More about your brief

Here are some ideas about creative briefs

What you need to know for the final project

You will turn in a client brief for the name change of the MCOM department. 

The following information will be required in the client brief: 

Background Summary: 
Who is the client? 
What is the product or service? 
What are the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats involved with this product or service? 
Are there existing research, reports and other documents that help you understand the situation?


Overview: 
What is the project? 
What are we designing and why? 
Why do we need this project? 
What’s the opportunity?


Drivers - Why is this important?
What is our goal for this project? 
What are we trying to achieve? 
What is the purpose of our work? 
What are our top three objectives?

What to include in your creative brief: A checklist

• A paragraph or two about your project’s objectives
• Your core message and 3-5 features/benefits to your audience
• Notes on themes or ideas, you want the creative to embrace.  
• Your audience: Describe them briefly, give key demographic information and provide any insights you have about what they’re trying to achieve (and how you’ll help them achieve it).
• The primary call-to-action or takeaway message.

Then you will discuss the ideas that you have in your presentation. 

After we know the answers to these questions you can start to figure out the creative for your product. You have to answer this based on your audience research and what you know about your product (also backed up with research)

You are presenting two ideas for your final presentation either:

• Two different concepts for the same audience 
• One concept that targets two audiences

NOW IS THE FUN PART

What is an advertising concept?

- An advertising concept is defined as a briefly stated or clear idea around which an ad or campaign can be created

- It is the Big idea behind a design. It’s how you plan on solving the design problem, It’s the underlying logic thinking, and reasoning for how you’ll design an advertisement, your concept will lead to your choices in color and type. It’ll choose your aesthetic and determine your grid. Every design decision you make will fall back on your concept for direction.

- It is the Big Idea that should be original and dramatizes the selling point. Humor, drama and action are often elements of a creative concept, depending on what the company is attempting to communicate. 

These are just some of the ideas from this handout. Read it. Use it. 

Okay - how do we start?

Clarify the objective - what does your client want/need to do?
Make it a clear, realistic, measurable, obtainable and specific target. It strips out all subjectivity from the project by keeping everyone focused on a common goal.

Clarify who the target audience - who are you creating for (not yourself) 
Are you targeting existing customers or new, prospective non-customers? There is a huge difference in how messages are presented between the two groups. Think also about who pays. 

Clarify the Call to Action - (What do you want the audience to do?)
You probably aren’t helping directly improve your organization’s bottom line if you aren’t asking the audience to do something. 

Once we know these things we can move on . . .

1. Break down your offer into features and benefits. The best ads celebrate benefits, not features. Focus on how your products save people time and money, and how you make people’s lives easier. 

1-A What do you want to say?  Make sure you are writing in propositions: 
One word
  Duracell is = 
  Volvo is = 
  FedEx is = 
  Snickers is = 

Take a look at the first part of the chapter of the Advertising Concept Book 

Here is a great site talking about making a tagline (which is forever) and headlines (for an ad exclusively) 

• Being cliché and bland are the first two mistakes, and you see them all over the place. No matter how powerful it sounds “Innovation Through Computing” isn’t memorable, and its the sort of line that will hurt you rather than help.

• Imitating other taglines is something small business owners love to do, but is almost never a good idea. Ripping off Wendy’s “Where’s the beef?” tagline with “Where’s the meat?” may seem like a great idea at first, but it only makes people think of Wendy’s, and makes you look completely unoriginal.

• Self-centered taglines aren’t so bad when they are tied to huge companies, but they can sound awfully self-serving when tied to local ones. “The best tires in the world have Goodyear written all over them” is a self-centered corporate tagline, but it doesn’t make people think badly of Goodyear. “The smartest designer in Oregon” may have sounded like a great idea when you coined it, but it just makes you sound pompous and self-serving.

• Too many words can become an issue, as long taglines aren’t as memorable. The Goodyear line I just referenced can be mentally shortened to “The best tires are Goodyear“, but “John Doe plumbing will fix your leaks, pipes, and shower, since 1986” doesn’t get compressed so well, and is completely forgettable.

