Brief writing - it's harder than you think

The biggest problem with brief writing is that people think they're easy to write.

Typical Marketing Department:
"We're going to grab a sandwich. Coming?"
"Sure, give me ten minutes. Just need to get a brief to the Agency".


Typical Client Service Department:
"We're going for sushi. Coming?"
"Sure, give me ten minutes. Just need to get a brief into Traffic".

Great briefs take time. 

A great brief needs to be very, very clear what the resultant output should achieve (note: not what it should look or sound like, but what it's intention is). More than that a great brief must inspire, in fact, catapult, the imagination of your creative teams. It needs to immediately conjure up ideas and angles and possibilities and excitement. 

To do that it needs to be a few simple things:

1. Be Clear.

2. Be Concise.

3. Be Clever.

4. Be Creative.
5. Be Collaborative.

I'm going to unpack these in this blog. I've even drawn you a little video in the proposition section. Take a look. 

Be Clear:

Who do you want to do what as a result of this piece of communication?

There's a bunch of choices in there and the catch-all target market definition usually chucked in a brief is a perfect example of lazy thinking, where no choices have been made at all. It's murky and bloated and will undoubtedly lead to obviously murky and inefficient communication output.

To exquisitely illustrate the point, watch this:

Once you've sorted the "who are we talking to" out, then what do you want them to do...as a result of engaging with this piece of communication.

Answering these questions as a "if-then" approach is helpful. Remember, they may be exposed to a whole lot of things that your brand is saying in a whole lot of channels. However - what's this one going to ask the/expect them/persuade them to do?  This is where separating out marketing objectives from communication objectives is so critical. Example, the key job of a banner ad is most likely not to increase brand awareness.

Obviously if the brief is for the BIG IDEA, and you're not down to the individual elements yet, think even more carefully about what the role of the communication will be. What will success look like? Will it (can it) be measured, if so how, and if not - how will you know it worked?

Be Concise:

Doing all of the above thinking - before you write the brief - helps you become focused in your thinking. And so the communication can be focused, and work in an integrated way with all the other bits of communication in your overall plan. If you want to ask your consumers to do ten things, you must realize that not only are you being lazy, but most consumers are. Ask us to do/think/feel/remember one thing, maybe - just maybe - we'll do it. Ten things, or even three? Sorry, what were you saying again?

A creative brief should be no more than two pages. It should tell a story and should read well. Not like a collection of marketing-speak cut and pasted from the brand plan. 

Be Clever:

Find a truly interesting and motivating and deep-seated reason why people do what they do. And find a way of connecting it to what your brand offers. Where the human truth or insight meets your brand truth or insight is where the magic starts happening. This is going to emerge in your brief as the Proposition (see next point).

An example from a campaign that I loved the moment I saw it (Boom! Great insight driven work always does that - connects with a Boom!), is Sanlam's One Rand Man campaign. The insight is - my words not theirs - that because we don't physically pay with cash, our money doesn't seem real. 

Be Creative:

This is the real thorn in the side. Here's why you really can't bang it out before lunch.

The inspirational bit of the brief hinges on the Proposition. Call it what you like. The Platform. The Single Minded Thought. The Elevator Pitch. The thing most likely to convince our consumer to do/think/feel what we want them to do/think/feel. This builds on the brand's Value Proposition.

Source: Tim Williams

Usually, you can't get to a great proposition unless you have a really good Insight. Because what we want to do with the proposition is create a launch pad for ideas. The insight helps because it allows you a real understanding of consumer motivations and beliefs - the why not the what. (Insights are something that must be done, along with the Brand's Positioning Statement way before you sit down to write the brief).

The proposition requires creative writing. And understandably not every marketer or account manager is a creative writer. So this proposition can and should be written in collaboration with the agency. In agencies, account managers should be creative. But if they're not, then they should bring in a strategist or a copywriter to get that sentence. Because once you've got it - you're off. That's the catapult to a big idea and a seamless, integrated campaign.

Propositions need also to help make the brand distinctive. Why can this brand solve the tension in that insight better than anyone else? This is when a truly differentiated and distinctive product concept helps. But honestly, how many of those do we see?

So the proposition links a universal insight or truth with a brand truth with something that makes your brand distinctive from the competition or category. Note I said distinctive not differentiated. Distinctiveness is critical when we get to the communication part of the proposition. It sets us apart, maybe tonality, maybe because of an underlying purpose, maybe because of a bottle shape. 

