I graduated from Miami Ad School's Boot Camp for Account Planners in 2009 and this is my planning book and a sample of how I think about brands, consumers and culture.

1. Peek Inside
Irina Tone
Account Planner

2. even I am a
though planner
I spent 4 years studying the antithesis of Advertising: Because looking at soccer fans cheering on a stadium will always be more
Philosophy fascinating than watching Nike ads.
I fell in love with writing and became a Because living in too many places gave me an insider’s eye but an outsider’s
Copywriter
perspective.
I think reading Dostoyevsky is more insightful on Because my curiosity nearly killed me when I was 7 and I gulped gasoline
human nature than a hundred consumer research from my dad’s canister, to see if I could run faster.
projects
I sometimes trust my gut more than my reason, so I Because I can imagine a world without ads but not without The New Yorker,
left everything in Romania and moved to America Isabel Allende or Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
I’m 60% left brain Because I think our habit of standing on our feet is the biggest obstacle in
seeing things differently.
The following is an account of how Miami Ad School
helped me think like a planner.
2

3. A Case of
Brand Anemia
Patient: The Vitamin Shoppe
Account Planners Art Director
Irina Tone Miranda Peterson
Pamela Gant
Copywriter
Julio Aenlle
3

4. Task: Position the brand in order to attract a young female target.
OBJECTIVE Step 2: Find the enemy.
Drive young, wellness-minded women to the stores
THE ‘BIG AISLES’
The VS’s real competition are not other retail chains, e.g. GNC, but
the BIG AISLES: wholesale stores, supercenters, and drugstores.
Checking out the store and talking to In this case, the VS needs to give ‘grocery shoppers’ a strong enough
women there gave us a clear sense of reason to go there and to fulfill a need that the ‘big aisles’ don’t.
the problem...
A SCHIZOPHRENIC SITUATION Step 3: Digging for insights
The Vitamin Shoppe is caught between the ‘muscle-milk’ male- Finally, finding them on the health section
targeted market and wellness-minded women who shop
there for vitamins, but don’t feel they belong to that 110%
of Yahoo Answers. Women ask
masculine store environment. complicated questions on health issues.
Their posts clearly show they are health-
savvy above the average, but still, they are
Step 1: Looking at the industry to looking for validation.
confirm a hunch:’grocery shoppers’.
INSIGHT
GROCERIES HOLD THE BIGGEST SHARE OF HEALTH ALWAYS LOOKING FOR A SECOND OPINION WHEN IT
Groceries and supermarkets account for 70% of the COMES TO HEALTH ISSUES.
vitamin sales. A two-fold explanation: first, people look for Shoppers are supersavvy and know what supplements to buy
convenience, and second, because vitamins are a before they go in the store, because they’ve done their research,
commodity product, there’s no brand loyalty at the but they need a second credible source to assure them.
purchase moment.
+ the third one...
Talking to women in stores, we found out that our ‘grocery STRATEGY
shoppers’ don’t see any value in going to specialized EVEN EINSTEIN WOULD ASK US QUESTIONS.
vitamin stores, because they feel that sales associates there Creating a strong differentiator for VS which no one in the
don’t know what to recommend anyway. market owns now: being the knowledgeable health advice
source at the moment of purchase.
4

5. Creative Brief
Why are we advertising?
Drive new customers to The Vitamin Shoppe store and existing customers more often.
Whom are we talking to?
25-55 year-old women, health savvy, informed and who take care of themselves.
RS
C TO
They are health mavens, who get their health-related information from their doctors and third-party sources
DO
DIY (magazines, peers, online health portals). But, they are looking for a second credible source to validate what they
know.
What do they currently think?
‘I don’t really care where I buy my vitamins, because people there don’t know what I need anyway.’
What do we want them to think?
‘The Vitamin Shoppe is my doctor’s “supplement”.
What is the single most persuasive idea that we can convey?
EVEN EINSTEIN WOULD ASK US QUESTIONS.
Why should they believe it?
- The Vitamin Shoppe Sales Associates undergo training focused on health conditions (“The Vitamin Shoppe
University”) and not products.
- Education is continuous: Sales Associates need to pass an internal exam every month.
Tone
Smart and fun.
Creative guidelines
Website redesign a must (the site is disconnected from the philosophy of the store display that is focused on health
needs, and not products).
5

6. The idea behind this concept was to give our
audience instant gratification. If they’re looking
for answers everywhere, then why not give
them on the spot?
Instead of just another campaign saying
something, why not exchange something
valuable to them for interaction?
CREATIVE CONCEPT
INCREASE YOUR VI-Q
6

7. OSKS
CTI VE KI
INTERA
Placed in malls and trafficked areas,
inviting women to find out their health
index, and what vitamins and
supplements help relief pains and aches.
How it works?
The touch-screen captures the body
silhouette and people can target a body
area on the screen. Next, a
recommendation for a supplement
vitamin and a medical explanation of how
that supplement works would appear on
the screen.
VI-Q TESTS
IN-STORE
Interactive displays placed in stores
to test your Vitamin IQ.
7

