This is the first in a series of essays called Brief Writers on Briefs. I asked Lance Saunders to kick-off this monthly series because he was my first brief mentor. In late 2007, I joined Campbell Mithun in Minneapolis as a freelance copywriter on the H&R Block account, and one day I knocked on Lance’s door. At the time, he was the director of strategy at CM. Did he have a minute, I asked, to talk to me about creative briefs? I was just beginning my journey to learn about the document, the process and the thinking that goes into writing it. And I doubt he ever heard a question like that from anyone, let alone a creative. He invited me in, and thus began a friendship and seventeen year conversation about a subject dear to both of us. Lance has been on The Brief Bros. podcast to talk about briefs, training, trends in our industry and other topics. I am grateful and proud that he agreed to write this insightful and erudite essay that is a must-read for everyone in our industry. As you will soon learn, he set the bar high.
by Lance Saunders, strategic consultant/part-time professor at York University
In the world of marketing, the creative brief is often seen as the holy grail of campaign planning. But what if I told you that the key to a great brief isn’t in the writing at all? It’s in the thinking that comes before.
Years ago, a young Pepsi Co. brand manager shared a piece of wisdom that stuck with me: “Lance, there are things I need to do to keep my job and other things I need to do to get ahead in it. You need to do both, but you really need to lean into the latter.” Today, he’s a CEO elsewhere, proving the value of his perspective.
For agency planners, client service professionals, or clients themselves, ‘’leaning in’’ to write great creative briefs is a sure fire way to fast track your career. I believe a great creative brief starts further upstream, in the area of proper problem identification, this is the oxygen that sparks creativity to drive results. In a world where “creativity” is often an overused term yet one in short supply, this skill is invaluable. A PwC survey found that over 60% of CEOs rate creativity as the most important leadership quality, with 77% citing creative thinking as crucial.
The Problem-Solving Sandwich
So, how does this relate to briefs? The creativity mindset starts by challenging assumptions and asking: What’s the real problem? Think of it as a three-layer sandwich:
- Top layer: What’s the real problem we’re trying to solve for?
- Middle (the meat): What insight or idea will get us there?
- Bottom layer: What does success look like?
If you don’t get the top layer right, the entire strategy crumbles. My advice is to also simplify it make it so everyone clearly understands it. Remember the lawyer Joe Miller in the movie” Philadelphia,” played by Denzel Washington who repeatedly interrupted people in mid-sentence with the request that they, “explain it to me like I’m an 8 year old.” What we often do is ‘inside baseball,’ add confusing industry vernacular, buzz words, and other marcom nonsense to cloud the issue we might not really know what the problem is.
What does this have to do with briefs, this creativity mindset starts by challenging the first assumption, why are we even doing this? Today, every industry is faced with a myriad of issues from disruption, sales issues, brand health in decline etc. but have you defined the real issue that has led to where you are today? Solving this is the road map in how to win, and there is nothing more desired in business than winning.
Misidentified Problems
- The Coca-Cola Conundrum
Coca-Cola’s global issue isn’t about awareness or better ads. With arguably 95% global awareness, the real problem is young people rejecting carbonated soft drinks. A new ad campaign whether “Happiness,’’ and now ‘’Masterpiece’’ et al or even trying to find a new higher social purpose to connect to won’t solve this fundamental shift in consumer behavior that Gen Z is not buying fizzy iced cold Coca – Colas like they once did.
- The Automotive Industry’s Youth Problem
Young people aren’t buying cars like they used to. Is this even true? If so is it a personal choice, or an economic issue given the average new car price is about $50,000, or has working from home reduced one’s transportation priorities? Whatever the reasons a flashy ad with a great music track highlighting Apple CarPlay with four young people grooving to the latest beats on the way to the beach won’t address those underlying issues. Guess what they are grooving to the beats on the way to the beach but in their Uber ride.
- The Dairy Dilemma
In Canada, fluid milk consumption has been declining for decades. Yet, dairy boards often focus on wanting to portray farmers as hardworking, genuine and nice. Having worked on this category and having met many farmers they are indeed really nice people, arguably maybe the nicest people you will ever meet.
The real issues for fluid milk sales decline however could be any and all of these; dietary concerns, other newer milk options [oat, almond etc.], pricing issues, codependent categories like breakfast cereals are also in decline therefore milk would be as well, a growing immigrant population that may or may not have grown up with milk as North Americans have, or concerns of animal welfare.
But, literally no one is going to drink more milk because Stan a dairy farmer in Sudbury seems like a nice fellow. The only people who love these ads are Stan’s family and all of the dairy boards for some reason. They can’t get enough of them.
The Agency-Client Disconnect
Agencies often fail to ask tough questions, and clients may resist facing uncomfortable truths. We once worked with a financial services client whose business was declining. After multiple rejected creative presentations, we discovered a hidden piece of research, one that showed that their own salespeople wouldn’t recommend their own products to friends and family. The problem wasn’t ad likability – it was a fundamental issue with their product offering. Once addressed business was quickly back on track and the ads were no longer the flash point.
Albert Einstein who as far as I can tell never wrote a creative brief in his life but knew how to solve a problem or two said, ‘’ If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.’’ This approach contrasts sharply with the Western business tendency to rush towards action.