Read this wonderful examnple from The Economist: https://brandsandhumour.substack.com/p/those-economist-ads-part-1

The best way to get better at this is to practice. There are a number of obvious examples but a powerful one is Dove. The fact that a brand based on a moisturising soap can help you acknowledge your inner saboteur and encourage self-belief and self-confidence in young women, is nothing short of miraculous.

I find a way to write good propositions is to think of them like headlines. In fact great propositions can be headlines and many end up with tiny tweaks to be payoff lines. How would you write the proposition for this ad?

Human truth: Very few women think they're beautiful (4%).
Brand truth: Dove has a range of everyday beauty products.

So, true to the brand: Dove is a real beauty product
Motivating insight: You are probably more beautiful than you think
Distinctive to the competition: Dove believes in real beauty.

Here are some options (and these take time to write, so you have to try them out until you get to one that sounds like it could create ideas).

Proposition ideas:
With Dove, you know your beauty is real.
Dove helps you be comfortable in your skin.
Dove believes your beauty is within.
Dove - real beauty is more than skin deep.
Dove is a real beauty brand that celebrates real beauty.
Dove wants you to feel more beautiful than you think.

Here's what their VP said:

So "Dove wants you to feel more beautiful than you think" feels quite on-brand and quite creatively liberating doesn't it?

That's probably an easy one, because we know what the output is. I took toothpaste (IMHO a massively undifferentiated and non-distinctive category, except for specialist toothpastes) and here's where I got:

Brand truth: Brand X makes your teeth white and your smile beautiful
Insight: I feel happier if someone smiles at me.
Distinctive: A toothpaste brand that believes in the benefit of smiling.

Proposition attempt: 
Brand X, making the world a happier place, one smile at a time.

I've never worked on a toothpaste brand, but Googling this - smiles are everywhere in toothpaste ads, So that's not distinctive. But it seems that "happiness" could carve a distinctive tonality in the category. Is this Coca Cola's territory? It is close. (Ironically). So we may need to keep working on the line to find the right word. But can you start seeing a campaign around Making the World a Happier Place, a hashtag on Instagram, a Pinterest board, some amazing content possibilities, ads? I can. It has "legs". 

The last piece about "Be Creative" is that you should consider your audience for the brief. The creative team. How can you dramatise the proposition? Where should you do the briefing session? In the boardroom? Or In Real Life somewhere?  Wherever, make it inspiring.

Be Collaborative

As I said at the beginning, briefs are hard to get right. The more heads to bounce ideas off, the better. 

But, this is not a committee. You're asking for clarity and inspiring comment, not "oh and can you add in that we now also close later on Fridays"?

Find people in your organisation that are good with words. Those right brain types. 

And, when you have your briefing session, and in discussion someone creative says "what if we said.....", and comes out with the zinger of propositions, please for the love of great communication, punch the air and say YES that's IT! Instead of "it's not what it says on the brief".

If they feel excited and you feel excited, I promise there's a better chance your consumers will too.

_____________________________________________________________________

Adtherapy runs  Exceptional Brief Writing workshops for marketers and agencies.  

The Creative Fitness programme also includes Developing Transformative Insights and other useful tools and techniques to make sure your communication is as good as it should be. 

Email gillian@adtherapy.co.za or call 0832659099 to discuss how we can help you.

Marketers' Aha moments reveal the pressure points in Agency-Client Relationships

Adtherapy runs a series of workshops with Marketers called "Creative Fitness."

It is a programme designed to help marketers to get the best out of their agencies, by understanding the process and the key components in getting from good to great advertising. 

We look at the briefing process. We interrogate how to generate insights. We look at what happens to a client brief once inside the agency (the creative brief). 

We talk about the creative 'tap' - how we want it to be open as that's when you get the best value for money - when the best creative brains want to work on your business. The 'creative tap' closes when there are too many reverts or when the feedback is too prescriptive and it becomes ' give them what they want so we can get it out of here'. That's not good use of your money. The hourly rate is the same whether the tap is open or closed! 

So we talk about building relationships and  learning how to evaluate ideas/executions in order to give feedback that is constructive and inspirational.

All good stuff, right? (You can read more about the programme here.) 

Having run a number of them this year, I thought it might be fun to reflect on the Aha! moments that come of the exercises we ask the delegates to do. These usually come out when we ask our Monday Question: so, what are you going to do differently on Monday?

