John Griffiths' Podcast

the remaining interviewees on whom the book was based which includes not only planners but some of the most influential advertising people in the UK these last 50 years

The final section from chapter 1 the context setting chapter of 98% Pure Potato. A review of the factors which led to account planning coming out of London. It was surprising that it did. Business, marketing, market research, advertising all came from America - but it was British contrarian ness which challenged the norms of how American influenced advertising was made and how its effects were understood.

This last section from chapter 1 includes a special bonus if you are still listening. A coda NOT in the book about the democratisation of qualitative research and the way ordinary people were brought inside the development process.

An explanation of the UK context out of which account planning came. The UK was on the receiving end of American corporatism and globalisation. But there was a very British take on how advertising should be made.

98% Pure Potato is a book about the origins of Account Planning the function which chooses the message for the advertising and determines how the advertising should work. This is a ground clearing chapter to explain the background to how advertising has developed in the 20th century, the different roles within advertising agencies. And some seminal advertising men all Americans who brought innovations to advertising to the point where the book starts in the UK in the 1960s.

An overview of how far account planning has come since it was effectively invented in 1968. What questions was it set up to answer? Are those questions still relevant now?

The first in a series of podcasts which comes from the introduction and first chapter of 98% Pure Potato - a book about the origins of account planning - the strategic role which chooses the message for advertising and considers how the advertising should work. The function was invented in 1968 starting in 2 London advertising agencies at the same time thought they were very different. The largest agency at the time J Walter Thompson and the start up Boase Massimi Pollitt. 98% Pure Potato is based on interviews with the first ever planners who did the job working at these advertising agencies and others. This is not a text book but a kind of oral history which explains how the job was first carried out at a time when the UK made better advertising than any where else. It should be of considerable interest to advertising practitioners and those studying advertising. This introduction explains how the book came about and why it is called 98% Pure Potato