Do good planners make good DJs? @jpmartzel puts strategic planning under the strobe light comparing it to the art of DJing

1. JEAN-PHILIPPE MARTZEL
Head of Strategic Planning, DigitasLbi France
@jpmartzel
HOW TO MAKE
CREATIVES
DANCE?

2. At the last agency party in
Paris, it just so happened that 2
of the 4 DJs were strategic
planners. As a planner myself,
and having once been half of a
dodgy DJ duo called « Why
Silicone? » I must admit to
being quite impressed by the
fact that 50% of the DJs at the
party came from a department
that represents only 2.5% of the
salary mass.

3. The DJ-planners put on a
thrilling performance. The
crowd responded positively to
their musical stimulii with
surges of emotion which they
expressed through cries of joy
and that particular form of non-
verbal communication that
exists between dancer and DJ:
the blissed-out smile.

4. Watching this moment of
intense communion it occured
to me that there exists,
between the praxes of the
planner and the DJ, an analogy
or « sympathy » in the sense
given to the word by French
philosopher Michel Foucault in
his book The Order of Things
(1966), something that « has
the dangerous power of
assimilating, of rendering
things identical to one another,
of mingling them, of causing
their individuality to
disappear. »
Michel Foucault

5. A 2008 text by Jean-Yves
Leloup (Sound-artist, DJ,
author and curator) about the
art of DJ-ing supports this
notion :
Radiomentale
"Beyond technique, a talented DJ must
propose a vision. One way to do this is to
make the turntables talk to each other, to
make the records sing, talking about yesterday
and today whilst composing a soundtrack on
the fly which invites clubbers, partygoers,
ravers and ordinary music lovers to dive in,
feel the vibe, and feel alive for just one night "
Jean-Yves Leloup

6. In my opinion, "vision", "talking
about yesterday and today",
"composing", "dive in, feel the vibe,
feel alive" are the same elements
that a good strategic planner
should provide for a creative team.
By confronting knowlege about the
consumer, the brand, the sector
and the marketing objectives, a
vision and strong conviction
manifests itself. It’s then
transformed into a creative brief
that should inspire and stimulate
the creative team to produce truly
innovative and engaging
communication for the brand.
Jean-Yves Leloup

7. "The mix is also the shock of
opposition, the art of collision and
the unexpected. The best DJs know
how to play contrasting tracks,
risking ruptures in the tone and
surprising the crowd but never
losing their attention. Because in the
end the mix is a dialogue between
the artist and their public ».
Jean-Yves Leloup
Finally, in the same way that DJs
search for the best transition
between songs to win over the
dancefloor, planners are always
looking for the best "strategic
angle" - the unexpected mix of
consumer insight and experience,
the rhythm of the brand with the
tone of the sector, resulting in an
unexpected juicy mix destined to
inspire creatives.

8. A good mix, a good brief.
A good brief is not simply the
retransmission of the client brief.
A good mix is not simply playing
records.
In both cases, the planner or DJ
dives in, opens up and performs
open-heart surgery. Each adds
external elements in order to
reveal a new form. These external
elements are traditionally human
in the case of strategic planning.
The planner introduces the human
experience of the consumer in
order to give the marketing
corpus the three-dimensionality it
needs.
"At the heart of an effective creative philosophy is the
belief that nothing is so powerful as an insight into
human nature, what compulsions drive a man, what
instincts dominate his action (...)".
Bill Bernbach.

9. A successful mix is also inherently
human. Without the human
intervention of the DJ it would
just be an abstract playlist that
could be played in your car or
living room. The act of mixing
gives it body, reveals its depth,
and invites the audience to
physically take part and enjoy.
And most importantly, there is a
point. The right mix gives birth to
a musical story that could last
several hours.

10. A musical story-telling.
A strategic story-telling.
In both cases all depends on
vision. A conviction born out
of the different elements
collected and around which
they agglomerate. It’s this idea
of musical or strategic purpose
which will be told to the
respective audience of dancers
or creative teams, inviting
them to join in, take ownership
and re-tell the story.

11. But all of this is only hypothetical
unless the respective audiences
adopt it and take ownership. It’s
evaluated in real-time. The dance
floor or the creative team will
receive it, judge it and decide
immediately if it’s a story worth
joining or if it’s a story they need
to spit back and reject. The wrong
transition or a bad consumer
insight can put everything out of
whack and kill the mood. It
becomes nothing. Apathy. Abject
failure.
A bad brief.
A bad mix.

12. DJ-ing like planning wasn’t born
yesterday. Both were born in an
analogue era yet show their
relevance in a digital world today.
From LPs to MP3s, the art of
mixing remains a vital discipline
fuelled by technology in which the
best practioners earn the status of
"musician". From TV ads to
connected objects, strategic
planning remains crucial to
surfacing the fundamental human
drivers from the depths of a
digital and interconnected world.
Giogio Maroder

13. Even though planning is
sometimes equipped with
unnecessary qualifiers such as
"digital" or "social" (equally
ridiculous would be "tablets-
DJs", "MP3-DJs" or "format-
neutral-DJs") it always carries
the responsibility to find insights
that will bring a human
dimension to big data which
otherwise is simply a vast stream
of numbers without meaning.
Giogio Maroder

14. To conclude, there are no new crazy theories or
justifications for this article. I just thought it could be
fun to put the "profession" of strategic planning
under the strobe light. Especially in France where
strategic planning can be a little hidden or
misunderstood even though there are many who
practice it with joy and commitment.

15. JEAN-PHILIPPE MARTZEL
HEAD OF STRATEGIC PLANNING, DIGITASLBI FRANCE
@JPMARTZEL