ETNA

Our approach to media planning is probably what most differentiates PHD from our competitors.

We have a developed a proprietary, and highly collaborative planning process called ETNA (Exploration, Thought-leader, Neuroplanning and Action Planning) which is predicated on the fundamentals of cognitive psychology.

The ETNA process enables our planners to explore the client's market context (Exploration) through the use of different research tools/techniques and then crystallize the key factors that will affect the communications plan in the form of a brief - similar to a creative brief. Called the Thought-Leader, it is a one page document that leads all future thinking.

From this planners can start to plan the most suitable strategy. To do this they use an interactive planning framework built with findings from the world of cognitive psychology (Neuroplanning).

The framework highlights the most effective communication model, and suggests the most suitable communication routes derived from pioneering fMRI based research into how consumers process information.

From this we take the communication model (and channels) and any existing intellectual property (creative work, product assets etc.) into a brainstorm session (Action planning). The process is very much focused on actionable ideas - making the distinction between a thought (nice to have but unusable) and an idea (that has the potential of being turned into an actionable idea).

The process uses some of the more successful lateral thinking techniques that exist and a few that we have developed ourselves.