Write a killer single-minded proposition in 4 steps.
4641939331_0fee32dc15 [I break down the single-minded proposition to its most basic elements on The Brief Bros., my video podcast. You can also follow me on Youtube.] (Re-posted from April 6, 2015: This essay is by far my most popular, most read, most Googled blog post to date. I bring it back to give you another opportunity to […]
A trap every brief writer must avoid.
Perhaps you’ve read this line: “Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.” With apologies to its author (or authors), allow me to amend it: “Eternal vigilance is the price of an inspired creative brief.” While every question on a creative brief presents opportunities for missteps, one in particular routinely gets the best of brief writers. In other […]
Blame the Brief: A limp ad from Viagra.
Pfizer’s Agency Pulls A Boner In Its Ad For ED Medication. Even professionals make mistakes. This one, um, stands head and shoulders above its competition. Is it just me, or do you, too, see the classic error? Break it down: Viagra is the brand name for a prescription medication designed to treat erectile dysfunction. Its […]
10 ideas to polish your creative briefs.
As we enter the Dog Days of Summer, I offer 10 thoughts and observations as you toil on your briefs. 1. Get out of the office! Live! There is nothing more stifling to creativity than routine. Break old habits and make new scenery part of your routine. If you ever watched spy movies, remember the advice: “If […]
The proposition is dead. Long live the proposition.
Thanks to relatively new research in the effectiveness of advertising, which pits fact-based information messages against emotion-based non-propositional messages, I see a unique opportunity to strengthen the creative brief in general, and the proposition in particular. No matter which side of this debate wins, and there’s a decent chance that both will end up playing equal […]
The creative brief embraces both the emotional and rational support for brands.
When I worked for Team One Advertising back in the late 1990s, I learned something fascinating about the material created by a group devoted exclusively to designing, writing and producing the expensive, glossy collateral for the Lexus Automobile account. These folks spent weeks and months on each brochure and I envied the copywriters. I was […]
How to convince your agency or in-house creative department to use a creative brief.
There’s never time to do it right, but there’s always time to do it over. Imagine that I hand you two identical boxes that contain identical contents. One of the two boxes comes with a set of instructions to assemble the contents. The second box comes with no instructions. Suppose I told you that you had […]
How to recruit a creative to collaborate on writing a creative brief.
It never made any sense to me that an account planner or account management executive would write a creative brief on his or her own. Yet it’s not uncommon. It’s also a mistake, one that many ad agencies are addressing. If your agency or marketing firm is not one of them, allow me to suggest […]
5 questions transform the creative brief into a roadmap for entrepreneurs, SBOs and sole proprietors.
Typically, a creative brief is a document that advertisers and ad agencies use for a specific purpose. It has a set of questions whose answers guide ad agency creatives in creating communications, from single emails to multi-media advertising campaigns, and variations in between. But this same document, slightly adjusted, has another role. Consider these scenarios: You’re an entrepreneur […]
How to fix a bad creative brief, Part 2: The single-minded proposition
The single-minded proposition is like a magnet: When you brief your creative team, it’s the first thing that draws their attention. They go right to this box/question and they are not afraid to judge the writer of the creative brief based solely on the answer they find. It’s a harsh truth. It may not be […]
