Planning Collaboration Versus Buying Confrontation

A couple of weeks ago the Cog Blog commented on the growing importance of planning to the network agencies as they strive to replace the grey revenues lost to the era of transparency.  I made the point then that those from a planning (as opposed to a trading) background were increasingly in the ascendancy at the major networks.  This week the point was rammed home by an interview Tom George (now the head of GroupM in the U.K.) gave to Campaign in which he spoke of the need for a greater openness in agencies’ dialigue with clients, and admitted that “Perhaps there’s room for improvement in our communications and business models.”