and
Planner (with Creative consult).
OBJECTIVE: To develop a meaningful
“challenge” for the creative team to
undertake.
DELIVERABLES:
•  (If applicable) New product orientation
– gets the project team started to
think about the task
•  “The Brief” – with a clear
communications challenge, a desired
consumer outcome to heighten
prospect of sales conversion and the
product proposition (key message)
behind the consumer idea.
•  “The proposition”: Made relevant to
the identified consumer segment
opportunity identified in Stage 1:
Discover
[OPTIONAL] A Creative briefing
experience can be developed to best
bring-to-life the proposition (e.g. if it’s
something to do with “acceleration”, a
trip to the theme park for a roller-coaster
ride may be a good jump-starter)

To ask oneself: “What
is the smartest bit of
thinking, I can share?”

1. DISCOVER

2. DEFINE

3. DEVELOP

4. DELIVER

5. DIAGNOSE


ALEX GOH
The focus for Stage 3: Develop is:
•  To define and jointly develop a “Big
idea” – a communications platform
with the ideation potential to be
brought to life in multiple ways -
leveraging multiple senses and
multiple channels.
•  Starting point: “Big ideas” tend to be
centred around brand beliefs and/or
taking a point-of-view on an issue of
consumer interest.
•  To evaluate “Big ideas” against its
potential to: (i) offer something of
value to the target consumers, (ii) be
participative and (iii) be an open
p l a t f o r m f o r p a r t n e r s h i p s /
collaborations.
INVOLVEMENT: Creative (with Brand
Management and Planning consult);
partner agencies (Media, Digital,
Activation, PR, etc); other potential
collaborators
OBJECTIVE: To develop the overall
creative concept that becomes the basis
for a total launch communications plan
DELIVERABLES: Concept
communication plan featuring a “Big”
campaign idea and integrated
manifestations across relevant Paid,
Earned and Owned channels.
Where applicable, other potential brand
partnerships/collaborations can also be
explored at this stage.
DISCOVER

DEFINE

DEVELOP


DELIVER

DIAGNOSE

“Big” ideas tend to be
centred around brand
beliefs and/or taking a
point-of-view on an
issue of consumer
interest.

ALEX GOH
The focus for Stage 4: Deliver is:
•  Following client review and approval,
to bring to life the approved
communications plan, on-brief, on
time and on budget.
INVOLVEMENT: Brand Management,
Creative (with Planning consult),
relevant production and media partners,
client team, brand partners/collaborators
(if applicable)
OBJECTIVE: To bring to life the
approved communications plan, on-brief,
on time and on budget.
DELIVERABLES: Moving from concept
to production – delivering the envisioned
brand experience to the target
consumer, across pre-defined channels.
[OPTIONAL] Subject to availability of
real-time campaign analytics (or in
response to immediate consumer
response), on-the-fly tweaks to
campaign messaging/execution may be
necessary and/or worth exploring.
DISCOVER

DEFINE

DEVELOP


DELIVER

DIAGNOSE

On-brief, on time and
on budget.

ALEX GOH
The focus for Stage 5: Diagnose is:
•  To develop a feedback loop to
ensure continuous learning.
•  Post-campaign learning can involve
revisiting the campaign development
process, comparing the execution
plan vs. outcome, and obtaining
direct consumer feedback/response
to the campaign.
•  Scale of “diagnosis” can be tailored
according to campaign size and
a v a i l a b l e r e s o u r c e s ( s e e
“Deliverables”) – the goal here is to
ensure at least some post-campaign
reflection is initiated.
INVOLVEMENT: Most effective if it’s a
Client-led evaluation; with Brand
Management and Planning consult for
tracking setup and analysis.
OBJECTIVE: To glean learnings, post-
campaign, for general team learnings,
future implementation and/or campaign
evolutions.
DELIVERABLES: Can be as advanced
as a quantitatively-driven campaign
performance dashboard (brand and
business) or involving a simple
stakeholder campaign evaluation
template complemented by a consumer
dipstick and digital metrics, to measure
against campaign objectives.
DISCOVER

DEFINE

DEVELOP


DELIVER

DIAGNOSE

The goal here is to
ensure at least some
p o s t - c a m p a i g n
reflection is in place.

ALEX GOH
You’ve been appointed the primary brand
consultant for a major international finance
institution that would like to penetrate the local
Malaysian market with a
1.  What would you advise it to do?
2.  How would you segment and target a specific audience?
3.  What would your brand strategy focus on?
4.  What would be your single-minded proposition?
5.  How would you create an impact in a saturated market with many
established players?
new banking brand.
“
”Image credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/ampamuka/

ALEX GOH
Our starting point matters –
and starting from an end
outcome is a good one.
So, lets start with a hypothesis
of an opportunity area to
create impact and work our
way upwards (through the
questions). Our efforts to
confirm or debunk the
hypothesis will ultimately edge
us closer to the eventual, final
destination.
Starting from the end.

