Planning for the Best: Darby Hughes on the '3 Truths' Framework

Darby leads Pavone Group’s account planning team using an innovative mix of custom and integrated market research combined with category, consumer and cultural insights to develop briefs that guide all creative and communications efforts. His experience spans a diverse list of industry verticals and clients, from Yuengling, Labatt, Seagram’s, Sun-Maid, Turkey Hill, The Hershey Company, Fulton Financial, Mount Nittany Health and many more. 

LBB> What do you think is the difference between a strategist and a planner? Is there one?

Darby> That’s a great question, as many use the terms interchangeably - and agencies sure do love lots of titles. Typically, a planner represents the consumer (or customer’s) interests and point-of-view in a given assignment, whereas a strategist represents the business and brand’s interests. But, undoubtedly, those lines are blurred - and they should be! How can either a strategist or a planner be as effective as possible without understanding all the dynamics and all points-of-view in play?

LBB> And which description do you think suits the way you work best?

Darby> This Q&A is tougher than an undergrad exam! If I had to choose, I’d say planner, as my job is consumer-focused, first and foremost. But don’t get me wrong, I spend just as much time thinking about our client’s business, business model, channels, innovations, media mix, etc.

Perhaps the best description of how I work (and best compliment that I’ve ever received professionally) was from our current ECD: “You’re not a planner. You’re a creative in planner’s clothing.”

LBB> We’re used to hearing about the best creative advertising campaigns, but what’s your favourite historic campaign from a strategic perspective? One that you feel demonstrates great strategy?

Darby> The National Safety Council’s ‘Prescribed To Death’ campaign didn’t just have stopping power, it punched me in the gut. I’ve seen countless, nameless, statistically driven initiatives that delivered facts at the expense of a real, human problem. With this campaign, I like to think the brief pointed out these well-intended, but fallen flat, approaches to bringing awareness to community health issues. Prescribed To Death didn’t create an ad, they created a memorial that carved the faces of 22,000 victims of prescription opioid overdoses on the very pills that claimed their lives too soon. The combination of strategy, creativity, technology and PR support was incredible from start to finish. It demonstrates one of the challenges I pose to myself and the agency frequently, “Don’t just make ads. Make it real.”

LBB> When you’re turning a business brief into something that can inform an inspiring creative campaign, what do you find the most useful resource to draw on?

Darby> Conversations. It doesn’t need to be in an artificial focus group environment with strangers across five cities, with a tray of sandwiches either. It can be conversations in a Reddit community, a stranger on the street, or a friend of a friend that has a meaningful connection to the challenge at hand. It’s in these conversations that you hear what they really are thinking, feeling and doing beyond what a forced choice-scaled question in an online survey can do alone. Don’t get me wrong, I rely on traditional qualitative and quantitative research techniques like the rest of us. But conversations are king.

LBB> What part of your job/the strategic process do you enjoy the most?

Darby> I have two, actually. The first is finding an insight or truth so powerful and thought-provoking, that you can’t help but think of all the possibilities that it can inspire. That insight or truth might be a category insight, a brand insight, a competitive insight, cultural insight or a combo thereof. When you find it, you can’t stop thinking about it even after you go home and try to sleep.

My second favourite part of the process is the collaboration with the creative team not just before and during the briefing, but after. Martin Weigel wrote 'The Planner’s Manifesto' in 2010, and it’s still as relevant today as it was when it was drafted. In that manifesto, I’ve always latched onto the concept of “don’t brief and run.” Nothing is more energising than working with a team to bring the idea to life. And nothing is more deflating than pouring your heart and soul into a brief and not being able to impact what is done with it. Bottom line, planners: never brief and run.

LBB> What strategic maxims, frameworks or principles do you find yourself going back to over and over again? Why are they so useful?

Darby> I keep going back to the 'three Truths' framework time and time again. In short, it ensures your strategy aligns with a brand truth, consumer truth and a cultural truth. An effective strategy will fall short if it doesn’t deliver on the intersection of those.

