Reichl und Partner Daniel Kleinmann, Head of Creation & Planning, talks about his journey from analysis to strategy

In the interview, Kleinmann is annoyed by the trench warfare between planning and creation and explains his approach.

Vienna. Daniel Kleinmann, Head of Creation & Planning at Reichl und Partner, talks to medianetabout the unification of planning and creation, what the path from analysis to strategy looks like, and how the balance is maintained in this tightrope act.

"I see myself as a classic creative director with a penchant for planning. That's simply because I spent a few years in Planning. And with Reichl und Partner, I've landed at an agency where I can perfectly combine both," Kleinmann tells medianet interview and adds: "I've always been of the opinion that it's good if planning is based in creation. Because one thing has always bothered me about account planning: the trench warfare with the creative department. If there's one thing a creative doesn't like, it's having their thinking taken away from them, or the briefing being too narrow. Creatives don't like to jump when the planner says 'hop'." In any case, Kleinmann faces a number of challenges on the path from analysis to strategy. "Planning is about condensation. That means starting with a huge accumulation of data and information, and cutting away until you end up with a set that makes good ideas possible."

Brand wheel as a tool

Of course, the question remains: What makes good ideas? Kleinmann: "For me, it's ideas that make our customers famous. For this, Reichl und Partner has created a tool with the brand wheel that always follows the same path. That means the approach is always the same, but the output can be very different." The path to the market data is highly variable. "Sometimes there is good qualitative data available. Most of the time, clients are very quantitative in their market research. For us, any information is helpful. But it also happens that we are left to our own devices because no data has been evaluated." In this case, the Reichl und Partner team scours trade magazines, books, the Internet or talks to specialists.

Tons of data

"Any data source is acceptable. However, to ensure that all our customers have their finger on the pulse, it means always walking through the world, or at least the Internet, with your eyes open," adds Kleinmann. Kleinmann does not see the danger of losing creativity through too much data. "At the end of the data chain, there has to be a good Creative Brief. And a good Creative Brief is always 'brief,' gets to the heart of the comma, and is never the eierlegende Wollmilchsau. Boring creatives with pie charts or mind maps is a wasted effort. It's about channeling tons of data and translating it into the language of the living room." For Kleinmann, a good brief should therefore not be proof of intellectuality or a demonstration of how many letters you can fit on a page in font size six.

Head of Creation & Planning at Reichl und Partner: Daniel Kleinmann.

Source: https://medianet.at/article/die-grabenkaempfe-stoeren-3217.html