Burger King = 

Subway = 

Nike = 

Because You’re Worth It
Gives You Wings
I’m Lovin’ It

How to write a rock-solid tag-line

You will write 30 tags each and come together to post your top 5 for Friday. 
Remember, the tag must be able to work with the rest of your creative. 

What is a SWOT?

What is a SWOT?

SWOT is a comprehensive audit and competitive analysis that analyzes the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats facing a business. An honest SWOT analysis helps a retailer identify what it's doing well, where it can improve, and where it fits in the competitive landscape. There are others (PEST, STEEP, and other silly acronyms) but SWOT gets down to business. 

SWOT example NIKE

SWOT example HOME DEPOT

SWOT example BURGER KING

How to Perform a SWOT Analysis

• Begin by making a list of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
• Consider holding a group brainstorming session to pinpoint factors in each category.
• Alternatively, you can ask each team member to work on his or her own, then share and compile the results.
• Don't concern yourself with elaborating on the factors of each category on the first attempt. Start out with bullet points to identify relevant factors in each category.
• Once the brainstorming is complete, build a final version of the SWOT analysis listing all of the factors in each category with the highest priority placed at the top and the lowest at the bottom.

Starting a creative brief

Here are ways to think about creating the creative brief. 

Objectives


This is a great looking site from Fist of Fury

Here is another list from Terry Lee Stone 

What’s a creative brief?
In the best cases, a creative brief is a document created through initial meetings, interviews, readings and discussions between a client and designer before any work begins. Throughout the project, the creative brief continues to inform and guide the work. A good creative brief will answer these questions:
• What is this project?
• Who is it for?
• Why are we doing it?
• What needs to be done? By whom? By when?
• Where and how will it be used?

The 10 most important things to include in a creative brief
1. Background Summary: Who is the client? What is the product or service? What are the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (or SWOTs) involved with this product or service? Are there existing research, reports and other documents that help you understand the situation?

2. Overview: What is the project? What are we designing and why? Why do we need this project? What’s the opportunity?

3. Drivers: What is our goal for this project? What are we trying to achieve? What is the purpose of our work? What are our top three objectives?

4. Audience: Who are we talking to? What do they think of us? Why should they care?

5. Competitors: Who is the competition? What are they telling the audience that we should be telling them? SWOT analysis on them? What differentiates us from them?

6. Tone: How should we be communicating? What adjectives describe the feeling or approach?

7. Message: What are we saying with this piece exactly? Are the words already developed or do we need to develop them? What do we want audiences to take away?

8. Visuals: Are we developing new images or picking up existing ones? If we are creating them, who/what/where are we photographing or illustrating? And why?

9. Details: Any mandatory information that must be included? List of deliverables? Preconceived ideas? Format parameters? Limitations and restrictions? Timeline, schedule, budget?

10. People: Who are we reporting to? Who exactly is approving this work? Who needs to be informed of our progress? By what means?

From http://www.scribblelive.com/

What to include in your creative brief: A checklist

• A paragraph or two about your project’s objectives
• Your core message and 3-5 features/benefits to your audience
• Notes on themes or ideas, you want the creative to embrace. Make sure to be clear about how closely (or loosely) you want them followed.
• Your audience: Describe them briefly, give key demographic information and provide any insights you have about what they’re trying to achieve (and how you’ll help them achieve it).
• The primary call-to-action or takeaway message.
• Some examples of what success would look like (website traffic, sales, etc.)
• Examples of projects you like (or that have been successful) in a similar format (videos, infographics, etc.)
• Brand and copy style guidelines: the fonts, tone, colors, logos, and other elements that will keep this content consistent with your brand. This doesn’t need to be in your creative brief necessarily, but you should at least explain how external teams can access your style guides.
• The specifications for the final product: file types, sizes, formats, etc.
• The full list of assets you need. Will you need a banner ad, too? A blog post? Copy for social media promotions? Scope creep is an easy way to get your project derailed and behind schedule.
• Clear information about both launch dates and due dates for drafts. (If you have flexibility, make sure to let your team know. Your team may have ideas they won’t share if they think there’s no time.)