8. PRINT
Magazine prints with an interactive feature: peel-off
stickers that can be placed on the silhouette on the
print, to show the areas with problems. The call-to-action
on the print encourages people to bring the print to the
store, for a personalized supplement plan.
8

9. EDESIGN
W EB SITE R
The current website is a mess, but in spite of
that, people join the community section of
the site to ask questions and to get
recommendations. This was an insight into
their desire for information and interaction.
So, we wanted 2 things:
1. Build the navigation on body needs, not
products. People want to solve their body
problems, not look for products. This also
matches the store’s display philosophy,
focused on body conditions.
2. Give as much practical information around
those body issues as possible, to engage
users and exchange value for them to return.
N
LICATIO
DAR APP
CALEN V-ICAL
The app syncs with the Outlook calendar or
iCal to give supplement recommendations
based on what the body needs in each
season, store offers...and a few extras.
9

10. 10

11. This was our REAL Pitch presented to the client
Task: Develop a fully integrated campaign that changes the perception that nytimes.com is “just the
newspaper on the web to a fully multimedia and interactive news and information platform.
Next, we looked at the traffic to see
OBJECTIVE what readers were doing...
Increase traffic and time spent on the website.
THE UNTAPPED CONTENT
Business Objective Only 20% of traffic goes to the vertical content on the
More eye-balls to generate more ad revenue site. Even the traffic is a replica of the way a paper is
read.
Step 1: Headache. What is NOT wrong? WHAT IF WE COULD TURN IT AROUND?
And engage more users with the vertical sections:
culture, politics, economical, fashion, social, ar ts,
THE PROBLEM enter tainment. And make NYT a hub of rich
The twin on the web is struggling to change his identity , but information and not “the paper.”
he’s dressed the same, he looks the same, he is called the
same. Acts the same. And we are told in the client briefing we
can’t change anything. The interactive and multimedia platform Understanding why people scavenge
positioning sounded like “the emperor’s new clothes” story. for stories
Everybody sees them, but are they really...
INSIGHT
YOU’RE ONLY AS INTERESTING AS THE STORIES YOU
When it’s such a mess, only the evangelists HAVE
can help... The core audience we wanted to target was the young,
social, digital native, curious intellectual. He wants genuine
experiences that enrich and deliver depth and create social
THE SHARE OF MIND
currency.
Among news sites and news aggregators, CNN.com holds the
biggest share of eyes. But, talking to NYT hardcore users, it
was clear that what drives them is self-enrichment and not
transactional headline skimming, like on the other sites. In
other words, the online share of minds belongs to
NYTimes.com. STRATEGY
NYTIMES.COM HELPS YOU MAKE YOUR OWN
STORIES.
11

12. Creative Brief
Why are we advertising?
Change the perception of the of the NYTimes.com is just “the newspaper on the web” by making the NYTimes.com the online
destination for rich content on various topics, and not just the news.
Whom are we talking to?
Male/Female, 25+, Hardcore Internet user, undergraduate degree
43.2 MM
S
ER
Young, curious intellectuals, avidly looking for everyday discoveries: a new Taschen catalogue on architecture, Lars von Trier’s latest
EK
SE
movie, the newest gadget, a gallery opening, the new bar around the corner or a documentary on the genocide in Sudan.
CE
N
TA
They are looking for stories and experiences that enrich their lives. Stories communicated through conversations, blogs, articles, a
BS
photographer’s lenses, a musician’s lyrics.
SU
What do they currently think?
I go to the Times when major crisis happen, but I don’t go often because they’re mainly for news.
What do we want them to think?
The NYTimes.com is a hub that connects me to the new world of politics, culture, technology, entertainment, and social.
What is the single most persuasive idea that we can convey?
NYTIMES.COM HELPS YOU MAKE YOUR OWN STORIES.
Why should they believe it?
NYTimes.com is a rich information platform that covers everything from fashion, politics, arts and economy to International topics.
Tone
Clever.
12

13. 6
What if everything we know is 6
degrees away from anything we
could ever know
The six degrees of separation theory was
the idea behind our creative concept. We
wanted to find a clever way to bring to life
2 things:
1 the fact that you can find so much
different stories, pictures, videos on the
verticals of the nytimes.com, that you
could literally connect them and build
something new out of that.
2 the way our audience scavenges the world
for new stories: through discoveries.
13

14. PRINT
Print campaign that makes
connections between different
things, for example,
Obama and the Oscars, through
articles from different sections of
the site:
/movies
/blog
/arts
/business
/politics
The idea is to stress that the
content on the website goes
beyond the paper’s.
14

15. DIGITAL BILLBOARDS
The billboards change everyday to show
interconnected subjects, for example:
NFL and FDA.
15

16. VISUAL MEDIA TOOL
The tool illustrates visually the
6 degrees of separation idea,
showing interrelated
multimedia content and
articles from nytimes.com on
the searched subject, Obama,
for instance.
It uses the same technology
like the Visual Thesaurus.
16

