Problems? What Problems?

One of the things that everyone, everywhere has to do on a regular basis is solve problems. It might be something small in your personal life, or it could be a multimillion dollar question that you need to answer. I thought it’d be worth jotting down a few of the different ways I go about solving problems from a planners point of view (but I think that this applies to anyone in business - creative or otherwise).

I’ve always believed and still do that planners aren’t smarter than anyone else. In fact I know they’re not. I certainly didn’t achieve the grades that some of my colleagues and clients did at school. However, what we tend to be good at it thinking about things in a different way (I often deliberately think the opposiste to whatever the accepted wisdom is). Partly this is because good planners need to be a bit awkward. Asking questions is one of the key parts of the job and asking questions can often feel a bit tricky, but it’s surprising how quickly strategies, business plans and ideas can be vastly improved by asking a few well thought through queries.

So the first part of solving any problem is to question. The time honoured Who? What? Why? When? How? Is a great place to start. In advertising this could be are we talking to the right people? What are we trying to achieve? Why do we want to do this? When do we want to do this? How are we going to achieve it?

Each one of these questions can trigger a whole load of new questions that help to understand what it is your trying to achieve and the best way to achieve it.

Which takes us nicely on to arguably the most important part of solving any problem, working out what the problem or objective actually is. Often the problem you’re given isn’t the real problem. Dave Trott gives this example of how every year advertisiers try to stop people from drink driving by showing the shocking results. The trouble is this is very persuasive when you’re stone cold sober but no one steps into the driving seat thinking that they’ve had one too many. The real problem is persuading your friends that they shouldn’t let you drive after a drink.

The more specific the problem the better. It’s much easier to work out the answer to a problem when it’s absolutely clear in your mind. So rather than trying to solve “increase brand affinity by 10%” how about “help people to fall in love with Cadbury’s again”?

It’s often easier to solve a problem if you can break it down into more manageable chunks. For example, Sainsbury’s famously reframed their problem from “add £4 billion of sales annually” to a far more comprehensable “Increase the average basket size by £3.32″.

Now you know what your problem is you need to read as much as you can on the subject. James Webb Young, one of the greatest advertising men of all time, had a specific technique for generating ideas was:

1. Gather the raw materials - the immediate problem & your general knowledge
2. Work these over in your mind (To this I’d add: Write your first thoughts down, no matter how bad they might be. Keep on writing more stuff. Give it time. Write more stuff down.)
3. Do something else/sleep on it
4. Have the idea
5. Shape the idea to make it useful and practical.

He also believed that “ideas are new combinations”. So when trying to create that little bit of inspiration try combining two unexpected elements e.g. big but personal (HSBC The World’s Local Bank) or small but tough (VW Polo).

Another technique is to think of great ideas in other sectors and categories and apply them to your problem. So if there’s an idea that always works in fashion retailing you might want to think about whether it’ll work in publishing.

Once you’ve got your solution, remember to keep the explanation as simple as possible so that anyone can understand it and pass it on.

There are tonnes of other ways to solve problems but these are the ones that I’ve ingrained so that it’s automatic.