RETROWURST: Time July 2003

With the longest day of 2021 behind us, it seems right that the next article from the pre-Extrawurst archive is one I wrote on the subject of Time, eighteen years ago, in July 2003. I’d been up to the Account Planning Group Germany conference and was fascinated by a talk given by Professor Karlheinz A. Geissler on the subject of the German relationship to speed and time. A prediction was made that “we will be ruled by the mobile phone/communications handset, not by the clock.”

Remember, this was a good few years before smart phones ...

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I was up at the German Account Planning Group’s annual ‘Open Source’ event in Hamburg last week, where, sandwiched in between two talks - the entertaining-but-expected (an Army colonel talking about military strategy and what we commercial Planners can learn from it) and the expected – and mind-blowingly tedious (a Management Consultant doing an elongated sales pitch; see www.rolandberger.de for the full horror) - was a fascinating talk from Professor Karlheinz A. Geissler on the subject of Time.

 

The professor spoke about our relationship with time over history, moving from the time when time and the weather were one and the same (the word for both remains similar in the Latin-based languages such as temps, tempo), to the age of the clock, to the industrial age where man’s speed was no longer limited by nature and through to our own age. He argued that, in our ‘post-modern’ world, the key is no longer speed but flexibility. That is, the people that will succeed in our times are those that have the flexibility to do several things at once, not those who can do one thing faster than anyone else. We will be ruled by the mobile phone/communications handset, not by the clock.

 

Interestingly, he raised the point that some people/cultures already have a head-start in this new world of flexibility, the US (generally) and working mothers being two examples he cited. Conversely, other cultures may well be handicapped in the adaptation process, especially those who have excelled in the last age. Professor Geissler was not slow in holding up the Germans as the key example here. Maybe the Swiss have a greater obsession with clocks and punctuality, but the Germans combine this with their love of the stopwatch and what it measures - speed, rather than time!

 

So, this is the country where Michael Schumacher is the most revered sports hero but where you’re not allowed to use your washing machine after 8pm; where 150mph on the Autobahn is totally acceptable if your car is built for it (and most German cars are) but where having a BBQ party that goes on after 10pm is not. Even in German advertising agencies, punctuality and efficiency rule the roost- in some of Jung von Matt’s conference rooms there are no chairs, encouraging meetings to begin and end on time - in fact, there is no English equivalent of the German word Stehtischwhich is literally, a table to stand at. Contrast that with the comfy sofas of UK advertising agencies!

 

This all brings me on to a topic of huge current interest here in the area of retailing- opening hours. When I first moved to Germany in 1996, the opening hours, even in the big cities, were like something out of 1950s Britain (minus the ration books!) It seemed that what you won on the pubs (most open until 1am), you lost on the supermarkets, which were only open until 1pm on Saturdays (typical German exception of one Saturday per month being ‘long Saturday’ but I was blowed if I could ever remember whether Langesamstag was the first in the month, the last or in the middle somewhere!). Imagine the scene, if you will, of the entire working population of Frankfurt all queuing up at the same three supermarket tills at 12.30pm on a Saturday. I was appalled by this: the grudging acceptance with which the local people regarded this, and the underlying implication that women aren’t meant to be working, except as a good Hausfrau, so they can jolly well do the shopping during the week. Things improved a little a year or two later, with supermarkets opening until 8pm most weekdays and until 4pm on Saturdays.

 

However, the latest change has met with disapproval from many sides. For the last month or so, the Supermarkets have stayed open until 8pm on Saturdays. The church is up in arms, so to speak, as they see this as the next (final?) step down the slippery slope to that abomination, Sunday opening. (NB. Finding a shop open on Sundays here in Germany- with the exception of petrol stations, airports, railway stations and the odd kiosk- is about as difficult as beating Michael Schumacher round the Nürburgring. Even the DIY and garden centres are geschlossen.) But the Church aside, what is perhaps surprising is the somewhat unenthusiastic attitude of the general population. Who in their right mind, they think, would want to go to a Supermarket at 7pm on Saturday evening, when they should be watching the Bundesliga, throwing half a pig onto the BBQ or baking a cake for Sunday’s Kaffee und Kuchen with the mother-in-law?

