When we talk about creativity, we’re normally espousing the virtues of art directors and copy writers who are apparently capable of alchemy, turning the most average of products into an object of desire, the thing that none of us could possibly do without.
And it’s true that the very best creative teams can sometimes create magic – it’s why they get the big bucks.
But, and we all know this… the reality is that you can’t polish a turd.
Shit in, shit out.
And there’s a reason for that.
Creative teams are being called on for their creativity every single day of their working lives. And it’s not easy to be creative on demand. Sure, there are techniques they can employ, they can draw on their experience and sprinkle some fairy dust. But if you want to get the very best out of a creative team, you need to INSPIRE them.
That’s the point of a creative brief. Its job is to inspire the creative team to produce work that cuts through the noise, and slaps your audience into taking notice of what you want them to know.
But from experience, very few creative briefs (when the marketing executive even bothers to write one) actually provide much in the way of inspiration.
It’s why most advertising isn’t very good.
Think about it, by definition, most advertising is pretty average.
And in a world where we’re bombarded by hundreds (at least) of B2C and B2B advertising messages every single day, ‘average’ doesn’t even get noticed.
It’s not about your ‘value proposition’
What often happens (and this is particularly true in the world of B2B marketing), is that the creative brief is focused on sales objectives, media and a list of at least 10 features (sometimes with benefits) loosely labelled as a ‘value proposition’.
I’d like to take this opportunity to state, for the record, that once you’ve written your value proposition (assuming you have one), THAT IS NOT JOB DONE, as far as the creative brief is concerned.
Don’t get me wrong, the value proposition is really important, but it’s a tool for understanding the strength of your overall market offering, to identify where you have parity with your competitors, and where you are stronger. In B2B marketing, value propositions are usually multi-faceted, and when your sales team is sat in front of a customer, the VP should give them the ammunition they need to make the breakthrough.
But in advertising, you’ve got to grab attention. You’ve only got a couple of seconds to say something that stops the reader in their tracks. It’s only when you’ve got someone interested, that you can talk to them about your features and benefits – all the things that make your product great value.
When you’ve only got a couple of seconds, your advertising idea needs to be single-minded.
So your creative brief needs to be single-minded too.
The job of the brief writer is to identify exactly what you want your advertising to say
There’s a misconception that creative teams want as much information as you can give them to help them find something they can use to create magic. But that’s not their job.
Their job is to find an engaging way to say what you want to say.
Here comes the analogy.
It’s not their job to pan for gold, that’s your job.
Their job is to turn the gold into something highly desirable.
Don’t give them a bucketful of mud and ask them to find something that sparkles.
You provide the raw material, cleaned and ready for use.
You provide the nugget.
Less is more
The creative brief needs to be laser-focused.
Remember, you’re asking a creative team to be creative. You’re trying to inspire them to come up with cracking headlines and visual gold. Don’t bog them down in details that don’t really matter.
Every single word you write should be carefully considered. If you find yourself cutting and pasting information from other sources or (and this happens a lot) from previous briefs, then stop and think.
Don’t throw the kitchen sink at your brief. You don’t need to include everything you know.
Yes, think about the detail – but only include information that’s relevant.
Remember, it’s called a creative ‘brief’ for a reason, but that’s not an excuse to do less thinking.
More thinking please, fewer words.
OK, so let’s get down to it.
Six crucial elements you need to have thought about before you brief the creative team
Step 1: What’s the problem?
Start with the business need.
Too often, creative briefs jump to execution. “We need a video”, or “We need a social campaign”. It’s fine to tell the creative team what media they’ll be using. They need to know that, of course. But the first step in any effective brief is to define the problem you’re trying to solve.
What’s your underlying business challenge or opportunity? Why are we advertising? What job does each piece of marketing communication need to achieve? How are you trying to move people down the sales funnel? What are we trying to achieve here? Is your brand not very well known? Do you have a new offer you want to get out to the market? Are you losing market share? Is there a new entrant in the market? Are you launching a new product? Are you trying to build salience? Are you trying to drive footfall? Are you trying to shift perceptions?
All this provides important context for the creative team. But not only that – remember you’re trying to inspire them.
You don’t inspire by telling people what to do, you tell them why they’re doing it.
Step 2: Who are you trying to influence?
Remember that marketing is about changing people’s behaviours. If you don’t know your audience, and understand why that behave as they do, you can’t hope to know what messages might spark a change in their behaviour.