The responses above assumes:
•  Time-to-market of approx. 6 months
•  “New banking brand” to be introduced does not currently exists in any other international markets.
•  As a major international finance institution, there will be existing, pre-defined parent brand guidelines for the new banking brand to reflect.
When the category dynamics changes,
new opportunities arise
Saturated markets, with many established players
inadvertently result in one thing: consolidation – a trend we
are starting to see take shape in the Malaysian banking
scene. Consolidation results in outcomes that can be
converted into opportunities for a new banking brand.
Impact comes from exerting the most
force in the smallest area
Considering the nature of personal and business finance,
there’s bound to be customer inertia when looking to trigger
a switch. So start small and start strong.
As the banking industry consolidates further, the gap
between the biggest and smallest player widens. As the
bigger players gets bigger, it will start to raise the appeal of
smaller banks. And a new banking brand will be exactly that
– small in size (at least, initially).
ALEX GOH
5. How would you create an impact
in a saturated market with many
4. What would be your single-
minded proposition?
3. What would your brand strategy
focus on?
2. How would you segment and
target a specific audience?
1. What would you advise it to do?

Turn a weakness, into a strength
The appeal of “small banks” isn’t about its size per se. Small
is fast. Small is personal. Small is unique (think: Apple circa
1998-2000).
Proposition by taking a position
To sum this up – “small” has a better chance of standing for
“Quality”; something that tends to suffer as banks
consolidate and therein, our opportunity.
To note: The above is merely a defined consumer territory to
explore further at depth. Consumer research will come in
handy here to deep dive and aid in the process of defining
what “quality banking” means to people.
ALEX GOH
minded proposition?
focus on?

Every opportunity has its challenges
The brand strategy will be focused on resolving the following
branding challenge: being part of a major international
finance institution, the parent brand itself will be big. How
then can a BIG bank, also act small?
Going beyond brand-as-identity: Above and beyond
developing communications that lives up to this mantra,
more importantly, we will require establishing a working
process with the client’s cross-functional teams to ideate
means of “acting small” across every single brand
touchpoint – Product, Customer Service, HR, Sales, etc.
External success comes from
internal clarity
To incentivise cross-departmental efforts towards being “on-
brand”, shared accountability is key - a single organisation-
wide tracking dashboard should be proposed.
Essentially, it’s a Total Customer Journey Map that
measures the brand’s performance – across criteria that
defines “quality banking”, measured across all of the brand’s
major touchpoints.
ALEX GOH
minded proposition?
focus on?

Are people looking for another bank?
For most, it’s likely “No.” Be it personal or business banking,
the brand-customer relationship is likely to be typified as
being low involvement and low motivation (think public
utilities and petrol choice). Consequently, most interactions
between brand and customer could be described as
“transactional.”
In such relationships, customer inertia (to switch) would be
high making a non-targeted/blanket approach expensive
and ineffective.
Banking on customer pain
Thus, any segmentation approach should focus, NOT on
segmenting the universe of bankable customers, but
reaching out and segmenting the small group of dissatisfied
banking customers – the group most likely to switch in the
short- to medium-term.
Consequently, our targeting approach is less about
channels but about the right messaging - by appealing to
address popular customer pain points with current banks,
the target audience most likely to switch would naturally be
most sensitive to our brand and product messaging.
ALEX GOH
minded proposition?
focus on?

Start with what we do know
We’ll start by extensively mapping out existing informational
resources (both Agency and Client) – creating a “knowledge
bank” of Known Knowns. This will cover:
•  Market: Global and local trends
•  Product: “New bank” product story
•  Consumer: Factors driving smiles and frowns
•  Competitor: Brand perceptions and product offering
•  Client: Stakeholder inclinations (if any)
Identify and acquire Known Unknowns
The above will aid us in identifying what the informational
gaps are in defining the existing brand landscape and
market positioning opportunities available. Solutions then to
be sought to fill those informational gaps (customised vs.
off-the-shelf insights; expert vs. consumer interviews)
Analysis into the merged knowledge banks (known knowns
and known unknowns) should provide a holistic view and
allow for the Agency and Client team to jointly map out the
territories available, competitive density for each territory
and where our new banking brand has the best chance to
make a valuable difference.
ALEX GOH
minded proposition?
focus on?