 

The point here is not that the German people don’t like change, but that this is a change that they don’t understand. It doesn’t fit into the unwritten rules of order and efficiency. If someone has to do their shopping on Saturday evening, they must be disorganised (not spontaneous). They clearly haven’t planned ahead. I haven’t been shopping myself yet on Saturday evening, but I’ll make an effort this weekend to tear myself away from the cake-baking, or the BBQ (Bundesliga is in the middle of the summer pause!). I suspect that the people I’ll see; far from being disorganised, will be the sort of spontaneous, flexible consumers who will have to represent Germany’s future as they move away from the age of speed and punctuality to the age of flexibility and multiple lives all lived simultaneously.

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Pre-pandemic, Germany wasn’t quite on 24/7. Retail opening hours had stretched to 10pm or so, but Sunday remains sacred (except for online ordering, of which more later). 

It’s interesting how the pandemic has thrown time out of the window, along with freedom, while online shopping has devastated the city centre (although local independent shops of the butcher, baker and candlestick maker variety seem to be thriving). 

What intrigues me is that, over the eighteen years that have passed, I can still see Professor Geissler and his antiquated overhead slides before me, and I can recall many of his words of wisdom. 

I can’t remember a single thing the chap from the management consultancy (with his slick PowerPoint presentation) said.

I understand that Professor Geissler doesn’t have a driving licence and lives “watchless”.

Sounds like the norm amongst young people.

Let your planner be your guide

Account planners and strategists do love a discussion about what they should be called and what they do. I have taken part in entire day meetings and workshops devoted to this topic. In the end, we always go back to doing what we always did, whatever our job title.

There's a book coming out soon (I hope) by John Griffiths and Tracey Follows called '98% Pure Potato: The Origins of Advertising Account Planning' which is 'the story of how account planning began, told by its pioneers.' There's a good blog post here from the authors about how the name 'Account Planner' came to be, some time in the summer of 1968 at J Walter Thompson.

Reading through that inspired me to reach for my copy of 'Pollitt on Planning' to see what Stanley Pollitt himself had to say on the subject. His idea was to bring researchers out of the backroom and assign them to particular accounts, working alongside and on equal status to the account managers. This was in contrast to being 'closeted in their own little backrooms, called at on the account man's whim, dusted down and asked to express some technical view about some unfamiliar client's problem.' The key thing here is that these new 'account planners' would be assigned to specific accounts - or brands - which they would have a responsibility for.

As to what that responsibility should be, Pollitt makes an interesting analogy: This new 'researcher' - or account man's 'conscience' - was to be the 'planner'.

And here, I think, is the essence of what planning and planners are about: doing the right thing for the brand, inspiring work that works.

The right thing for the brand - not keeping the (human) client happy, not giving the customer what they want, not winning creative awards. And not even propping up the business short-term.

Although any of these things, or a combination could be the means to an end.

Follow the leader

I've just got back from the city of the fish-heads and am feeling a little like a headless herring myself after the annual APG Open Source. I have to say that the session was a little disappointing this year: there was a distinct lack of dottiness amongst the professors and there were moments when the mood of the room lurched depressingly into that typical German "we need leadership but, no, not that kind of leadership again..." mentality.

First off was Prof. Jansen who took us wittily and entertainingly through the history of organisational leadership, aspects and trends in leadership. With a fast-paced delivery Prof. Jansen managed to throw everything from herrings to Paul Gascoigne into his talk. Next up was Prof. Langguth whose talk on political leadership in Germany, contrasting Kohl, Schröder and Merkel was interesting enough but I have to admit not so relevant to me personally as someone dissecting Thatcher, Major and Blair (and I am sure there are enough people who would like to see that literally!). So I am afraid that, by the time Herr Jörges from the Stern came on with more state of the nation stuff and answers to questions that were longer than the original talk, I was only aware that I was stuck in Hyde Park Corner, German-style, and that my feet were freezing cold!

