Another nice side catch: because the name starts with a number, 1609bold is always at the top of a list of names. "We sponsor football, the list of names is always alphabetical, so we are always at the front. You buy injury time with it. We want to be top of mind," Bas laughs. And we succeed: with creative campaigns, sharp concepts and strong positioning, 1609bold attracts the attention of thousands of people every day.

Different strategy requires creative project planning

So 1609bold once started as an advertising agency. Rejauna (project manager and communications specialist) says: "Whereas we used to make pretty pictures, we have now switched from an executive to an advisory role. We support clients with their positioning and campaigns. We have the creativity and design in-house, but we only advise. We no longer do any executive work at all - we work with partners for this. In doing so, we select our clients strictly: 90% of our assignments come from commercial industry and business services."  

This different way of working also demanded something of the organisation. Assignments became (long-term) projects, the team expanded and the requests poured in. Rejauna: "The new way of working created challenges. The project managers, including myself, lacked an overview of ongoing projects. We were working with a CRM system and a separate Excel in which we kept track of schedules. When a colleague was absent and we had to take over the work, we didn't know where to start. Where we stood in the project was unclear. We soon realised that planning in Excel didn't work." 

"Planning in Excel was no longer working." - Rejauna, project manager at 1609bold  

The decisive factor

So what pulled 1609bold over the line to finally choose vPlan? Rejauna says: "We were given a demo and then it was actually clear very quickly that we had to have this. vPlan was the only party that really answered our questions in terms of content. Overview of all projects per customer, insight into the progress of these projects and the flexibility of planning is very important to us. We find this in vPlan." 

She continued: "What I found really cool during the demo was the sequentiality of planning. If we agree: it has to be finished by 12:00 on Tuesday, but it didn't work out, the whole schedule shifts. We depend on external people, such as designers, website builders and the like. As a result, we have to be able to shift the schedule flexibly. The dependent tasks are really great for us. In addition, the clear checklists for each task show exactly what needs to be done," she concludes enthusiastically.

Planning creative projects 

Anyone with a creative profession knows: you can't plan creativity. So how do they do it at 1609bold? Rejauna is happy to explain how they manage their creative projects in vPlan: "We use multiple planning boards. First of all, we have one planning board for mapping all the projects. We set out the projects and assign the right colleagues to them. We view the planning from different views. In the list view, we monitor the status of each project. In the calendar view, we view the planned projects per person." 

"You can't plan creativity. vPlan offers a lot of freedom in this." - Rejauna, project manager 

She continues, "The hours incurred for a project are booked right on the project in vPlan. These recorded hours are also shot back to Exact and are invoiced easily. We now only quote on subsequent costing. With vPlan's hour registration, we give transparency to the customer and also get accurate post-calculation ourselves." 

And that's not all. Rejauna: "We also use vPlan for our client file. All customer information and agreements made with sales are in there. So everyone can see what has been agreed with the customer. Sales puts the necessary information into vPlan, once the offer is agreed the project manager picks it up further."  

"In addition, we now also have the whiteboard with all to-do's in a plan board in vPlan. Every day the project teams start with a stand-up and then discuss the open tasks. They can be different tasks: for projects or for development and partners. This way, everyone knows exactly what needs to be done and it is also easy to take over each other's work in case of downtime," Rejauna explains.  

"Everyone knows exactly what needs to be done." - Rejauna 

Bas also says he uses vPlan a lot. "I use vPlan for recording my appointments, so really as an agenda. I also use the app a lot. Ideal when I'm just on the road and want to see my schedule or register hours." 

Conclusion: great flexibility, time savings and a creativity boost

Besides the solution for their project planning, they have achieved other results, says Rejauna. "Earlier, we used to schedule in Excel and work on time. We planned blocks in which, for example, design had to work. Now that we work with vPlan, our creatives can plan their own day. The tasks are set, but they have the freedom to decide for themselves when to do what. This has given us a different way of working. With vPlan, we can be flexible and creativity is promoted." 

Bas adds: "vPlan is increasingly becoming the central application. We have four boards where we also keep track of things other than our customers' projects. There are no more Excel files in circulation, everything is recorded within one place. During internal meetings, we also use vPlan to record documentation. Daily corrections in Excel are a thing of the past, which saves me half an hour a day anyway. That's enormously nice." 

Favourite functionality?

Rejauna: "I find visual overview in projects the biggest advantage. And scheduling itself works superfine. I can put a card in a colleague's diary, on which they register time themselves. This works perfectly because no one is stuck to a specific time block anymore." 

Recommendation for advertising agencies

Although Rejauna really enjoys working with vPlan, she does have a tip: "Get advice. Leave the method of planning and setting up your project schedule to an expert. There are plenty of them at vPlan. Planning was not our strong suit and we didn't know whether the current way of working was the most efficient. So we went into the implementation of vPlan completely blank. The vPlan consultants advised us on the best way to set up our planning boards. So we quickly learned how best to start planning and entering our projects. That really gave us a kickstart in the initial phase with vPlan and I am convinced that it enabled us to plan efficiently with vPlan quickly!" 

Bas and Rejauna, thanks for the interesting conversation and have fun planning with vPlan!