Certainly this isn’t the first time a creative has talked about the importance of the creative brief. And it won’t be the last. That’s because it’s a very important document to us. Printed on this thin sheet of multi-purpose white printer paper in black ink is our life. It starts our brain churning. It keeps us awake at night, and it’s why we stand in the shower staring at the wall for a half hour like we’re in a coma or something. It’s the springboard for every thought we think and every campaign that’ll leave your agency’s door. It can decide in most cases whether the work will be good or bad.  And it shouldn’t ever be treated like poop. Poop. Poop. Poop.

If you give your creative thinkers and your problem solvers poop, guess what you get back. Poop.

Basically, what I’m saying (other than “poop”) is that time and thought need to be spent on this valuable document. And I don’t want to hear the “I don’t have time” argument. Because spending time at this stage of the process, will save time later. I promise. It takes more time to do additional rounds of creative than it takes to spend another hour on your “single most important idea.”

You know most account executives, like any normal person, want to have their opinions heard. They want to be able to say that their thinking and their ideas made a difference – that they had an important impact. Well, here’s your biggest chance. This 8½  x 11 sheet of multi-purpose white printer paper can influence everything.

First and foremost, a creative brief should inspire. Tell the world why this project matters. Get the team excited to work on this project. One trick to doing that is to use verbs. Verbs make people feel like doing something. Verbs are the words that get up and kick butt. They’re the action-hero that saves the day. But, however you do it. Make your great thinkers want to leap out of their seats and save the world. Or at least the brand.

It actually has become a pretty cool trend by agencies across the pond, like Fallon and Saatchi & Saatchi to use a naked brief. It’s just a blank sheet of paper with a logo on it. The idea is to get you to write from the heart and not just answer a bunch of questions in a format. This would certainly make people put more thought into what they wanted to say. Here’s a link to a few of the naked brief formats: http://www.adliterate.com/archives/2008/10/whats_in_a_form_1.html

The next step is to be focused. Your “main proposition,” “single most important idea,” “single most persuasive thought” should be, get this, singular. Think of the main idea the ad needs to communicate as the bulls-eye. This means that the ad, Web banner or direct mailer is the arrow. Have you ever tried to shoot an arrow at two different bulls eyes? If you don’t focus on one, you usually end up hitting neither. And in that case, you just pooped the client’s money away.

The gist? Give the most important document you’ll write for your client and your agency the love it deserves. Understand that it will make more of an impact than you think. It can be the difference between a great campaign and, you guessed it, poop.

(By the way, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that I have broken a personal record with 11 mentions of “Poop” in single article. Four had been my best.)

Filed under: Creative, Strategy

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