So, who is your target audience? Help the creative team to visualise who they’re going to be talking to.
Please don’t say ‘everyone’. Your target audience is never ‘everyone’. Even the biggest brands in the world don’t target ‘everyone’.
It’s true that your offer might appeal to a wide range of potential customers, but there will always be a hierarchy.
Think about it like a target. In the bullseye is your ideal customer.
Pick someone. Think about just one individual. The person that, if they say yes, then the deal is as good as done.
Create a pen portrait or a persona. Typically what role do they have and in what company? How old are they? What do they do outside of work? What’s their current behaviour in relation to the product or service you offer? What are their pain points? What really matters to them, above all else? Draw on your experience, draw on the sales team’s experience, think about one of your customers. It really helps to think about one person.
Of course there are other potential customers, you’re not going to turn good business away just because they’re not the ‘ideal’ customer. And in B2B marketing there are always multiple influencers in the buying process. Technical experts, procurement managers, operations managers, C-suite executives and others.
But please remember you’re not writing a creative brief for the benefit of your CEO. In the creative brief, you’re not trying to prove what an expert you are. You’re trying to help the creative team ‘see’ what your ideal customer would look like. Don’t overcomplicate it for the creative team, make it easy for them.
Step 3: What are your competitors up to?
To create something that stands out, your creative team needs to understand what’s already out there. Who are your competitors, and what are they saying? What differentiates your brand from theirs?
You’ll need to do some work on this. Check your industry publications, visit trade shows, talk to your sales teams, check websites and social media accounts. Know what they’re saying to the market, and importantly, take notice of the way they’re saying it – are there opportunities to just look and feel different?
Step 4: Identify your strengths
Now you need to identify those things that can make your brand, product or service stand out. Just to be clear, we’re not talking about your value proposition – that’s usually not very single minded. We’re only talking about the things that are different or better than the competition.
And this is the bit where you might come unstuck.
There are a number of potential outcomes here.
- You may have a below average product or service;
- You might have strengths, but no differentiators to speak of;
- Maybe you have differentiators, but none that your target customer really cares about that much or;
- You have a differentiator that’s pretty important to your target audience.
So if the outcome is (4), then it’s likely you’ll be pretty clear on what you want to say. If the outcome is any of the other three, then you’ll need to consider your strategy carefully.
What’s really important here is that you’re completely honest with yourself and with your creative team.
It’s your responsibility to understand the real truth of your market positioning. You can still find a strong advertising message even if you don’t have any differentiators, but you might need additional help to find it.
Step 5: Your selling proposition
This is where you identify the single-minded message you want your advertising to convey.
Remember this is different to the value proposition. The value proposition tells the full story, whereas your selling proposition is the core idea that will get your customer to sit up and listen.
Think about it this way; if your audience only remembers one thing about your ad, what do you want it to be?
Unless you get the selling proposition right, no-one is going to hear your story. The creative team will use this selling proposition as the basis for generating ideas, lots of ideas based on this single-minded thought.
This is the part of the creative brief that all other elements have been leading up to, so please, consider it carefully. Your message here should be simple, clear and unmissable. And it should make a promise to the customer.
A single-minded, simple, unmissable promise.
Strip away the noise. The clearer and more focused the message, the easier it is for creative teams to translate it into effective creative executions.
Step 6: What’s your tone of voice?
The last really important element to consider is the tone of voice, or brand personality you want to convey. You should already have set of brand guidelines that cover your brand tone and personality, but depending on the media you’re using, or the offer you’re making, you may want to emphasise a specific element of your personality.
Your creative team needs to understand this – what tone should the message take?
Is it authoritative, casual, approachable, technical? Are you the industry expert with a commanding presence, or the agile, innovative disruptor with fresh ideas and perspective? Are you a challenger brand? Is this a serious subject or is there room for a lighter touch?
Simple isn’t it?
So that’s the six things you really need to focus on when you’re writing the creative brief. There’s other stuff too, like media specifications, length of campaign, scope of the campaign, budgets and all that gubbins.
It’s important information and essential to help ensure you get a solution that’s practical and implementable, but it’s not really the point of the creative brief. Details like that are not inspirational.
Keep the brief as tight as you can, tell a clear story and put that stuff in an appendix.
Most B2B markets are highly competitive, and it can be difficult to change customer behaviours. If you want your advertising to contribute to behaviour change, then first, you have to inspire the creative team.
Get these six steps right, and you’ll, have a much better chance of doing just that.