The other framework I’ve been digging lately is compliments of Julian Cole, and helps navigate the complexity of simultaneously solving a business challenge and a consumer one. It’s called 'Nested Strategy.' If you want to learn more, you’ll have to sign up for Cole’s Strategy Finishing School.

LBB> What sort of creatives do you like to work with? As a strategist, what do you want them to do with the information you give them?

Darby> I love working with creative teams that knock at my metaphorical door from the onset and want to be involved with the brief development process. Those same creatives are often the ones who are just as collaborative after the briefing. I often think of the planning team as members of the creative department and vice versa. I’ve seen too many agencies who take the concept of 'team' and apply it exclusively to their own department. We’d all be better if we reframed our concept of team and collaborated more.

LBB> There’s a negative stereotype about strategy being used to validate creative ideas, rather than as a resource to inform them and make sure they’re effective. How do you make sure the agency gets this the right way around?

Darby> I’ve experienced this countless times. Sometimes on the winning end and sometimes on the losing end. There’s no secret sauce to ensure strategy serves as a guide as opposed to supporting self-serving confirmation bias. I think it all comes down to the personality and working relationship between strategy and creative. No process in the world will work with the wrong people in any seat.

LBB> What have you found to be the most important consideration in recruiting and nurturing strategic talent?

Darby> From a recruiting perspective, I’ve found tremendous success with hiring individuals with a background in journalism. They’re naturally inquisitive, aren’t afraid to talk to strangers, and fully immerse themselves in the given subject matter.

From a nurturing perspective, I tell my team frequently, “I want you to take my job someday.” and “You know things I don’t know. Teach me something.” It puts us on a level playing field and encourages collaboration, vulnerability and bravery – essential skills to grow in the discipline.

LBB> In recent years it seems like effectiveness awards have grown in prestige, and agencies have paid more attention to them. How do you think this has impacted  how strategists work and the way they are perceived?

Darby> You make an important distinction there - efficacy. I admire creatively driven awards as much as the next ad industry professional - but if the work didn’t work, why would we celebrate it? Of course, creative and efficacy aren’t mutually exclusive. Sometimes great creative doesn’t work and effective work isn’t all that creative. I still feel like the industry is preferential to creative-driven awards, but awards like the Effies and Jay Chiat Awards? Creativity and efficacy shine through from start to finish. I love how those awards, specifically, celebrate the role of the strategists and planners in the work. It helped to remind me, personally, that strategists are creative, too, in their own right. We just use different tools.

LBB> Do you have any frustrations with planning/strategy as a discipline?

Darby> First, I find clients from time to time want to buy off on creative without strategy. This isn’t an à la carte offering, as the two need to work together. But sometimes folks, internally and externally, treat it as such.

Secondarily, planning and strategy aren’t a 9 to 5 job. You are always 'on the clock.' Like it or love it, the challenges you are trying to solve haunt you all day and night. But on the flipside, once you’ve unearthed something, you’re bubbling with excitement and possibilities. My wife would begrudgingly tell you just how many times she’s caught me daydreaming when she tries to initiate a conversation: “Did you hear me? Are you thinking about work again?” Me: Yes.

LBB> What advice would you give to anyone considering a career as a strategist/planner?

Darby> Collect campaigns like you collect ideas on a Pinterest board. Save them in a folder, three-ring binder or a Google Slides doc. But don’t just collect them; analyse them and break them down into what you believe the brief was - from challenge, consumer, consumer problem, insight, reasons-to-believe and executional decisions. This can help you build a book when you don’t have a book, as most aspiring planners don’t have a book like those out of advertising/art school.

Be curious. Be brave. Ask questions. Share ideas. Keep feedback. Get better. Befriend your fellow creatives. Know if you never hear a 'no,' you probably aren’t being brave enough. We get to think thoughts that have never been thought before and create things that have never been created before. Enjoy the ride.