Since my return in France at the begining of the year I have been receiving a few requests/applications from French planners willing to start their careers in style at one of the very prestigious London agency.
Since the whole planning in London appears to be a trendy topic, I’ve deceived to come back from my blog agony to share a few thoughts!
I have tried to make it as actionable as possible with the 5 following points:
1- Learn planning the British way
Let’s start with the beginning, the first thing you need to do is to understand British Planning specificities. France and the UK have some basics in common, increasingly so since most French agencies are embracing digital, but the size and the impact have nothing in common between French and English agencies.
I have already talked about twice on the blog so have a look at the following links to understand the main British planning specificities. here and here
2- Get to know the British Plannersphere and its wisdom.
What is great about planning in the UK as a discipline is that sharing is embedded in its roots. I have learnt a lot of things about planning by reading books, blogs, getting to meet top planners and going at events. It is different to France, the planners blogging, tweeting in the UK actually have day jobs and are pretty good at it! They are genuinely willing to help and to share interesting stuff about the job, the industry, culture…
People like Russell Davies, John Grant, Richard Huntington, Iain Tait and Faris Yacob have been amongst the pioneers in sharing their thoughts, advices… these blogs are a great place to start (and are my personal favorites)
Beyond blogs, if you want to know more about planning, you should have a look at the pages I saved on my Delicious under ‘planning’. You’ll find a collection of articles, presentation, podcasts… about planning including these must reads according to me:
Here, here, here, here, here, and here
And obviously, make sure you’ve check out the APG – Account planning group – website, the daddy of the modern plannersphere.
If you prefer printed content, I would read Jon Steel’s Truth lies and advertising and John Grant’s Brand innovation manifesto, these are brilliant starters.
3 – Have a point of view on planning
Once you are pretty clear about what planning is, your best bet to enter a London agency is to put together your portfolio with the stuff you’ve been doing whether they are personal or at an internship, explaining the way you worked, your input…
As you will the need to prepare your applications, a great place to start is Ad Grads where you will find the latest job offers from the planning world as well as getting to know all about grad schemes (The British way to recruit new talent on a yearly basis) and obviously interviews.
4- Be creative, you operate on a crowded market
Planning directors receive a zillion application a year so if you want to stand out from the crowd you will need to have your own vision of planning and to treat your application as your first brief.
Not all agencies have a grad scheme, especially the start ups so make sure you check them out because you will be quickly in touch with senior and respected planners – on a daily basis.
Check out the IPA (English version of the AACC) and their agency list to get to know the various agencies.
For smaller agencies and creative boutiques, make sure you read Campaign Magazine (British equivalent for Stratégies) and have a look at the new business wins to see which are the agencies doing well at the moment.
When it comes to creating an original an meaningful application, your must read is Asi Sharabi’s experience, it is a model of what young planners should be doing.
I also gave my humble point of view of my Organic Frog experience as it proved to be quite successful for me. You can read about it here and here.
5 – Be social, planners love to talk and it’s not that difficult to find them
After reading all this and getting your portfolio ready you will probably want to meet people and to take it even further. Two places are great for this: The plannersphere wiki and the Ning. The last one exists also in a Facebook version.
They are great places to get to know who works where and to start casual conversations.
If you want to chat and get some wisdom from French planners in London, I also created a Facebook group to get the conversation starting.
If it’s real interaction you’re looking for, no worries all you have to do is to turn up to one of the Cwoffee Morning. I am not sure often these are happening but I am sure it is worth checking out and getting to know people in ‘real life’.
That’s it for me now. I hope you’ll find these few lines helpful and that you’re odyssey into planning will be a successful one. I am always open for discussion (at least most days!) so if you want to contact me you can find my email under the ‘about the frog’ tab.
Best of luck
