A Planner’s Chat #1: Ben Hourahine
Brand Strategist Marco Ruckenbrod is challenging his state of mind by joining the Miami Ad School’s Planning Bootcamp in Sydney. During the coming weeks he will chat with different strategists and planners to capture some perspectives from Down Under. He is doing that in cooperation with the Account Planning Group Germany. The first chat is with Ben Hourahine, formerly Head of Strategy at Razorfish Australia.
My first planners’ chat took place with Ben Hourahine. Over some delicious sushi, Ben and I had a chat at Miami Ad School, Sydney.
Originally hailing from the UK Ben has had quite an exciting career since he graduated in Modern History and Political Science at the University of Birmingham. Amongst other things, Ben has held leading roles at Leo Burnett and Razorfish in both the UK and Australia. During the past four years Ben was responsible for the strategic performance of Razorfish Australia, including brand planning, digital strategy, user experience, business consulting and research, and insight services.
Following a brief industry sabbatical, Ben has been busy developing his own business, successfully launching Splashsuits, an Australian retail start-up brand. Besides Splashsuits, Ben still works as a strategic consultant advising various clients on brand, content, marketing and digital development. On top of everything business-related, Ben lectures at Miami Ad School, for two years was a board member of the Australian Account Planning Group and a judge for the Communications Council’s Effie Awards. No doubt, Ben is a brilliant strategist.
When asked for a vivid metaphor to visualise the job of a planner, he was at first speechless. But eventually, he came up with an incredibly brilliant characterisation. See for yourself.
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#01
Instead of giving us an ordinary biography of yourself would you be so kind to give us an unconventional or somehow surprising 140 characters tweet of who you are.
MD of Splashsuits start-up. Prev Head of Strategy @ Razorfish / Futures Editor @ Leo Burnett. APG Board. Effies Judge. QPR Believer & Record Horder.
#02
Please give us an idea of how you’d describe the role of strategy & planning for clients as well as within the agency. What’s the added value, both external and internal, that planning provides?
I think, originally the role of strategy and planning was about being the voice of the consumer. And I still think that’s important – both towards the clients and within the agency. It’s about bringing the outside world in. But I think it’s also becoming about exploring those questions of what we are doing, why we are doing it and how we are doing it. This is more from a strategic point of view. It’s more than just an idea now. It’s what we are trying to achieve, how could we go about achieving that, and explaining the reasons why.