The Polygamous Marriage- Connection Planning

This past week I had the chance to attend the inaugural Connection Planning conference in New Orleans.  Many others have blogged about it, so I won't repeat them here, but of course I echo the many thanks to the ringleaders at Trumpet.  (see http://garethkay.typepad.com/brand_new/2007/10/the-wedding-day.html, http://www.polygamousweddings.com/blog/)  But, I do want to share how inspiring it was to see and hear that we at Digitas really "get it".  Jeff Flemings and I ventured to establish what "connection planning" meant in the digital space and for Digitas nearly 12 months ago.  After listening to some inspiring thoughts by real innovators like Lisa Seward and John King, I was thrilled to walk away from the conference thinking Connection Planning at Digitas is right on track.

While many agencies are using Connection Planning as a means to advanced, creative media planning, at Digitas, we've brought Connection Planning upstream as a means to inspire big creative marketing ideas.  We mine for insights about reaching our consumers, integrating into their lives, leveraging influencers and creating brand evangelism and combine them with traditional Account Planning insights.  In doing so we're fueling creative marketing ideas from the beginning with insights around both context and content.  In the digital space this is a key distinction, since every client deliverable could come to life in infinite ways based on the unique context of the space.

The conference appeared to be a big success, so I'm looking forward to the second annual event next year!