Prof. Haberfellner (who looked alarmingly like Bianca Castafiore, the opera singer from Tintin), provided a change in theme and gave a talk about leadership in education, with a particular focus on her own school, Schloß Salem. While lacking a little in depth, Prof. Heberfellner's talk was pleasant to listen to and provided a welcome injection of optimism into the proceedings. I was pleased to see that the next speaker, Dr Ditzer, was going to do a presentation, rather than a talk. At last, having been deprived of Powerpoint for a whole day, there would be something to look at! Unfortunately, this particular presentation, about leadership Japanese-style was rather like the origami paper before you start folding: flat and with unfulfilled potential.

Finally, with about half of the delegates already gone, came Herr Geyer, the mountain guide. And at last, we had visuals: glorious pictures of mountains and plenty of them! And here, finally, was the quirky, bizarre element of the Open Source that I had missed up to now. I could sense the audience becoming increasingly intrigued and amused by the superimposition of the clunkiest Powerpoint arrows, stars and boxes in the most unnatural colours littering the peaks of the Alps and Himalayas!

Overall, I feel that the organisers could have cut out at least one of the speakers: and a wider spread would have been nice - spiritual leadership would have been an obvious candidate for me. Herr Geyers's main point was that a mountain guide's decisions are always based on the trade-off between potential risk and potential experience. I'll certainly have to bring that one into play in my decision whether to come next year. Or maybe I'll just be a headless herring.

Because it's there.

At this time of year, I have my usual dither about whether to attend the apgd annual "Open Source" and following AGM. On the one hand, it's at least a day out of my busy freelancer working life where I'm not earning any money and paying for hiking up to Hamburg (can't they hold it just once in Frankfurt?). On the other hand, I have found the Open Source in the past to be pretty entertaining one way or another and probably justifies my apgd membership fee. For every "dud" speaker who's trying to sell something there's usually a totally dotty professor, or a comedy act, or someone off the top of the intellectual pretentiousness scale. I adore the feeling of sitting in the auditorium trying to work out whether the speaker is serious or taking the Mickey.

This year, it's all about Führung, a word that has connations of "direction" and "management" as well as "leadership" in German. I see that there are two professors (hopefully totally batty) on the speaker list as well as someone from the Stern and - get this - the Worldwide leader of Mountaineering Training from the German Association of Mountaineers and Alpine Skiers. Well, that's done it. In the words of one of Britain's most famous mountaineers, I'll have to go. "Because it's there."

What's in a name?

It seems that there are a few ruffled feathers at the Account Planning Group Deutschland. For some time now, there's been talk about changing the name of the group. This seems fine to me although I tend to find academic discussions about what we should call ourselves even more academic than discussing what it is that we actually do.



But, fair enough, perhaps it is time for a change. After all "Account Planning" is a term left over from the 1960s when people worked on "Accounts" in "Advertising Agencies". I remember that word "Account" seriously putting me off in my days as a naive graduate when Monty Python's derision of Accountants was still fresh in my mind.



And, as a German group, maybe an English name is sending out the wrong signals. I won't get into that particular debate here but I do have my views...



So some options were kicked around and the "working title" of Strategie Verband has been decided on - or has it? Some have it that this has yet to be officially agreed while others note that what used to be http://www.apgd.de/ is now redirected to http://www.strategieverband.de/ : a fait accompli?



I won't go into my view on the proposed new name just yet - maybe next time - but I know how I would have gone about the name change if I were on the apgd Vorstand: from grass roots up. The joy of Germany is that it's still a collection of princely states in some ways: surely each Vorstand member could have taken one of the big cities: Berlin, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, München - oh, and Hamburg of course, held an informal evening meeting there then reported back to base with ideas and views. That would surely have got round any accusations of not being 100% democratic.