Core Elements

1. Writing the Creative BriefYou Can't Wait For Inspiration.  You Have To Go After It With A Club." Jack London, American Author, Journalist, And Social Activist

2. Core Elements • Product/ Service • Background and Competition • Communication Challenge • Obstacles • Core Proposition and Support • Brand insights • Brand personality and tone of voice • Target audience insights • Mandatories

3. Today’s Brief • As briefing/planning becomes a more accepted and critical part of the business, the formality has lessened • Not a “pass along” document…often created in collaboration with creatives and media • The new media environment and the power of social media has dramatically altered the “big idea” and more points of view are needed

4. Writing the Brief – the basics • Product/Service • Background and Competition • Offer some orientation so we know how this communication will adjust to the environment. What is the company/service; its history and background; the category issues, competitive issues • Chrysler

5. The Communication Challenge • What’s the communication objective • Create awareness, etc. • Build brand share • How can the communication objective be better defined and narrowed to better direct creatives, and help the client better see how the advertising can reach the objective?

6. Try these…. • Binary considerations • Lead the client through the process of answering several “either/or” questions • This will help define the client’s thinking and focus the brief on a more singular objective

7. Binary question #1:Are we going for brand share OR are we expanding the market? • If I already have 75% of the market, I don’t have as much reason to go after the remaining 25% as I do to grow the market to be even bigger since I’m likely to pick up 75% of them based on my brand strength • If I only have 20% of market share, not much point in growing the market, because the majority of the newbies will go to my competition. Better to steal share and hang on to what I’ve got. • Communication challenge? • Option A: Get more people to consider home dryer dry cleaning • Option B: Show why Wool-lite is better than Dryel

8. Binary Question #2Are we going for trial by non-users OR are we going to get existing users to use more? • If the market is already saturated, it won’t be very profitable to go for non-user (since there aren’t many of them). I have to go after users • Communication challenge? • Saturated market? Go for users and get them to use more • Unsaturated market? Go for non-users

9. Binary question #3Do we have a USP or are we going for branding? • If we have a USP (and it had better be good), that should be the platform for differentiation • If we don’t have a USP, then emphasizing the brand name • Communication challenge? • Mnemonic device? A catchy jingle, great creative, color, phrase? • Logic argument: Do you have an argument to make?

10. Obstacles? • What prevents the target from engaging? • Identify and overturn in order to achieve the objective • Example: Red Cross: • Objective – get people to donate more blood • Problem to solve: Ultimately, why aren’t people giving blood? • Apathy? • Time & hassle? • Fear of needles? • Fear of fainting? • Fear of disease?

11. Core proposition • Simple statement that states the key promise or message, and it should be ONE! • The thing your product can do that others can’t • The thing you can do that none of your competitors have decided to own yet • Quantify or qualify your propositions • Best • Most luxurious • Convenient • Quality

12. Proposition support • Provide examples that prop up the proposition…the reasons why the consumer should believe the promise • This support should jive with what consumers have told you are important to them • Consider that small nugget or detail presented creatively may be the necessary thing for inspiration • Passat keyless entry

13. Brand insights • How is the brand perceived on the dimensions of • Relevance • Differentiation • Stretch • Credibility

14. What brand support does the communication need to provide? • By communicating additional information about the brand? • New features/benefits • By creating awareness, fame, familiarity or salience? • Consumers will gravitate toward the brands they know • Creating a “lovemark” – making a love connection between the consumer and the brand • Great “lovemarks”?

15. By creating involvement/engagement? • Communicating some intangible value not found in the product, i.e. coolness, modernity, edginess • Using emotion, symbol, metaphor to stimulate desire • By creating associations that will influence purchasing behavior • Research shows that consumers will make associations between sense experiences that will automatically trigger connections in the mind that can influence behavior • Through repetition of image or sound, these associations are imprinted below the surface of conscious thought. Color red and Coke

16. Brand personality and tone of voice • All brands have a personalities • One word • Extension of the values • Should be consistent from execution to campaign • Examples of tone • VW Self deprecating • Johnson & Johnson empathetic • Economist Elitist • Axe Over the top sexual

17. Brand personality? • Levis • Pizzicato • Trek bicycles • Red Bull

18. Target audience insights • Draw a picture for the reader • Use qualitative descriptors (it can be more powerful to say “sad dads” than fathers, aged 35-50 who are sadly past buying a sportscar and now are in the market for a mini-van) • Emphasize the deeper understanding and motivation. Insights are more than descriptions. They tell us “why?” • Articulate the sweet spot: where the understanding of the consumer overlaps with the brand insight

19. Mandatories • Inclusions/Exclusions • Phone numbers/ web addresses • Client “must haves” • Logos, taglines • Call to action

20. Craft it creatively • This is as much a creative document as the final ad • You know your creatives: what inspires them? • Can you be funny, clever, provocative? • Visual, visual, visual • Tell stories. The advertising will need to tell a believable story.

21. Fatal mistakes • The proposition that is not single minded • Weak support • Lack of consumer insight • Flat and uninspiring

22. Gillette

23. Jazz FM

24. Lego