122 seconds of cultural connection by Hovis. Grand Prix Winner - IPA Effectiveness Awards 2010 (video)

This paper deals with the revival of one of Britain’s oldest brands. Hovis had been in trouble since 2006, falling far behind regional upstart Warburtons. The ‘As Good Today As It’s Ever Been’ campaign leveraged history to prove enduring modern relevance for the brand. Communications included an 122 second TV commercial and a PR onslaught, as well as a host of product-specific communications, which together resulted in the campaign being voted the nation’s ‘Campaign of the Decade’. Sales grew by 14% year-on-year, and the share gap with Warbutons, which had been projected to reach 20 percentage points, narrowed to only six percentage points. Up to £90m incremental profits were generated, representing a payback of c.£5 to 1.

About one of the most important problems in our industry - Creating inspiring briefs: a note to clients by @adliterate

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Creating inspiring briefs - a note to clients

This is a short paper I wrote for Clients to help them create better briefs for their agencies and therefore get more effective work out of them.

Lets start with a clear definition of roles – for the people and documents involved in briefing.

Clients are marketing professionals and brand guardians. You understand what performance the business needs from its portfolio of brands, the problems that those brands face in delivering this and the way marketing communications can be applied (alongside the other weapons in the mix) to get the results you need.

Client briefs should reflect this role and should act as a contract between client and agency to deliver communications solutions that meet that brief.

Agencies are creative problem solvers that understand the way to engage people with brands both strategically and executionally.

Agency creative briefs are internal documents we use to get the solution you need from the various creative disciplines in the agency. That’s the fundamental way in which they differ.

As a point of principle I don’t believe that Clients should sign off Agency briefs but maybe Agencies should be signing off Client briefs – by which I mean an agency signature on the client brief would represent a commitment to deliver against it.

The quality of client briefs is an enduring issue for all agencies and it’s a situation that appears to be getting worse

That’s if we get a written brief at all. So the starting point must be write a brief, always write a brief, no matter what the project is. They discipline your thinking forcing you to articulate exactly what is needed and they act as a reference point to go back to when evaluating work.

And don’t start by trying to write a brief, start by thinking about what you need and how communications can deliver against this, this latter point is absolutely critical. Then sit down and write a brief. The famous sculptor Eric Gill once said “first I think my think, then I draw my think”, we should all think our think first and only then write our think.

Use a briefing format if you like (it tends not to matter to agencies whether or not you do) but make sure that you are still writing a brief and not filling in boxes. They are not creative requisition forms.

Don’t write briefs by committee, we can spot it when the edges are knocked of good client briefs by multiple stakeholders all pursuing their own agenda. Sure it’s important to hear everyone’s voice in the process but one person should be responsible for delivering the final brief.

All briefs should be both inspirational and directional. Inspire and direct.

Inspiration is far more about the ambition of the task than it is about flowery language.

The most inspiring part of the brief for an agency is the objective, the problem that you are seeking to use communications to solve.

Advertising agencies are problem solving companies, albeit that they solve commercial problems by applying creativity to the task. Nothing gets an agency’s rocks off more than a juicy problem.

T-Mobile – take the lion’s share of the £30+ monthly contract market

Teenage binge drinking – reduce the harm that comes to young people when they drink too much

Police recruitment – attract quality recruits to the Metropolitan Police by making 999 out of 1000 people realise they could never be a Police Officer

Raising awareness doesn’t count as a credible objective.

Then tell us how you believe communications can be used to crack that problem and exactly who needs to be affected by the work.

Poorly articulated or ambiguous target audiences are the bug-bear of the agency particularly the use of primary and secondary audiences. And we are far more interested in a factual definition of the audience than fabricated pen portraits or quirky segment descriptions.

Tell us what they need to do – buy for the first time, start buying again or increase their weight of purchase. We are here to change behaviour not simply to change attitudes.

Tell us how you would like people to feel following the communication. No simply how you would like them to feel about the brand but specifically as a result of the work.

Briefs should give us every piece of information that we need to find a solution to the task at hand and nothing else. They are not the place to parade your prejudices or invent mandatories that are not absolutely mandatory. Creativity comes from clearly defined parameters but also from space to play, you can always rein things in later on.

Use the agency to help frame the brief. They will probably have been working with you on the strategy anyway and they will be clear on what is going to be helpful. The planner is probably a good person to bounce stuff off anyway and it avoids push back from the agency when the brief is issued.

Try and brief in person – certainly if its a project that is important to you. It makes the Agency feel the project is regarded as important by the Organisation and it allows for instant clarification.

Take pride in your briefs. They aren’t the end product of what we all do together but they are an important stepping-stone and the critical moment when responsibility for solving the problem moves from client to agency. You should love the brief that you have written.

Remember that we are in this together.

Comments

The last sentence frames it perfectly. And I wish "Raising awareness doesn’t count as a credible objective." was written into everyone's DNA, agencies are just as guilty of the wielding awareness stick in my very brief experience.

Excellent stuff. Should be required reading for all, agency and client alike.

Posted by: Sam Ismail at May 10, 2010 10:52 AM

Agreed. Good stuff

Posted by: Rob Mortimer at May 10, 2010 01:46 PM

Not only should this be read by agency and client people as Sam points out, but by every single one of my fellow international business/marketing students.

Posted by: Thomas Wagner at May 10, 2010 09:21 PM

Great post - spot on. I love the quote "Advertising agencies are problem solving companies", very important for both agency and clients to understand. Well done.

Posted by: Nathan Bush at May 11, 2010 08:33 AM

Macy's Magic Fitting Room (video) - Innovative social retail by @LBiNewYork

Some months ago an smart installation near fitting rooms was built by Diesel Spain, called DIESEL CAM (Check it out: http://tiny.cc/66cft )
People tried clothes and could share a picture on their Facebook Wall in real time. In this case I would have put the camera inside the fitting room and add a skype option to manage direct influence from your peers.

Similar to Diesel's idea was launched recently by LBi NY, but they made the whole process easier although also virtual. Installation don't need a cam because you try clothes virtually.

QRBillboard Generosity by FirstBank

From a generous perspective, first Bank has launched 2 smart billboardQR executions.  Located at the airport, a common place where a lot of people kill time. One execution is about free download of classic books, the other one is about free crosswords in 3 different levels of expertise what's very smart to drive participation.
Although both are entertainment objects, the campaign works mainly on utility at the right time and place for people's needs.

(download)

Slaves of our mobile screen: smart insight and funny execution for the new Windows Phone7 ad

The insight got me because of sometimes I've also been one of these hipnotized people of the ad and of course I've felt the dissagrement of somebody (friend, gf, ...) with the situation.

A lot of people are hipnotized and slaves of their mobile. This doesn't let them to enjoy shared moments with other and make us solitary stupids
WindowsPhone put the conversation on the table and sell itself as the solution.
It's also a smart way to attack competitors, specially iphoners ;)

4ways to change the conversation

4ways_to_change_the_conversati

I had the pleasure of learing deeper about contagious ideas that change the conversation around 3 years ago from working with Richard McCabe, Calvin Soh (@yerrowman) and a lot great people at Publicis Singapore.
The fun pic above shows 4 ways to change the conversation in the market:
- IGNITE
- OWN
- CONFRONT
- SUBVERT.
A key point about it is that everything starts by LISTENING, not only as a reputation tool but as the begining of the strategic analysis.