Les Binet and Sarah Carter are planning royalty. Starting out at the iconic BMP, the agency which evolved over time to become adam&eve today, they are the planners behind many famous campaigns. Not least John Lewis which lasted an impressive 14 years. A few years ago their popular myth busting column turned into the well known book ‘How Not to Plan’ taking conventional wisdom and turning it on its head. I catch up with the dynamic duo to pick their considerable brains on the topics they think marketers least understand.

Talking points from this episode:

• The real godfather of effectiveness
• How John Lewis changed Christmas
• Les & Sarah pick a favourite ad
• Why vignette ads are a cop out
• What the John Lewis econometrics reveals about the campaign
• Why you should make people feel something not show them feeling
• Jon discovers the Long & the Short of it
• The best way to really upset Les
• That famous key visual
• Can you ever achieve both long & short at the same time
• Why consumers don’t give a s**t
• How myth busting inspired the book
• Being turned down by Marketing Week
• Why there are more P’s than Promotion
• How to involve planners early
• The BMP Philosophy of planning
• How not to get caught Short
• Why 60% of campaign results are long term
• How not to be consistent
• Knowing what to change and when to change it
• What advertisers can learn from designers
• A little plug for Orlando’s fluent device work
• It’s only advertising and no-one died
• The case for animals and music
• How not to make sense
• How not to change your pricing
• Why EPOS data switched spend from communication to price promotion
• Digital attribution is the new price promotion
• The more detailed the measurement the worse the marketing has got
• Jon shares his only Effie case study
• How not to be different
• Why how you say something matters more than what you say
• Les takes down the idea of loyalty
• The one topic which wasn’t covered in the book
• Finding things to get angry about