(Source: www.garfield.com)

In no particular order, here are the most often uttered Aha!s:

1. I'm going to give my agency more time. 
2. I'm going to spend more time planning, and writing, my brief.
3. I'm going to keep my briefs shorter.
4. I'm going to look for the good in a creative presentation, not just look for what's wrong.
5. I'm going to 'market marketing' inside my organisation.
6. I'm going to look for deeper consumer insights.
7. I'm going to spend more time talking to consumers.
8. I'm going to make time to do the brand work that isn't clearly articulated at the moment.
9. I'm going to make my briefs inspiring.
10. I'm going to learn how to evaluate ads so I can have the language to give constructive feedback.
11. I'm going to set up what the brief was and who the target market is before I ask someone in the corridor whether they like the ad.
12. I'm going to collate feedback from everyone involved so we limit reverts.
13. I'm going to spend more time looking at great work so I understand what it looks like.
14. I'm going to be less prescriptive.
15. I'm going to build a stronger relationship with my agency. 

And there are more. Marketers realise how hard it is when confronted by a brief and a blank page. They realise how much harder it is when given too little information. They also have an aha! about how difficult it is to choose the best option when presented with a pile of ideas. That shows them the value of the Creative Director, the job he or she performs and the unique skill-set they have.
Image courtesy of adamr/FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

At the end of the programme, we find that there is a renewed sense of excitement about their ability to do great work. A renewed commitment to their role in providing the inputs to the agency that will lead to that great work. And a renewed promise to work with their agencies in a way that will no doubt prove invaluable to the most important person in the process: the consumer.

What these learnings also show me is the pressure points in this tricky space between logic and magic, between expectation and delivery, in an area that is super subjective. Maybe if marketers used these Aha's as a How To list, things could work a whole lot better?


For more information about the Creative Fitness Programme, or to find out more about Adtherapy's other training, mentoring and consulting programmes, visit www.adtherapy.co.za or better yet contact Gillian:  m: 0832659099 or email gillian@adtherapy.co.za

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

The Super Bowl Brief vs the Common Creative Brief

If writing creative briefs is hard then writing great creative briefs is extremely difficult.

The main problems are a lack of clarity of thought and an inspiring proposition. These arise because sometimes the brief-writer isn't clear why they're really asking for this piece of communication, or what they really want to say, or who they really want to say it to. But, most of all they don't know why anyone should believe them.

So they write briefs that offer their creative teams, and their consumers', too many choices.  Then they use the creative offering to whittle down to what they think they should say.

"Actually, that wasn't really what I had in mind... What I think we really should be saying, maybe, is ....."

Of course it's not always that bad. Some creative briefs are perfect.

But the Super Bowl ad-fest inspired me to ask this question:

How does a Super Bowl Ad Brief differ from the Common Client Ad Brief?

Is there a different approach to writing the brief for communication that will be watched, and analysed, and talked about, by millions?

And, with so many eyes on these ads, why is that some just don't hit the mark, some are bad, and some are amazing?

In 2013, when I first wrote an article on this question, I picked up a quote from a Bloomberg's Business Week article entitled : "Game on: Super Bowl ads are already playing online". It was from David Lubars, chairman and chief creative officer of BBDO North America,  who "advises keeping an ad simple and honest. “It should also be an easy, reductionist message,” says Lubars. “You’re getting a canvas that 120 million people will see. You have to go where nobody has gone before. The ad has to be single-minded, relevant, funny, and emotional. If it’s done right, $4 million (for a 30 - sec spot) is a bargain. I would say 90 percent of the people running ads are wasting their money.”

So back to my question. Is the brief different?
The Common Client Ad Brief also claims to want to be original, single minded, relevant and emotionally engaging, right? So what's the big difference? 

Maybe it's because the agencies recognise that this is THE brief and assign their best teams to work on it? But even that doesn't always deliver great work. Even if the Super Bowl Ad brief is perceived by the agencies to be much cooler and high-stakes with more chance of creative risk-taking than the average Common Client Brief, then why do some of the Super Bowl ads come out boring, done-before, irrelevant and imminently forgettable?

It seems that the enormous viewership has something to do with it. Possibly a bit of stage fright and a trying-too-hard aspect? Or a client wanting to cover all their bases to justify the enormous spend?

My two cents worth would be that there's too much playing to the masses and too much losing sight of the one person that actually counts - the person who may do something, buy something, think something, as a result of your ad. 

Two ads I thought hit the mark are the Avo's from Mexico ad, and the No More (NFL sponsored) ad against domestic abuse, which used a real life story.

