VIEWPOINT: Give planning role its due importance

Much could be read behind their absence to launch and play a role in what should become a significant industry initiative to upgrade planning talent and standards in a region woefully lacking in both. On the one hand, this non-attendance could boil down to nothing more serious that the usual excuses - time constraints or a reluctance to take on responsibilities at an industry level. However, feedback from advertising agencies suggests that the issue is a grave one. If so, it should strengthen the raison d'etre behind the establishment of the APG and its drive to improve the quality of regional planning talent. First-rate local planners are simply difficult to come by. Ask any agency and that's the story you will get.

Not that it's any easier to find quality talent for the other departments - it's all part of the overall difficulty agencies face in recruiting first-class talent.

But the planning department faces its own special set of challenges, not least the fact that the role is hardly seen as a discipline in its own right. Which makes it difficult to sell planning as a viable career in Asia. But it's also the perfect starting point for the APG to look into why people don't gravitate towards planning and what can be done to make it as stimulating a career choice as creative, for instance.

That planning lacks the exciting career buzz of creative or media can be laid squarely on agencies' lap. The consensus is that agencies have yet to evolve planning into a formalised discipline, partly because its a resource issue and partly because they have yet to convince clients of crucial contribution planners can bring to the table in the development of brand strategies. Until that happens and planning moves beyond the purview of service staff, agencies will only be dealing with what's urgent rather than what's important - their future.