Hollywood, CA — May 2012
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Fans of Mad Men and The Pitch take note: there’s a new kid on the block, a reality show airing in June that looks into the bowels of advertising agencies at the dramatic creation of the work behind the creative work.
If you’ve wondered what the creative teams use to produce the big ideas that become TV spots, billboards, print, digital and every other form of advertising, you won’t want to miss this new drama.
It’s called The Brief.
How does it play out?
Hollywood has done it again. Representatives from two ad agencies meet with “the client” to get the assignment.
Back at their respective shops, each agency assembles a team of top planning, account and creative talent who collaborate as a group on writing the creative brief that will outline in sharp, insightful detail what the creative team needs to know and what it’s expected to do.
Well….not a team exactly. A team in spirit. But not a team. More like…one person.
But the drama is still riveting! In each one-hour episode we’ll watch…well it’s not an hour exactly. It seems like an hour. In fact it probably seems like a lot more than an hour. But in truth…it’s about 15 minutes.
And for ten of those 15 minutes we watch on the edges of our seats as each…person (Why more than one? That’s the way it’s always been done, right? Don’t mess with tradition!)…agonizes over how to write the creative brief. Completely alone. Isolated. In a windowless conference room. It’s like watching Tom Hanks in Cast Away…minus the beautiful scenery. And the drama.
It doesn’t take long before we realize that SEC regulators have more input and valuable information than our victim…um…brief writer. That even the token liberal on Fox News has more hope of making a relevant point.
We can hardly look away as we watch our lone brief writer pray. For help. For input. For salvation from a hopeless task…until our intrepid brief writer discovers…
…the client MarCom brief!
It’s a miracle! (Cue the Hans Zimmer score)
Hasty cutting and pasting ensues and our brief writer pays homage to Microsoft Word.
But Hollywood saved the drama for the end. When the brief writer finishes his task and presents the creative brief to the creative team…whoa! Watch the sparks fly!
Guess who notices the jumble of typefaces.
Or who counts up the “see below” comments.
Check your local listing for air date and times. You won’t want to miss this new reality show.
It is, after all, more real than real.
