The Creative Brief: The First Step in Marketing

"A creative brief is like a road map. A good one leads to imaginative and persuasive marketing plans and communication messages that stay on track. A bad brief can set you off in the wrong direction. Launching any communications efforts without a creative brief can be a waste of time and money."

• What is it? A creative brief is a tightly written document that outlines the objectives of the communications program and describes the target, the product or service, and the key messages that are most compelling and motivating for generating the desired results.

• Keep it short. Very rarely is a good brief lengthy. In a single page, list all of the information needed to formulate powerful and effective messages. A five-page brief is only a waste of paper. Further, it probably means the key points and business drivers have not been properly identified.

• Define the marketing objectives. Make them measurable whenever possible, such as increase leads, incremental sales, or growth in traffic to the Website. Keep the goals realistic and attainable.

• Understand the target market. The messages should reflect the target audience's attitudes, beliefs, lifestyle, buying patterns and how their needs are currently being met.

• Know your product. In particular, know what it is about the product or service that will compel customers and potential customers to buy. Know how to distinguish the product from the competition.

• Focus in on one unique selling proposition. What is the one thing readers or viewers should remember about the product and company? Limit it to one-when you play up everything, you emphasize nothing.

• Focus on the approach. Decide whether to appeal to logic or emotion. Consider one of these:
  - an image strategy shows the product and its personality;
  - an information strategy communicates facts that make the product appealing;
  - a motivational strategy builds a compelling argument or feeling that leads to action;
  - a demonstration strategy leverages the fundamental appeal of the product by showing the product doing as promised.

• Tie it all together. All marketing, promotion, advertising, sales presentations, public relations, trade show exhibits-everything-should be based on and reflect the objectives, themes and messages stated in the creative brief. When in doubt, check the brief.

PASS

• Protection for her team.  As a leader, Erin protected her team members in the boardroom -- a sharp contrast to Kristen, who described her team as "very hard people to lead."  Erin clearly articulated her rationale for the poor idea that the team had rallied behind. She took accountability and responsibility without pointing the finger at team members.  Loyalty and protection of your team is a sign of a true leader with integrity. Followers tend to trust leaders who protect them.
   

• Never reward poor behavior.  Both Trump and Deutsch refused to pick a winner given the extreme poor quality of the commercials. Both of these men recognize that you never reward poor behavior.  When you are the best, you protect your reputation with your integrity and do not compromise by accepting or rewarding the mediocre or in this case, the terrible.
   

• You'll catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.  Bren showed great people skills with an upset actress who was threatening to quit after being stood up for two hours by Magna. He acknowledged their mistake and apologized. He wisely voiced his confidence in her talent, "I want you to do this commercial, because regardless of what's happened up to this point, I still believe that you're absolutely the right person for this job." The result was she melted like butter. Making people feel good rather than making them feel bad is a good mantra in business.

FAIL

• Effective facilitation.  Asking a group to deliver a great idea or decision requires effective facilitation. There are many methods to help a group brainstorm ideas and then prioritize those ideas according to a set of criteria (target market match, product conveyed, creativity, simplicity, to name a few). Unfortunately, none of the "Apprentice" candidates displays effective facilitation skills.
   

• Good taste.  Trump said to Magna, "You must have been crazy to think that stupid cucumber idea wouldn't offend anyone."  Magna really missed the mark suggesting that Dove would even consider a trashy presentation to sell their product. Dove has a clear history of gentle soft commercials targeted to women. Common sense would dictate that using a soft porn-style approach to sell one of Dove's products was just plain stupid.
   

• Test your idea.  There was no evidence that either team tested their ideas. A simple marketing test would have surfaced that Magna's idea was trashy and basically "unairable" and that Net Worth's idea wasn't funny and didn't sell the product well.
   

• Leadership by control and aggression yields disloyalty.  Kristen inspired disloyalty rather than collaboration or high performance in her team. She ordered people around and ignored their ideas and concerns. Her control-freak style resulted in a team that was neither loyal nor inspired.
   

• Put the man with the vision, skills and idea in charge.  John was the candidate who originally had a vision and a funny idea. John had already proven that he had the management skills to handle being put in charge of the production. Why would you put the man with the vision and the leadership skills off site in a recording studio? My guess is that Kristen was threatened by his competency. Good leaders don't shun talent, they embrace it.
   

• There is no "I" in team.  Kristen began the task announcing to her teammates that her style is to do everything herself because when she does "it turns out better." It's hard to believe that considering it would be difficult to have done a worse job. Good leaders recognize that they're far more effective creating a team of competent people rather than relying on their own abilities.

The Report Card

Net Worth: Effort -- Performance -- Creativity --   C- D F	WEEK FOUR BOOK SMARTS Magna STREET SMARTS Net Worth
Magna: Effort -- Performance -- Creativity --   C F B