123: Let’s reverse engineer a creative brief for an Amazon TV spot.

Reverse engineering is a wonderfully effective training device to get brief writers into the right mind-set for writing a real brief. It’s a thought exercise you can do everyday, probably in less than a minute. Today, Henry Gomez and I watch a :60 spot for Amazon Prime and then “reverse engineer” the spot and figure out the brief. We don’t know everything the agency (Weiden + Kennedy) knows, nor what Amazon told them. But as ad pros, we know a thing or two and can make more than a few educated guesses. The bigger point it that, as an exercise, this is a great test of your critical thinking skills and hones your brief writing skills. Make this a regular part of your daily professional life, whether you write briefs, review them or work from them.

“Howard is a master at helping brief writers get to the point & learn how to inspire. After the course I realize it’s not as hard as I thought.”
Survey Response April, 2017
“In the future, all creative briefs will be BS-proof and Jargon-free, and we’ll have this summit to thank.”
Survey Response, February, 2020
“Definitely recommend this workshop for anyone looking to enhance their creative brief process. Makes you want to actually write and review briefs!”
Survey Response April, 2017
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Reid Holmes, Partner/ECD, Mojo Strategy and Consulting, Minneapolis, MN
“I would recommend this workshop to anyone who never has used creative briefs or even if you already do. The tools and exercises given will change your mind on how you create these briefs. It’s an easy and interactive workshop to get through and the instructor was engaging and on point.”
Survey Response February, 2020
“Thank you for inspiring me to be more, well, inspiring! I got a lot out of your session today - both as a brief writer and as a training lead. I bought some of your books on Amazon to share with my team.”
Survey Response April 2020
“I loved that Howard came in hot and pushed us out of our comfort levels. He called marketers out on things we can do better. The existing…creative brief process has been painful for our creatives, but also for our marketing teams as well. But from this exercise, we have all learned that the creative brief process truly needs to be collaborative.”
Survey Response July, 2020
“Great reminder of what the creative brief is supposed to do and how to get there! Thanks!”
McGuffin Mornings attendee
“Valuable information about how others develop briefs. Big emphasis on what really matters and our own team’s input was very important/helpful.”
Survey Response March, 2021
“He hits at the key points that really make a creative brief easy to tackle and execute.”
Survey Response November, 2021
“As someone who doesn’t write briefs, I never knew how helpful this would be. This will help me ask better questions and push my teammates so we can create better work.”
Survey Response November, 2017
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