CREATIVE BRIEFING
Writing the Creative Brief
You Can't Wait For Inspiration. You Have To Go After It With A Club."
Jack London, American Author, Journalist, And Social
Activist
Core Elements
 Product/ Service
 Background and Competition
 Communication Challenge
 Obstacles
 Core Proposition and Support
 Brand insights
 Brand personality and tone of voice
 Target audience insights
 Mandatories
Brief
 As briefing/planning becomes a more accepted and critical
part of the business, the formality has lessened
 Not a “pass along” document…often created in collaboration
with creatives and media
 The new media environment and the power of social media
has dramatically altered the “big idea” and more points of
view are needed
Writing the Brief – the basics
 Product/Service
 Background and Competition
 Offer some orientation so we know how this
communication will adjust to the environment. What
is the company/service; its history and background;
the category issues, competitive issues
 The Communication Challenge
 What’s the communication objective
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Create awareness, etc.
Build brand share
 How can the communication objective be better
defined and narrowed to better direct creatives, and
help the client better see how the advertising can reach
the objective?
Try these….
 Binary considerations
 Lead the client through the process of answering
several “either/or” questions
 This will help define the client’s thinking and focus the
brief on a more singular objective
Binary question #1:
Are we going for brand share OR are we expanding
the market?
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If I already have 75% of the market, I don’t have as much reason to go
after the remaining 25% as I do to grow the market to be even bigger
since I’m likely to pick up 75% of them based on my brand strength
If I only have 20% of market share, not much point in growing the
market, because the majority of the newbies will go to my
competition. Better to steal share and hang on to what I’ve got.
Communication challenge?
o Option A: Get more people to consider home dryer dry cleaning
o Option B: Show why Wool-lite is better than Dryel
Binary Question #2
Are we going for trial by non-users OR are we going
to get existing users to use more?
 If the market is already saturated, it won’t be very
profitable to go for non-user (since there aren’t
many of them). I have to go after users
 Communication challenge?
o Saturated market? Go for users and get them to
use more
o Unsaturated market? Go for non-users
Binary question #3
Do we have a USP or are we going for
branding?
If we have a USP (and it had better be good), that
should be the platform for differentiation
 If we don’t have a USP, then emphasizing the brand
name
 Communication challenge?
o Mnemonic device? A catchy jingle, great creative,
color, phrase?
o Logic argument: Do you have an argument to
make?
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Obstacles?
 What prevents the target from engaging?
 Identify and overturn in order to achieve the objective
 Example: Red Cross:
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Objective – get people to donate more blood
Problem to solve: Ultimately, why aren’t people giving blood?
o Apathy?
o Time & hassle?
o Fear of needles?
o Fear of fainting?
o Fear of disease?
Core proposition
Simple statement that states the key promise or
message, and it should be ONE!
The thing your product can do that others can’t
The thing you can do that none of your competitors
have decided to own yet
Quantify or qualify your propositions
 Best
 Most luxurious
 Convenient
 Quality
Proposition support
 Provide examples that prop up the proposition…the
reasons why the consumer should believe the promise
 This support should jive with what consumers have told you
are important to them
 Consider that small nugget or detail presented creatively may
be the necessary thing for inspiration
 Passat keyless entry
Brand insights
 How is the brand perceived on the
dimensions of
 Relevance
 Differentiation
 Stretch
 Credibility
What brand support does the
communication need to provide?
 By communicating additional information about the
brand?
 New features/benefits
 By creating awareness, fame, familiarity or salience?
 Consumers will gravitate toward the brands they know
 Creating a “lovemark” – making a love connection between
the consumer and the brand
 Great “lovemarks”?
 By creating involvement/engagement?
 Communicating some intangible value not found in the product,
i.e. coolness, modernity, edginess
 Using emotion, symbol, metaphor to stimulate desire
 By creating associations that will influence purchasing
behavior
 Research shows that consumers will make associations between
sense experiences that will automatically trigger connections in the
mind that can influence behavior
 Through repetition of image or sound, these associations are
imprinted below the surface of conscious thought. Color red and
Coke
Brand personality and tone of voice
 All brands have a personalities
 One word
 Extension of the values
 Should be consistent from execution to campaign
 Examples of tone
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VW
Johnson & Johnson
Economist
Axe
Self deprecating
empathetic
Elitist
Over the top sexual
Brand personality?
 UCB
 PIZZA HUT
 COKE
Target audience insights
Draw a picture for the reader
Use qualitative descriptors (it can be more powerful
to say “sad dads” than fathers, aged 35-50 who are
sadly past buying a sportscar and now are in the
market for a mini-van)
Emphasize the deeper understanding and motivation.
Insights are more than descriptions. They tell us
“why?”
Articulate the sweet spot: where the understanding of
the consumer overlaps with the brand insight
Mandatories
 Inclusions/Exclusions
 Phone numbers/ web addresses
 Client “must haves”
 Logos, taglines
 Call to action
Craft it creatively
 This is as much a creative document as the final ad
 You know your creatives: what inspires them?
 Can you be funny, clever, provocative?
 Visual, visual, visual
 Tell stories. The advertising will need to tell a
believable story.
Fatal mistakes
 The proposition that is not single minded
 Weak support
 Lack of consumer insight
 Flat and uninspiring