Both ads are disruptive, fresh, single-minded, and totally relevant. One is funny, one is deeply chilling.  Both speak to the truth of the message. Both address, in totally different ways, an interesting insight. They have both managed to create an ongoing dialogue, online, offline, in people's hearts and minds, about what the ad actually spoke to us about.

Both ads are personal, using different techniques and totally different approaches. Yet both managed to communicate clearly to the 120million plus audience. Budweiser's "Lost Puppy", BMW's "New fangled idea" made me cry and laugh, but were more expected than the ones above. And as for Carl Jr's "All Natural", the less said the better. (#didwejustgobacktothe80's?)

Whether the ad was a hit or a miss (I loved Dove's "Salute to Dads", but the product segment at the end felt like a sledgehammer),  here's what I like to imagine sets a Super Bowl brief apart form a Common Creative Brief:

1. The client (and agency) are aiming for GREAT. You have a much better chance of getting there if you aim for it, than if you don't.
2. It's presumably agreed upfront that the ad has to be entertaining with exceptional production values (with budget allowed for) - great advice for the Common Brief to borrow from.
3. The ad aims to be memorable, relevant and engaging. Tick, tick and tick.
4. It simply has to be distinctive. And talk-able, and shareable. And that means some brave decisions need to be made in the approvals process.
5. The message has to be totally singleminded.

Maybe we should treat each ad brief like a Super Bowl brief and see what happens to the work?

ps. I am not a fan of the 'reveal' of the ad prior to the Superbowl. To me it takes away so much of the excitement I used to feel if I've already seen them the week before. #justsaying

Recent projects by Adtherapy

Adtherapy, a company which consults on all areas of advertising to both Marketers and Ad Agencies, has recently completed the following projects:

· Agency interventions: communications, relationship, and skills audit and in-depth assessment of weakness in Agency-Client relationship, with strategic recommendations focussed on improving the quality of creative output, for SABMiller on a number of brands;

· Rules of Engagement (a process to get a new relationship between agency/client off to a good start) for SABMiller and Exclusive Books;

· Creative Advertising for Marketers workshops(one one-day interactive workshop to enhance advertising skills to all levels of Marketers) to Ackermans, Exclusive Books, van Schaik and FNB;

· a Perceptual Study on Agency Brand Reputation (interviewing top marketers about a particular agency brand and the industry in general) for a Top 10 agency;

· Pitch guidance (working with ad agency to mentor strategy, creative and pitch presentation);

· Mediation (between Creative director and agency),

· Positioning strategy for a Design agency;

· Client/Agency Remuneration Negotiation.

· Lecturing: Gillian Rightford lectures Advertising and Brand Communication at the School of Management Science at the University of Cape Town. She lectures third year Business Science and a Post Graduate Diploma in Marketing. She also was appointed to develop and lecture a course to third year Stellenbosch Design Academy creative students that highlights the role of account management and strategy in agencies, and discusses how to build strong account management/creative/client partnerships for more creative, more effective, work.

· She recently did a talk to SAMRA members on Creative Advertising: Art or Science?

· Coaching and Mentoring: Gillian has conducted a number of Executive coaching and/or mentoring sessions. Gillian did a foundation Coaching course with Acclaim Human Capital, using the Co-Active Coaching method. Her Coaching philosophy is that life is not separate from work, and balance is all-important. Her coaching is aimed at Executives in the Communication Industry. Her coaching methodology works by combining coaching and mentoring – it focuses on the business challenges at hand, and works to build skills and understanding to help the candidate achieve his or her goals in a work space. The personal space is not ignored, and the approach looks to optimise both. The end goal must be balance: work and life satisfaction.

AdCracker - why I like it

in my line of work, the same problems come up all the time.
1. Terrible briefs. From Client. Exacerbated by terrible briefs written by Client Service.
2. Work off brief (um, go figure).
3. Creative takes too long (see above comment).
4. Too expensive (yes, there it is again).
5. Poor relationship (well it would be wouldn't it?)

So I love AdCracker because it shows anyone (client or agency) how to write a good brief, what a positioning is, what should be in a strategy, some clever insight into consumer behaviour.

But best of all, it attempts, through CD Steve MacNamara's personal and light hearted writing, to teach people the difference between a good ad and a mediocre one. He showcases great ads, and tells you why they work.

Every agency, and every marketing department should have one, and make it compulsory viewing.

In my humble opinion.