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!

Ad Strategy??

Advertising Strategy or account planning, as it is most commonly called, is something that’s enveloped in mysticism as advertising's market research. This notion is erroneous and false. Strategy in Advertising is a fusion of both sectors of the brain both the logical and the creative.

Before the 1980's many of the advertisements were surely creative but lacked truth or a resonating message to the consumer. Advertisers and brands pretty much said whatever they wanted to gain the consumers attention (an unfortunate reputation that advertising still holds today). Then in the mid-1980's the new discipline of account planning arose. It was Birthed across the pond in the agencies in the UK (bloody good show mates) to finding out what message truly will resonate with the consumer, but still be creative.

Account Planners are a reflection of the consumer’s human truth. Planners are required to be avid readers, anthropologists, sociologists and must have a dash creativity.

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So how does it work? Why does it work?

Because it uses everyday nuances within culture, society, and the human psyche. To understand a person means you convey a message that can be understood by not only them but those of the same mindset. A perfect example of both creative strategy and strategy is Apple's First creative commercial found here:

This commercial strategically set the narrative that Apple's whole sense of being which “technology that breaks the status quo” is. The human insight was that Windows had pretty much a monopoly on the computer operating system industry and due to this fact the computers and operating system that came out during the time were lackluster and all the same. Apple was the change in that it created a new type of system and OS that differed from the mainstream.

A good example on how Apple's model resonates with the consumer via their messaging and insight can be explained by the great speaker Simon Sinek.

Leaders Eat Last

I distinctly remember, when I was doing a training operation in the Mojave Desert, during the coldest part of the year, a Sergeant of Marines was medically evacuated with hypothermia. During the frigid hours of the desert night, he had given his sleeping system and most of his warming layers to some of his freezing junior Marines. He was a leader that cared more about his underling’s safety than his own.

When I was in Afghanistan as a young Corporal, I stepped on a pressure plate connected to a 40lb IED. The only person with me was a Marine by the name of Sergeant Estrada. Instead of running, Sergeant Estrada (Now SSgt Estrada) told me to "freeze” as he began searching around my feet to check where the wires were leading to. Luckily, we discovered the wires had been disconnected from the main charge of the IED.   

What is this brand of leadership that I'm describing? The kind that makes the individuals in your charge want to work for you. It's when you as a leader show that the people in your cohort and the work is the priority. The people in your organization will work for you not because they are paid, but because they feel intrinsically driven to.   

Please watch check out this video filled with great insights on leadership by Simon Sinek. He grasped a lot of his knowledge from my Alma Mater The United States Marine Corps.

What Makes A Good Planner?

When I first entered the strategy field, I often wondered "what makes a good account planner?" I would often hear many different opinions ranging from " Planners must be good with data tools." to "Planners gotta make sure they think like a human." When searching for the answer on what truly makes a good planner I stumbled upon on a video of Jon Steel, one of the top advertisers to who defined the field, defining what makes a good planner.