“It’s a complex discipline, but it’s not a science. We just need people to just get around the same table, basically.” That’s Tom Denford’s simplified explanation of the emerging communications planning field. Denford, JWT’s Director of Communications Planning, explored the shifting dynamic between creative and media groups and discussed the changing face of comprehensive brand communications in a recent Q-and-A with Brand Connections CEO, Brian F Martin.

Not long ago, many marketers viewed full-service ad firms as the true keepers of the brand – partly because of high turnover among Chief Marketing Officers. Today’s widening media mix has become more important to the strategic communications plan, and it’s part of the reason more firms began to divide the creative and media buying tasks in the last decade. That’s where Denford, and the communications planning buzz, enter the picture. Having started his career as a media buyer and going on to work with nearly every major holding company in the media sector in London, JWT hopes Denford will help mend the splintered relationship between the creative and media buying groups.

Still, Denford says he doesn’t want to revert back to the full-service days. “I think there were inherent problems in the full-service mentality, which led people to be too focused on their own agendas as an agency. What we have now, actually, is a great place because we have lots of specialist companies, sort of experts within their individual fields, and we are now trying to create a type of culture that gets all of those disciplines together.” If the goal of Denford’s discipline is unity, the mindset to achieve it might be best characterized as one of collaboration.

Communications planning also requires a new way of thinking, according to Denford, where advertising is not necessarily the answer to every equation. “You go into a communications planning discussion on the basis that the output is not necessarily going to be advertising. It’s going to be communications, and it’s considering the way an advertiser’s brand communicates with the world, and you have to take into consideration all the elements that make that up.” In that way, he stresses the importance of solving business problems and understanding the role that communications plays in achieving those ends.

“Advertising may be the solution,” Denford says, “but there are so many other different weapons at our disposal and channels with which a brand can communicate with its consumers and future consumers. We need to embrace all of those. Part of a communications planner’s roles is making sure you’re considering all the right channels and that all of those channels are equally represented. That you have an environment of neutrality… It’s finding the right mix of all of these different channels, and that’s really the core skill of the communications planning discipline, getting the right blend of all of these different channels and coordinating them.”

Creative and media agencies appear to be receiving the message that they need to improve their relationship, and Denford says the client process is now often inhibiting a true collaboration across all these different agencies. He cites budget issues and a silo effect on the client side as problems, faulting horizontal dialogue across a team as insufficient. Denford believes clients should ask agencies what their communications processes are, and he emphasizes that all marketing agencies should all be thinking about how they can be collaborating together. He also says that media agencies need “to be more independent and organize their businesses to be more media neutral.”

The final trick of picking the media mix remains, however, where the TV v. non-TV debate rages on. Further muddying the waters are newcomers such as You Tube and TiVo. “Some things call for TV solutions but it shouldn’t be a start point, it should be just one of the many options available to you,” Denford says. Partially abandoning the known quantity of television requires courage, he acknowledges, but it’s not a risk devoid of rewards.

“We all have to be a bit brave with this because we’re moving away from familiar and comfortable territory, and we’re moving into areas where there is less measurement and there is less of an agreed currency,” he says. “We’re dealing with new vocabulary and new things and technologies. Consumers aren’t all tuning in en mass at 6 p.m. like they used to, and it’s challenging us to think about things differently. Fundamentally we have to embrace it because TV is not a dying media, but people are just consuming it in different ways, and they will consume audio visual content through screens forever. The nature of that delivery and the way that people expect brands to be around that kind of content is just going to evolve.”

Denford’s final tip for up-and-coming marketers: “Don’t be afraid to be a generalist.” He suggests learning as much as possible about all elements of the business. “If you want to be an innovator and pioneer in part of the future of the communications industry, then I think you need to have a much more 360-degree picture of the industry.” He says you also need to fundamentally understand behaviors of consumers. Part of that lies in keeping up with new technologies, reading the latest research about how consumers are using them, and doing some empirical 1st person observation. Lastly, “consume as much media as you can” and find out what people in different disciplines in your office do, he suggests.

The Hershey Company, like many CPG giants, focuses much of its time on the marketing imperatives of Product, Pricing and Promotion. Perhaps the most significant factor driving the confectioner’s sales, however, is Place. Low price points and impulse buying patterns combine to magnify distribution’s role in the candy category. Though many marketers overlook the fourth “P,” opting instead to focus on driving up demand, Christopher Baldwin is working hard to ensure consumers are able to make those last-second purchases. As President of North American Commercial Group for The Hershey Co., he ensures Hershey products make it to places where consumers can easily find and choose their labels. Baldwin recently spoke with Brand Connections’ Brian F Martin, explaining the benefits of multiple revenue streams and sharing his recipe to sweeten retailer relationships.

The Hershey, Pa., -based company, Baldwin says, is unique in its diverse range of distribution streams. “Across the board, our broad availability and our lack of dependency on any one channel for more than 20 percent of our business is a big part of how Hershey can be successful in the marketplace,” according to Baldwin. “We are not as dependant as some of our competitors on any one customer or any grouping of customers…. That broad availability, that ubiquity, creates a lot of opportunities to build our brand in a lot of different environments.”

From vending machines and check-out lines to cinemas and candy stores, Baldwin says the company focuses the bulk of its marketing budget on point-of-sale efforts – and with good reason. “About 80 percent of confectionary products are purchased on impulse, so a lot of our work is really focused on, ‘How do we win one store at a time?’” That mentality, and the fact that 40 percent of its offerings sell for less than $1, buoys Hershey’s commitment to maintain close ties with its retail and distribution partners.

Baldwin says today’s retailers are looking for their supplier partners to bring them winning ideas. “Whether you’re big or small, fast or slow, those manufacturers who come to customers with good ideas to build their businesses are going to be the ones that get invited back,” he says. “More and more retail is about growth, and growth is about ideas… The days of a national plan working flawlessly across the board with a broad set of customers I believe are gone, so the ability to win one customer at a time is really the primary goal that we have within the Hershey Company.” The quickest way to do that, in Baldwin’s estimation, is to focus on ideas that grow categories. He points to Procter & Gamble’s Swiffer and Apple’s iPod as products that successfully expanded categories while meeting unstated demands that consumers never even realized they had.

The marketing landscape has also altered over the past decade to emphasize the role of customers, according to Baldwin. “I think the challenge for all brands today is about differentiating itself. As you work down a value continuum, those businesses that can create a bigger differential between themselves and their competitors will be successful,” he says. “In essence, when marketers are doing their job right, private label has less of an opportunity to be successful, as their brands are just so highly differentiated that the consumer is willing to pay for them.”

Baldwin also has advice for driven individuals looking to speed their rise through the ranks. “A marketer who gets an opportunity to be in sales, or a sales person who gets an opportunity to be in marketing will come out of either of those experiences with a broader view which will help them in the future.” Widen your skill set and seek functional experience that goes beyond sales, marketing, R&D or operation skills, he stresses.

He also believes that offering your subordinates a chance to shine is critical to your own success. “At the end of the day what gets you to be a Marketing Director or a Sales Director is not what will get you to be a Marketing VP or President of an organization in a place like Hershey. The fact is that getting results trumps everything, and your ability to create an environment where people can be as successful as they can be, or as they choose to be, is really what success is all about in my mind.” Lastly, Baldwin says there’s no substitute for being savvy, productive, and smart. Those traits sound like well-measured ingredients for any winning recipe.