Got all that? While you want to communicate all this information, you should also be able to distill it to a page or two (excluding style rules). If your creative brief comes off looking like a Tolstoy novel, chances are it’s not going to get read – or at the very least that some important details will be missed.

The Assignment 

Your group will develop a creative brief for the product below:

The winning submission to this year’s Buckminster Fuller Challenge, a $100K prize doled out to the most socially responsible design, was Ecovative’s mycological biomaterial. College buddies Eben Bayer and Gavin McIntyre came up with the idea to use fungi as a binding agent while studying engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York back in 2007. Their eco-friendly material could replace existing plastic foams — which are both non-recyclable and petroleum-based — with a substitute derived from fungi for applications in furniture, building insulation, and even footwear or surfboards.

Performance Enhancement

• Breath (Why do we breathe? So we don’t lose our voice)
• Find the smiling face in the room (Not the laughing face.)
• The more you over-note the worse you will do. (Just be you.)
• Speak louder than you think you need to (Better to be too loud than too soft)
• Look around the room and speak to everyone. (Look over their heads if you must.)
• Stand up straight and keep your hands out of your pockets.
• Don’t apologize! Don’t apologize! No one knows you messed up but you.
• Don’t be afraid to pause and get your thoughts together. NO ONE KNOWS.
• Don’t forget - everyone here wants you to do well.

 General Issues

• Breath and stand up straight
• Casual does not mean too casual
• Watch talking too fast
• Watch mumblings
• Watch the umms
• You just can't stop (that's it)
• Follow the directions (many did not have a tagline, have a story, have an ending.)
• Dressing well always helps

Thank you, Toastmasters. 

Be aware that nervousness or feelings of inadequacy can show immediately in your gestures. These can be very distractive and misinterpreted.

For example:

• Hands on hips = condescending, parental, overbearing
• Crossed arms = cutting off, disagreeing, wanting to protect
• Hands crossed in front (fig leaf) = feeling weak, timid, needing protection.
• Hands joined behind your back = you’re on parade!
• Hands in pockets = nervousness.  This can result in jingling any change or keys, making it even more obvious you don’t know what to do with your hands!

Now, if it is your intention to look nervous, condescending, overbearing, weak or protective because your speech calls for it, then use these gestures, but do so with purpose!

Most of the time, however, speakers are using these gestures unconsciously.  So be aware of what you are doing with your arms and hands as it is sending a subconscious message to your audience.

posture - n. the way in which your body is positioned when you are sitting or standing

eye contact - n. a situation in which two people are looking directly into each other's eyes

gesture - n. a movement of your body (especially of your hands and arms) that shows or emphasizes an idea or a feeling

nervousness - n. having or showing feelings of being worried and afraid about what might happen

confidence - n. a feeling or belief that you can do something well or succeed at something

stage - n. a raised platform in a theater, auditorium, etc., where the performers stand

aware - adj. knowing that something (such as a situation, condition, or problem) exists

opportunity – n. an amount of time or a situation in which something can be done

Presentation skills

Basics of business presentation skills

Pre-gaming the presentation 
Understand what it is you want to say and think through how you want to say it.
Through your research and interviewing come up with a narrative to lead you into the presentation. 
(Always start with a story - ALWAYS)
Have you answered all the necessary questions the presentation requires? 

Before the presentation 
1. Have an excellent outline of what you want to say
2. Work with that material to create a script
3. Look for visual that will enhance what you are trying to say
4. Practice your presentation with the visuals at least five times before the presentation. 
5. HAVE AN ENDING

During the presentation 
Dress well
Don't read
Interact with your audience (warm up while preparing - no "dead air")
Everyone has something to do - and that is not read off the powerpoint only they prepared. 

Do the same thing with the product I am giving you today to present on Friday. 
Take a look at these two different approaches. 

How to write a tagline

First let's look at some examples of great taglines. 

