Giorgio Armani’s closet
I got an email from a colleague last week with a link to examples of creative briefs from agencies all over the world. An amazing array of documents. Most asked precise questions that led to a proposition that creatives anywhere could understand. One in particular revealed its disdain for the entire process by asking only […]
Become the Joe Montana of brief writers
Here's a revealing story from Jon Steel's Truth, Lies and Advertising: The Art of Account Planning. One of the pleasures of living in San Francisco in the 1980s and early 1990s was the opportunity to see Joe Montana play for the San Francisco 49ers. One of the greatest quarterbacks of all time, Montana won four […]
Thoughts on writing the creative brief: communication objectives
"What are the communication objectives?" I've seen this question asked in a variety of ways, including "What do we need to do?", "What are we trying to achieve?", "What if…" followed by a sentence outlining desired outcomes of the creative, and "Why are we advertising?" It's a simple question. But I've seen it confused with […]
The creative brief is like an ad written for the creative team
To aid you in crystallizing your task as someone who writes the creative brief—whether you are the advertiser initiating the project with your in-house creative department, an outside creative team or your advertising agency; or you are an agency account person—here's a great analogy: The creative brief is a print ad that offers the first […]
When creatives get no creative brief I just want to hurl!
This is a personal rant. Whenever I'm part of a project where the creatives are handed some documents at a background meeting and it's called a "briefing" I want to scream and pound my head against the wall. No one is fooled. It's bad enough when one team of creatives is tortured by, um, subjected […]
What does developing 35mm film have in common with a creative brief?
Back in the days before digital cameras, photography buffs used a thing called 35mm film. Anyone remember it? It came on a small roll and you had to physically load it into your camera. The process required you to spool the leader onto the camera's take-up reel which had teeth on it designed to grab […]
Clients big and small: Writing the creative brief is not just for your agency!
This point is a sub-set of the "who should write the brief" issue. I've encountered too many clients who don't bother providing any kind of brief to their advertising agency or creative consultants. This is a huge mistake. Writing a creative brief for your creative team puts you, the advertiser, in the driver's seat. Call […]
The oldest quote in advertising
"Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half." John Wanamaker I'm a bit biased, but I have to wonder if Mr. Wanamaker gave a well-written creative brief to his advertising people. If he had, he might not have gone down in ad lore […]
Happy brief writing in 2009
With the New Year just under way, it's time to make a few resolutions to keep your brief writing skills honed. First, resolve to collaborate whenever you can. Two heads are better than one. And if you enlist your creative team for ideas and feedback, you'll build team rapport not to mention instant buy-in on […]
Creatives don’t need a creative brief to do their jobs
I tip my hat to friend, colleague and fellow creative Paul Rector for his astute reply to my last posting. Specifically, these words got my attention: "…the number of projects I've worked on without a brief far, far outnumbered the projects I've worked on that had one. And you know what, the work got done." […]
