Take A Peck

As anyone who is interested in account planning knows, Russell Davies is the man. With his brilliant planning knowledge and British accent he’s basically a household name among planners. I try to read his blog every day and I’ve seen most of the stuff he has on his Account Planning School Of The Web. Yesterday I spent five minutes watching a video of him explaining how drawing a triangle is the best way to jump into a problem (and also look like you know what you’re doing even if you don’t).

In this video, he gives three examples of different triangles that can be used in thinking about a difficult problem. People think in 3s, he says, and triangles are a great way to visually show relationships between people, brands, products, etc.

Since I was inspired by the video, I came up with my own triangle, which can be used in discussing people’s reactions to a specific ad or campaign.

This triangle is useful (at least to me) in examining the relationships between how the advertising message makes people feel, what it makes them think, and how it makes them behave. For example, when I see CPB’s Burger King ad where the dude randomly squeaks, “I’m SPICY!!” I feel happy and I feel like doing something really random, too. I think it’s a cool ad, because it’s so unique. And my behavior is connected to my thoughts and feelings. At first I laughed but lately I’ve been imitating the guy. I’m SPICY! Yeah, I’m cool.

If the advertising message ilicits the intended thoughts, feelings and actions, then the advertising is doing it’s job. If not, well, it might be time for another triangle…

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