Difference between a slogan and a tagline

Your slogan goes with the battle you are waging right now. That means slogans are often used only for one product, or one campaign. A slogan may change regularly according to your campaigns to advertise a specific aspect of a product or service, while a company tagline is used consistently for a company as a whole.

HOW TO WRITE A TAGLINE...STEP BY STEP

Having seen how great a tagline can be, what are you going to do with yours? How are you going to make it stand out? What will it say that will make people think about it long after they have seen it?

It all starts with the values and truths that make your company (or your client’s, if you work in an agency) what it is. Here is a step-by-step process that can help you create a tagline worth its weight in gold. All you’ll need is a blank sheet of paper and a pen, or a computer. But honestly, the old-fashioned note making technique is best here. If you give a tagline the attention it deserves, it can be transformative, and the foundation for a campaign that can change the way people look at your company.

1. Write Down Words About Your Business
   Every word you can think of, and anything that comes to mind. There are no right or wrong answers to any of this, so have at it. Create lists. Don’t be afraid to reach for a thesaurus at some point, but be careful you don’t get bogged down in fancy alternative terms for common words. When you look at the best taglines, they don’t read like poetic prose. They use simple words, but combined in a way that makes you sit up and take notice.
    

1. List ALL Of Your Strengths AND Weaknesses
   It may seem counterintuitive, but the latter part of that direction is important. The AVIS line came directly from a weakness; they were not as big as Hertz. But, Bernbach turned it into a great strength. So, when compiling your list, include the flaws. You want a list of PROS and CONS that you can look over. It can spark great ideas.
    
2. Examine The Benefits
   Your product is great. Your service is the best. You want everyone to know that. Well, a comedian doesn’t go on stage to tell people he or she is funny. Jokes, or amusing stories, do that. The same applies to your business. What can you say about the benefits? Is it faster, quicker, bigger, cheaper, stronger, or more reliable? Get into descriptive benefits.
    
3. Assemble Phrases
   You’ve got pages and pages of words right now. Lists of strengths, weaknesses, benefits, and more. It’s time to start putting phrases together from those words. At this point, it is very easy to think about a clever turn of phrase. Avoid cleverness at all costs. Your goal here is communication. Quick communication. Cleverness is great for headlines, and other advertising tactics. But a tagline, it needs to be direct. There is nothing clever about “Just Do It,” but it has power. So, don’t get into wordplay and idioms. Just say something memorable, powerful, and truthful.
    

1. Cut, Cut, and Cut
   You will have a lot of options in front of you now. Too many. Start testing each option out. Does it work in a variety of ways? Does it have dimensions? Does it need to be explained, or does it work on its own merit? Keep cutting until you have two or three killer options.
    
2. Give Every Tagline The Overnight Test
   You may have a few favorites, but let them sit and brew. One will stand out above the others; perhaps one you had never even considered. It should also start giving you ideas on where you can take your advertising and marketing campaigns.

Be cautious of 

• Overused words and phrases: Quality. Excellence. Trust. They sound nice, right? There’s a reason they sound like tagline words – they are painfully overused, to the point that they say nothing new about your organization. Use them and risk your message getting buried. Other words that fall into this category include: empowering, advancing, extraordinary, exceptional, tradition, opportunities, leadership, committed, dependable, world-class, expert, partnership and “since [insert year here].” These words are as bad as corporate jargon – they fall stunningly flat with consumers, they engender no loyalty or enthusiasm, they convey zero personality, and they move nobody to action. Find better words.

• Multitasking: Your tagline can’t be all things to all people. The best taglines convey one idea, and convey it really, really well.

• A message that’s not unique to you: Indistinguishable ideas are arguably worse than unoriginal words. The ideas are the crime – the words are merely the getaway car. Let’s consider this made-up tagline for a university: “Enhancing learning through educational opportunities.” Sounds fancy. It also says nothing. Don’t all universities enhance learning through educational opportunities? If your tagline is true about you – as well as everybody else in your industry – find a new one.