“
”
Highlight a recent communications campaign
that in your opinion has been highly effective
and proven to change consumer behaviour.
List reasons why you deem it effective and
what the possible consumer insight might have
been.
recent communications campaign
ALEX GOH
Image credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/je4vo1/

ALEX GOH
Why was it effective? •  Self-advertising idea: With the intent to promote its limited edition designer
collection, it developed an idea that literally advertised itself (generating massive
free publicity) and was in tune with how its new generation of shoppers (to whom
a designer collection is most likely to appeal to) are shopping for the home.
•  Provided an utility to the customer: IKEA manages to create a digital version
of its popular catalogue with zero production budget. On top of that, the digital
version actually does come across as an enhanced version of the catalogue,
through the featuring of customer ideas, as inspiration.
•  Drove brand engagement: Got Instagram followers to enhance the value of the
“website” – by getting followers to tag how they’ve used the IKEA items (value in
“showing off”), IKEA is able to also offer a stream of user-generated interior
design ideas for other followers on how they can use the IKEA items in their
homes or offices (value through “inspiration”), thus increasing the appeal of the
products.
Possible consumer
insights
•  Product meets People: Was inspired by and aligned to the broader positioning
platform of “Always on the move”- a theme set to capture the modularity of its
products and the physical and mental mobility of its target audience.
Consequently, use of a mobile platform was a natural fit.
•  Relevance to the buying process: Evolves with how its target audience is
shopping for home products – through searching for inspiration via visual boards
like Instagram and Pinterest.
•  Designed for Instagram: When it comes to “visual boards” like Instagram,
effective channel use means aligning the idea strongly to the channel’s core
benefit to its users: self-promotion and self-improvement. IKEA’s “Instagram
website” idea manages to achieve both.
Example of an effective
and behaviour-changing
comms campaign
IKEA PS 2014 Instagram Website (see: http://goo.gl/vaHu8Q)

ALEX GOH
What is your favourite brand? Why is it so? What
brand building / communications principles can you
learn from this brand?“
”
favorite brand

Why is it so? •  Self-disruptive: For its ability to see ahead, to get out of its comfort zone and
disrupt its own business – evolving from a successful DVD-by-mail business to
being a full-fledged digital TV entertainment company
•  For challenging what’s possible: For when the cost of home broadband are in
the double-digits and a constant stream of cable/satellite entertainment could be
in the triple digits, Netflix keeps its subscription cost within the single-digit whilst
still sustaining a massive content library and the development of exclusive
content (e.g. “House of Cards”; “Orange is the New Black”)
•  For challenging norms: For managing to use scale so that “affordable” doesn’t
translate into “average” – its original content being nominated for 31 Emmy
awards in 2014
•  Greatness inside: Netflix uploaded what is probably SlideShare’s most viewed
(viral?) PowerPoint deck on the “Netflix Culture” which details its HR practices
that created the environment that accounts for its success. The quality of its
content speaks for itself – whilst it’s longer than it needs to be (126 slides) and
features a generous use of bullet points, it has garnered almost 9 million views.
What is your favourite
brand?
What brand building /
communications
principles can you learn
from this brand?
•  FOCUS: The importance of focus – do one (or a few) things excellently, rather
than many things averagely. Because almost always, excellent execution with a
mediocre strategy wins out against an excellent strategy with mediocre
execution.
•  VALUE: In such a cluttered world - with thousands of communication stimulus
vying for our attention – to stand out, one will have to focus on evolving from
developing just an advertising idea, to an idea worth advertising. Strive to deliver
a fair exchange for people’s time and attention.
•  PEOPLE: The investment into the brand starts and ends with the investment into
“People” - getting ones “house in order”, and thus the importance of internal
culture communications is probably one of the most under-leveraged areas of
differentiation for any brand.
ALEX GOH

What is your favourite
brand?
Why is it so?
What brand building /
communications
principles can you learn
from this brand?
•  FOCUS: The importance of focus – do one (or a few) things excellently, rather
than many things averagely. Because almost always, excellent execution with a
mediocre strategy wins out against an excellent strategy with mediocre
execution.
•  VALUE: In such a cluttered world - with thousands of communication stimulus
vying for our attention – to stand out, one will have to focus on evolving from
developing just an advertising idea, to an idea worth advertising. Strive to deliver
a fair exchange for people’s time and attention.
•  PEOPLE: The investment into the brand starts and ends with the investment into
“People” - getting ones “house in order”, and thus the importance of internal
culture communications is probably one of the most under-leveraged areas of
differentiation for any brand.
See trailer:
“House of Cards”
http://goo.gl/9CDqI
See trailer:
“Orange is the
New Black”
http://goo.gl/WYge9
See: “Netflix Culture”
on SlideShare
http://goo.gl/Bb4vfo
ALEX GOH

Understanding Strategic Planning: What would you ask?

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