It’s likely we all have a seminal book that sticks in your mind as “THE” book that transformed your perspective on marketing. As an Ogilvy alumni, I’d likely be burned at the stake if I didn’t reference “Ogilvy on Advertising.” Others that always bubble to the top include all the classic tomes; “Built to Last,” “Pursuit of Excellence,” “Being Direct” or more recently “Made to Stick,” “Hoopla,” “Groundswell” or “Trust Agents.” While there’s no denying that each and every one of those did have an impact, for me the book that shook up the ol’ grey matter most profoundly was Peter Schwartz’s brilliant book “The Art of the Long View”. In it, Peter covered the alchemy and wizardry known as Scenario Planning and, quite literally, knocked me on my ass.

Derived from classic military tacticians, Scenario Planning came into vogue when Royal Dutch/Shell started using it as a core strategic development tool for the entire organization. As the name suggests, Scenario Planning involves creating business and statistical models to try and anticipate future scenarios. In essence using current data, some future projections and a bunch of wicked smart thinking to build out what the future might look like. By building out “best case” and “worst case” scenarios based on data-like projected oil prices in 20 years, political stability in oil producing countries and general demographic information, Scenario Planning allowed Shell to determine if its long-term strategy was to drill more wells in the North Sea or to do further land-based exploration into barren areas like Northern Russia—that likely made shareholders feel more comfortable than the CEO wandering off to the local fairground for a peek into a crystal ball.

While that is all well and good for the Pentagon and the Fortune 100 companies, what possible application might that have for us poor souls in marketing communications?

Firstly, I concede that most marketing firms probably don’t have a bank of statisticians on staff and are not tackling global scenarios of quite the same import, but the exercise of considering “best case” and “worst case” scenarios probably has three practical applications today:

Your Social Campaigns

How often do you scenario plan for a social campaign? Do you consider and proactively resource or create for “worst case” scenarios when launching a campaign? Do you consider how easy it is for social channels to be hijacked or “brandjacked” in these channels? Unlike the Egyptian government, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to switch off social channels if you don’t like the direction a conversation is going. For example, I wonder if the Gap had done any scenario planning when they decided to crowdsource their new logo. In hindsight, it probably would’ve been time well spent.

Your Client Relationships

Every agency I’ve ever worked at has suffered the blow of a client resignation. It is as inevitable as the sun rising in the East. Relationships blossom, then sour. The client who loved your last campaign leaves and is replaced by some young Turk with his pet agency in tow. What surprises me though is how often a client resignation catches the agency flat-footed. Annual account planning often focuses on how to grow the business, the areas of the clients’ business we don’t have but should go after but seldom on factors that might cause the client to resign the agency. Some elementary scenario planning in the past 5 years would have suggested that automotive agency relationships were going to take a sharp turn as the recession deepened. Arguably, agencies in financial services could have read the global tea leaves and seen that a huge consumer backlash against easy loans, housing price bubbles and then foreclosures was inevitable.
Again, Scenario Planning isn’t a panacea, but it does force you to take a really hard look at your clients. Are there potential minefields you’re seeing in the road ahead that together you may want to plan for? Or, if the “worse case” for them is unavoidable, should your agency consider looking at other clients?

Your Business Development Pipeline

At its core scenario planning is an attempt to use current data, with a healthy dose of hypothesis, to create different interpretations of the future. Imagine how that type of thinking might drive your new business pipeline? I can almost guarantee that no agency is currently nurturing an understanding of genome mapping, space travel or nanotechnology – or thinking that their next million dollar client will be in those categories. Scenario Planning might be the way to determine the categories that will be the automotive, packaged goods and pharma clients of the next decade. What might that kind of first mover advantage mean to your agency?

Scenario Planning isn’t an exact science. If it was, scenario planners would be barred from buying lottery tickets. What it does offer is a filter for looking at the world and theorizing “what if” scenarios. It also isn’t an exercise in intellectual navel-gazing and management stroky-beard meetings. Scenario Planning requires discipline, but it also requires real commitment.

Done right, I can promise you one thing. It beats that dusty Magic 8-ball in the corner of your office.

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