Strategic planning

The strategic planning is a trade resulting from the Publicité. The strategic sailplane is the person charged to work out the communication strategies of a mark and to direct the creative execution of it. It is a very narrow professional market (40 to 50 people in France, five annual recruitments). There does not exist specific training, but that which resembles it more is the master Communication strategies of the Celsa. It is interesting to notice that the majority of the sailplanes in activity come from horizons as various as distant. With the daily newspaper, the trade requires a great general culture, a critical direction, a good editorial capacity, and it direction of the " air of the temps".

History and evolution

The strategic trade of sailplane was born in the London agencies in 1968, in particular at BMP (Boase Massimi Pollit) which were the first to develop an original methodology as regards advertizing creation that they called “strategic planning”.

This profession developed in the great advertizing agencies which gradually introduced this function into their flow chart in second half of the years 1980 in France.

These ten last years of the strategic sailplanes also appeared in the other agencies of communication (direct marketing, Internet…), and in the media (purchasing groups…)…

Description and missions

It is impossible to agree on only one and even definition of strategic planning, because one does not find two agencies where it is practiced same manner. To summarize, the stategic mission of the sailplane varies according to the sailplane which practices it, of the agency where it practices it, and of the importance which the executive team in place grants to him. Recent appearance of strategic sailplanes out of the agencies of communication (at the advertiser, in the agencies media, the offices of tendencies…) still more complicate the development of a definition which can include all the facets of this complex trade.

To obtain results on the sales, it is necessary to plan its strategy, to be right and creative on all the levels: consumer, mark, produced, communication. The strategic sailplane has as a main mission of making profitable its analysis studies consumers, its observation of the tendencies and its knowledge of the market in order to enrich the reflection by the advertisers upstream, and of collaborating downstream with the commercial ones and the creative ones in the development of the campaigns.

In detail:

The strategic sailplane can play a part of council near the advertiser. It makes futurology (tendencies, needs, innovations…) and acts as true strategist on the products and existing service S (main trends, renewals of form or basic of the speech, choice of the targets and the media…)

But he also plays a part of interface with the creative ones, giving them the keys of access so that they let work their imagination, then directs them in order to find those which will make it possible to establish connection with the consumers, to even create major, rich and durable bonds.

It transmits to them its vision of the consumer, the mark, the products, and the services.
It exploits the imaginary ambient one: the cinema, the literature, the design…
It switches the creative ones, their advises the options which seem to him most relevant, convenient, effective.

Even if, with final, it is the director of creation which has the last word on the countryside.

Although exchange in the strategic reflection, the sailplane is only one part of the puzzle which the development of a successful communication campaign constitutes. Certain agencies still occur from there, trustful with the their commercial and creative care to work out them same the strategy.

Competences and profile

Although rather resulting from literary studies, there does not exist of standard profile of the strategic sailplane. It is to be noticed that certain sailplanes became it after having been commercial, or creative in agencies of communication.

It must have a great sensitivity, imagination and a good amount of creative spirit. It must anticipate the tendencies and the behaviors, the " capter" in order to better use them.

For “humer” the tendencies, it will observe the consumers; and also to inquire by questioning specialists (sociologists, owners of companies…) and consumers in order to explain the various social phenomena and then to direct creation. Its tools are thus the tests, the investigations marketing… but also, and especially the observation in situ . It is necessary that it follows the topicality cinema, of literature (etc) as well as tendencies sociétales.

In short, it is necessary to be pragmatic, to like to discover new universes, to learn, include/understand, analyze and observe the behaviors of the consumers. To be flexible, critical, convincing and convinced, and sometimes impertinent, are essential qualities that must have a strategic sailplane.

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