Awareness, KPIs and Zombie briefs

Before anyone can sit down and start to build an effective campaign or annual plan, you have to know what you’re trying to accomplish. What’s the problem we need to solve? What’s the main objective? In Truth, Lies & Advertising, Jon Steel wrote that the “main task of a creative briefing is not to say ‘okay, it’s finally time for you creative folks to start work,’ but to inform the creative team, and most important, to inspire them”.

I’d argue this premise can be applied to any brief, including the ones clients share with their agencies. If your objective is simply to make people aware of your brand, then you need to recognise that it’s not the most inspiring of starting points. Why? Because awareness is the base function of all marcomms activity. For people on the receiving end of a brief, it’s a given in every project. So it’s as ‘mute’ a brief as they come and every bit as functional and uninspiring as ‘drive sales’.?

The brief should not be looked at as a procedure or a line in the sand. It is an absolute necessity. Greatness cannot happen without a great brief. So how do you ensure you provide a great brief? To put it simply, by putting a bit of skin in the game and doing your homework. This is especially important when it comes to articulating the business problem which needs to be addressed. As so eloquently put by George Bernard Shaw, “the greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution”.

Start by asking yourself what do you really want people to know about your brand or product? To put it another way, what might prevent prospective customers buying from you? That is likely to produce a much more effective starting point for an agency and a much clearer problem to solve.