That Brief Tho

One of the most nerve-wracking and time-consuming part of being an Account Planner is The Creative Brief.

So what is the Creative Brief? It is a document/presentation that formulates your nights filled with woe and eye-burning research into a single piece of paper. It is supposed to ignite a cosmos of creativity that can be created into great advertising campaigns. No pressure right?

What the brief encompasses in detail is Who the consumer is in terms of character profile/ demographic; What the brand/ product is; What the goal is; the insight for the campaign and most importantly the dreaded Big Idea!

So how do these statements have such an impact?

 An example:

Insight: People delightfully devour McDonald's but won’t post due to McShaming.

Bad Big idea: You love to eat at McDonald's, why not show that you love it?

Decent Big idea: McDonald's: Embrace your guilty pleasure.

If you look at the insight and the statements they are similar but differ greatly. Your insight and big idea are often provocative and are based on tension (something that is evident but rarely said). They summarize an idea into creation being able to depict powerful ideas that can resonate with the creative team, but more importantly with the consumer. In the example above the creative team would generate different creative campaigns by notion given in the good single-minded property while the bad is the traditional marketing rabble that doesn’t provide any creative ammunition.

How do you gauge if the creative brief and ideas are good? By the reaction of the creatives. In my experience, it is at times difficult to capture the attention, energy, and imaginations of the creatives in the room. Most of the time they are doodling. When the reaction from them comes in the form of silence or they ask numerous questions about the base idea. It is usually time to go back to the drawing board. On the other side of the fence if they are excited, and out of the seat, you have a winning idea.

 The client is a different matter altogether. In my next post, I will write about how to sell the idea to your clients.

 I have included a video about briefs and how they can greatly shape an idea in advertising, life, and over all creation. This may not sound like the sexiest of videos, but you would be surprised by its quality and its ability to capture your attention. Please enjoy!