Friday, September 13, 2013

Brief Writing For Today's Marketer

I read The Ignition Group's blog called "A new set of briefs for new times", and I thought - well yes of course.

The reason I particularly liked it was that I had - just that very day - given my Post Grad Marketing Students at UCT an assignment which dealt with one of the key areas in The Ignition Group's new briefing template: that being the consumer purchase decision journey, and the touch points a marketer can influence along that journey.

I think too often we forget about interrogating this journey from consideration to purchase. 

"Image courtesy of renjith krishnan/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net"
We assume it's a kind-of linear one from seeing our communication (whatever that may be) to the store shelf or 'buy' button. 

We forget about all the other bits that go into that decision - from memory, motivation and other personal influences, to inter-personal (cultural, societal, family) influences, to factors like time, place and environment. And the enormous impact of experience and learning.
 
Maybe we don't actually forget, but to include this as a standard heading in the briefing template forces you to think 360 degrees, to think integrated, to think across all channels. 

It has to be integrated because every single touch-point has to work, and build, along the way. And the journey map may highlight some key influencers that we hadn't thought of including in our integrated comms plan.

Here's their intro:

Part of the reason agencies are stuck in a cycle of producing traditional solutions is because we still rely on outmoded tools.  Today, creativity is manifest just as much in how and where the message appears as what it says.  Just having a traditional creative brief to guide us is an incomplete solution.
To help us think and work differently, we need several different versions of briefs:
  1. The Context Brief is a concise summary of key insights about the market, the brand, and the customer.
  2. The Contact Brief maps out the customer journey and identifies major brand contact points.
  3. The Content Brief identifies the messaging strategy.

So - hats off to them. I think this is useful.
 
Read their new briefing template here: A-New-Set-of-Briefs-for-New-Times

Read McKinsey's view on how the Consumer Purchase Decision Journey has changed and what to do about it here: the_consumer_decision_journey
 
Adtherapy runs workshops on all things to do with improving the quality of communications outputs. Excellence in brief writing is as critical to marketers as it is to agency account managers and strategic planners. For information on courses and workshops that Adtherapy runs on Brief writing and other key inputs into the creative process, call Gillian on 0832659099 or mail gillian@adtherapy.co.za

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Adtherapy: Clients' Aha! Moments

Adtherapy: Clients' Aha! Moments: Adtherapy runs a series of workshops with Marketers called "Creative Fitness." Essentially, it is a programme designed to hel...