There are a lot of different names for this new discipline emerging. What is your definition of Connection Planning? Please leave your comments below. I would love to start a discussion about your opinions before the conference.

I’ll start.

I believe that connection planning is NOT channel planning or a new version of media planning. In it’s true form, it emerged out of media but I think it’s one of the first steps agencies can take to integrate the silos within their agencies.

Naked has taken the first major step to showing how effective it is with their recent J&J win…

Carney said her team challenges conventional notions about why and how customers use products, and that it’s critical for clients to have up-to-the-minute insights about a brand’s core target–such as how they think about themselves, interact with peers and use media. In today’s world, insights become outdated quickly, she said.

Part of Naked’s advantage, she added, was that big agencies owned by publicly traded holding companies can’t be completely neutral when drawing up communications plans because they are biased by definition. “Their primary objective is shareholder value, and therefore they have to funnel client resources to communications channels they can charge for. Nothing forces objectivity out of an argument like pounds, shillings and pence, as we say in the U.K.,” said Carney, a native of Scotland.

Also, check out this article from MediaPost titled “Strange Bedfellows: Creative Agencies in the Media Game”:

Creative agencies are jumping into the media game with unique plans and programs that make brands synonymous with popular culture. Could creatives become a threat to media agencies? Who comes out on top in the new media game? What you need to know about the new creativity.
In today’s confusing mediascape — where the 30-second spot no longer reigns supreme, the consumer is king, and emerging technologies spawn new forms of media at breakneck speed — creative shops are rising as never before to the media challenge. In fact, some are baking media strategy into everything they do, as brands increasingly become synonymous with popular culture.

A new breed of creative agencies with funny names — StrawberryFrog, Amalgamated, Anomaly, Taxi, The Brooklyn Brothers, and The Wexley School for Girls — are embracing media as a core tenet of their work and are not only earning accolades, but big accounts in the process. These nimble boutiques join media-savvy creative stars Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Bartle Bogle Hegarty, and Attik. And a new breed of communications planning agencies — Michaelides & Bednash, Naked Communications, and Mother — have jumped into the fray as well.

What do you think?