17. DESKTOP APPLICATION
An application that pulls images from
Nytimes.com and displays
them on the desktop, linking them to the
articles or multimedia content online.
17

18. Account Planners
Irina Tone
Pamela Gant
A Recipe For Campbell’s Art Director
Miranda Pete
rson
Soupremacy Copywriter
Julio Aenlle
18

19. Task: Expand Campbell’s soup empire.
Step 2: The way to the brand strategy
OBJECTIVE Glamourizing a ‘staple brand.
Increase sales for Campbell’s entire soup family.
REMOVING THE ‘RICE AND BEANS’ STIGMA
The general consensus is that saving money is smart, but not
1, 2, 3 GO when it comes to food. Stats confirmed it: recession in the
picture, but food spending hasn’t declined in 2008.
From a habit of checking the stocks more Everyone thinks that cheap food means LESS. Less nutritious,
often than the email, we found our first of less quality and less tasty. People will cut back on everything
lead: Campbell’s had been the only one else( movies, clothes, before they will buy generic store brands
among the Fortune 500 whose stocks or staple food. For many people, soup-in-can is the ‘last resort
hadn’t tumbled.in the past months.. meal’.
THE BIGGER PICTURE Everyone we talked to was
Campbell’s rise in sales in the past quarter due to the bad
economy shows that recession-proof eating is having a big
embarrassed to say it...
impact on the food industry.
INSIGHT
NOBODY WANTS TO DRESS, FEEL AND...
EAT LIKE A ‘LOSER’.
People are comfortable with the idea of cutting back on food
Step 1: What makes sense in terms of only if they feel they’re doing the smart thing and it doesn’t
business: conquer new territory. make them feel like they’ve given up on their standards of
living. The human need for self-esteem is essential.
BUILD SOUPREMACY
With a 7 to 1 market share versus General Mill’s soup brand,
growth doesn’t come from the competitor’s pockets. But, given
the shift in spending habits due to the economy, Campbell’s has
a chance to steal share from eating out and all other low-cost
meal options: fast-food, Mac&Cheese, Lean Cuisine meals. STRATEGY
CAMPBELL’S IS FRUGAL CHIC
19

20. Creative Brief
Why are we advertising?
Create appeal for Campbell’s soup among light soup consumers.
Whom are we talking to?
Young Aspiring Cosmopolitan Women
ISTAS
SS ION Andrea is a 27-year-old Account Executive. She was accomplished and successful until she was laid-off, due to the
E
REC economic downturn. Now she is struggling with the economic challenges, but she hasn’t given up on life’s pleasures.
To strengthen her budget, she curtailed her love for dining out, and she is now spending more time in the kitchen.
She is a New Kitchen Convert. She realizes that when the economy rebounds, she will not want to go back to the
prodigal lifestyle, because she’s become the savvy recessionista.
What do they currently think?
Soup in a can is for people who have no other choice. It’s ‘rice and beans’.
What do we want them to think?
Campbell’s Soup is a nutritious meal.
What is the single most persuasive idea that we can convey?
CAMPBELL’S IS FRUGAL CHIC.
Why should they believe it?
Campbell soup is nutritious, inexpensive and comes in lots of ‘styles’.
Tone
Upbeat, optimistic, CHIC.
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21. Admit it. It happened to you too...
Campbell’s was our first brief working together in a new team.
Although the team’s excitement was palpable after the brief, the creative for Campbell’s had nothing to
do with the strategy. It was about being warm in a cold economy. No need to go on.
We tried resuscitating the strategy, making a little Frankenstein baby, but nobody was happy with the
creative concept either.
After seeing the creative in the book, 2 uberminds of Planning went more or less like “what was that”, so
I decided I wasn’t going to make the third one ask the same.
Note to self : don’t worry about hurting the creatives’ feelings. They will survive. You too. And they will still
love you if you take them to beer after.
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22. 954 274 0071
irinatone@yahoo.com
Irina Tone: My Life MAP
Find out more about me: education, work and life story
BARCELONA, Spain
MIAMI, US
B.A. Philosophy 2006
University of Barcelona
Digital Strategist April 08 - Dec 08
Agency:McCann Worldgroup Miami
After 4 years of hardcore readings, brain-wrecking Logics, and a
passion for Philosophical questions that will last a lifetime, I
Nurtured my passion for interactive and planning,
graduate and leave one of the most beautiful cities in Europe.
working on GM’s brands in the LAAM region (Latin
Going back home for the next adventure.
Am, Africa and ME)
Developed digital channel strategy and digital
customer experiences for the Chevrolet brand.
BUCHAREST, Romania
Jr. Copywriter and Strategy Planner 2006-07
Agency: Kinecto Interactive
My next adventure My Planning journey started here, migrating from
Copywriting.
?
Started building strategy muscles on digital campaigns for
L’Oreal, Renault, Lipton, City Bank, Bayer, Colliers.
MIAMI BEACH, US
Miami Ad School Jan 09-March 09
Account Planning Boot Camp
Accomplished one of my dreams of learning
here from the uberminds of Planning.
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