Graham Wallace’s Four-Step Process solved in 1926
In the 1926 book “The Art of Thought’’ by Graham Wallace considered to be the grandfather of insight thinking he wrote about a four step process;
1. Preparation: “investigate the problem from all directions”
2. Incubation: “Stop consciously thinking about the problem’’
3. Illumination: “the appearance of the happy idea”
4. Verification: “test the validity of the idea ”
Wallace also pointed out most of the problems that readers of this column are probably facing today are not what he called analytical problems which can be solved with sufficient domain expertise and an effort to solve them. Rather we are faced with insight problems ones that demands real imaginative leaps and putting together combinations of exiting and collected understanding in new ways.
Reframing the Problem: The “Got Milk?” Success Story
Reframing the problem to uncover something that no one had thought of before is also an avenue worth pursuing. If you do not know the legendary story of planning guru Jon Steeles reframing of the milk problem that we take milk for granted seek it out. This was for the California dairy farmers by using deprivation research which led to the iconic creative solution “Got Milk’’ campaign. It was a farmer free campaign and apparently the only milk campaign globally at the time to actually reduce real milk declines.
Constraints as Opportunities: The Audi Racing Example
Sometimes you know the solution, but you bang your head against the same problem, but looking at the problem in a fresh new way can lead you to the solution you dreamt about. In the brilliant book “A Beautiful Constraint; How to Transform your Limitations into Advantage… ‘’ by Adam Morgan, he illustrates how limitations like not enough; money, time, resources, know how, etc. can actually drive creativity. My favourite example is the Audi racing team competing in the 24 hours of les Mans. They knew their competitors race car was faster, the problem to be solved was then very simple ‘build a faster engine.’ However once they had maximized the performance of the engine only to discover it still might be not fast enough, a smart engineer reframed the problem not as the car’s engine is too slow, but one of fuel efficiency. In a 24 hour race if they could reduce their pit stops they could win so they concentrated not on more horse power but more miles per gallon and ended up in the winner’s circle.
Italian philosopher Viltredo Pareto who also coined the 80/20 rule wrote ‘’An idea is nothing more or less than a combination of old elements. This is the key to insightful thinking.’’
Spy agencies get it
When the 9/11 commission stated that one of the key security failures was a ‘’lack of imagination’’ the C.I.A. got to work teaching creative thinking to its analysts and spies. They start at number 1 using something called WoMBAT – reframe the problem or question. Let’s say I am a terrorist hiding in NYC. You do not ask ‘’Where’s Lance?’’ that is called framing bias. Instead you open up the possibilities using WoMBAT which reframes it as ‘’ What Might Be All The…’’ In this case what might be all of the ways to find Lance in NYC? Standing at the Nathan’s hot dog cart outside of Central Park is even money but I digress. This opens the scope of the problem and a new range of possibilities. The word ‘’might’’ is also key as this brings up new creativity avenues that might never have been considered.
Also look up the C.I.A.’s The Phoenix Checklist a rich list for problem solving part 1. Identify, clarify, and prioritize your problem. How, by answering a series of 20 plus rigorous questions on exactly just how to interrogate the problem? If you want to be the Jason Bourne of your company here is your secret sauce.
There is no shortage of techniques to solve for problems like the 5 whys a Japanese technique originally developed by Sakichi Toyoda who stated that by repeating why five times, the nature of the problem as well as its solution becomes clear. There is the SWOT analysis, root cause analysis, customer journey mapping, and the dreaded internal brainstorm meeting. Any consultant worth their salt will happily put you to sleep with their 3-5- 7 step proprietary problem-solving process. These tools have failed us not because they do not work but because in our race to solve for them the wrong problem was never identified and then we blamed the technique employed.
There is no magic formula and you definitely do not need to call Mckinsey in to solve it for you. You can employ any of the ones already mentioned or see below.
Getting Started: A Step-by-Step Guide
Here’s how to get started:
- Gather all available data: Sales figures, market research, customer feedback – leave no stone unturned.
- Leave the building go out into the real world and experience brand/service for yourself.
- Interview stakeholders: Talk to everyone from frontline staff to C-suite executives. Each perspective adds a piece to the puzzle. You only need one person’s unique pov to nail it for you.
- Challenge assumptions: Ask ‘why’ at every turn. The most dangerous assumptions are often the ones we don’t even realize we’re making.
- Look at the problem from multiple angles: Consider it from the perspective of different departments, customers, and even competitors.
- Allow for incubation: As Graham Wallace suggested, give your mind time to process. Some of the best insights come when you’re not actively thinking about the problem.” Time is your friend not your enemy. This is your ‘aha moment.’
- Conclusion: Come to a new point of view based on rigour, intuition, and an ability to see patterns others have overlooked. Surprisingly this is also an insight as defined by planner Julian Cole as, ‘’an insight is a revelatory truth that makes you look at the problem in a new way.’’ Ta – da.
A creative brief is only as good as the thinking behind it. By mastering the art of problem identification, you’re not just writing better briefs it’s about transforming how we approach challenges in business and beyond, additionally on a personal level you’re positioning yourself as a true strategic thinker and problem solver. In a world where creativity is in high demand but short supply, this skill is your key to not just keeping your job, but excelling in it, so lean in.
Sources
Phoenix checklist
https://www.futurebusinesstech.com/blog/the-phoenix-checklist-how-the-cia-defines-problems-and-plans-solutions#google_vignette
