This document provides information on developing creative briefs for advertising campaigns. It discusses different approaches and formats for creative briefs, including: 1. The creative brief summarizes consumer and brand insights from research to provide direction and inspiration for the client and creative team. 2. Common sections include insights about the target audience, how they interact with the brand, what the brand wants them to know and feel, and the key insight or "big idea". 3. Agencies like McCann Erickson and Deutsch provide their own approaches to developing creative briefs, such as role-playing as the target consumer or focusing on strategic ideas and deliverables. 4. FCB's model categorizes purchase decisions

1. Chapter 5:
STRATEGY –A Road Map for the Creative Team

2. Strategic planning is the
stage between fact gathering &
creative execution … a road
map for the client & creative team.

3. The Creative Brief
§ Summarize the consumer & brand insight …
uncovered during the research stage.
§ Written by account planner (or call strategic Planner)
§ Give the direction & inspiration.
§ Some planners include:
▸ Clips of TV, download music, scrapbook of
hobbies, montage of photos.
Get into the mindset of the consumer

4. Writing the Creative Brief
§ Include ONLY what’s relevant to solving the
advertising problem.
▸ Approximately 1 page.
▸ What the brand has always stood for.

5. Writing the Creative Brief … con’t
Formats for Creative Briefs
The creative vary from agency to agency, but will
include 4 things.
1. Insights about the target audience
▸ Describe target audience in demographic terms:
» Age, sex, marital status, income, occupation, owner or
renter, user or nonuser of product category.
» BUT, only demographic can’t help creative to
understand the target consumers.

6. Writing the Creative Brief … con’t
1. Insights about the target audience … con’t
» Lifestyle e.g. leisure-time activities, attitude towards
work & family, and stress of everyday life.
– Demographic = skeleton
– Lifestyles & values = body & soul

9. Writing the Creative Brief … con’t
Formats for Creative Briefs … con’t
2. Insights about how the target interacts with your
brand.
▸ Are your targeting users of another brand?
▸ Consumers who’ve never used any brand in your
category?
▸ Users of related product, might be persuaded to
switch to yours?
▸ Way to position your brand.

10. Writing the Creative Brief … con’t
Formats for Creative Briefs … con’t
3. What you want your target audience to
know & feel
▸ How the brand touches one or more human
needs:
» To be popular, attractive & wanted, material
things, enjoy life, comfort & convenience,
happy family situation, love & sex, power
up, avoid fear, admire, new experience, or
to protect & maintain health.

11. Writing the Creative Brief … con’t
Formats for Creative Briefs … con’t
3. What you want your target audience to know & feel
▸ Write the brief that explore the emotional & rational
rewards of using product or service:
» In-use rewards
– Convenient, new taste, earn the gratitude of family, etc.
» Results-of-use rewards
– Build strong bone, look good to others, believe that you are
good parents.
» Residential-to-use rewards
– Low coat, no mess, smart shoppers.

17. Writing the Creative Brief … con’t
Formats for Creative Briefs … con’t
4. Key insight (the big idea)
▸ Nothing is powerful as in insight into human nature.
▸ What instincts dominate an individual action.

18. McCann Erickson’s Role-Playing Approach
Acting as if you were that person, write the responses
to the first 6 questions.
1. Who is my target?
▸ Give a brief lifestyle/attitudinal description.
▸ Demographic
▸ Are they are buyer, heavy users, nonusers,
competitive users.
▸ Relationship with brand and other competitors.

19. McCann Erickson’s Role-Playing Approach … con’t
2. Where am I now in the mind of this person?
▸ Do they know us?
▸ Do they know us, but don’t use us because …
▸ Prefer another brand because …
▸ They don’t understand what we can do
▸ They don’t us use enough.

20. McCann Erickson’s Role-Playing Approach … con’t
3. Where is my competition in the mind of this
person?
▸ Use the same approach (no.2), but concentrate on
competing brands.
4. Where would I like to be in the mind of this
person?
▸ Product is positioned as …
▸ Product is the best choice because …
▸ Now they know the product will …

21. McCann Erickson’s Role-Playing Approach … con’t
5. What is the consumer promise, the ‘Big Idea’?
▸ Major focus of the campaign
▸ NOT a slogan or tagline at this stage
▸ But, it is a concise idea à sum up what the campaign
should be about.
6. What is the supporting evidence?
▸ Benefits to support your big idea.
7. What is the tone of voice for the advertising?
▸ Warm, family values, starling, hi-tech, sobering fact,
mind guilt, humor, etc.

22. The Deutsch Approach
§ Why are we communicating? What is the assignment?
§ Who are we talking to?
§ What’s the problem & opportunity?
§ What should our communication do? How will it do
this?
§ What is the strategic idea?

23. The Deutsch Approach … con’t
§ How will we supports this idea?
§ What are the mandatories, the must-do’s?
§ What are the creative considerations?
§ What are the deliverables? Where will the messages
run?

24. Linking Strategy with the Thinking/
Feeling & High-/Low-Importance Scales
§ Foote, Cone & Belding (FCB) has created a strategy
model based on 2 basic facts:
▸ Some purchasing decisions are based more on logic,
where as others are based more on emotions.
▸ Some purchasing decisions may involve extensive
deliberation, where as others are made with little or
no thought.

26. HIGH importance
LOW importance
FeelingThinking
Informa(ve
model
Consumer
needs
a
great
deal
of
info
e.g.
automobile,
computer,
etc.
Long
copy,
specific
info,
or
demonstra(on.
Affec(ve
model
Individual
who
relies
less
on
specific
on,
but
more
on
a@tude
&
feeling
e.g.
jewelry,
cosme(c,
apparel.
Drama(c
&
emo(onal.
Habit-­‐informa(on
Someone
who
makes
purchase
with
minimal
thought,
simply
introduce
discount
coupon,
keep
reminding
our
brand.
Self-­‐Sa(sfac(on
Consumer
=
reactor
Product
serves
personal
taste
e.g.
smoking
&
alcohol
à
make
them
feel
‘special’
in
front
of
peers.

27. Checklist for creative Briefs
§ Potential for relevant & unexpected connections that
can build a relationship between the brand the
prospect.
§ Place the brand at the appropriate point on the
thinking/feeling & high-low importance scale.
§ Address one or more human needs
§ Include emotional benefit with rationale. Can the
product and its advertisement supporting those
benefits?

28. Checklist for creative Briefs … con’t
§ Considering competitors’ strategies … what they have
and what they don’t have.
§ Brief address the target market in a tone appropriate
to the market.
§ Contain enough information for creative team, but
not overwhelm them.

29. Briefcase:
Eat Mor Chikin or these cows are goners!

30. Chick-fil-A’s challenge
§ Competitors include McDonald’s, Burger King, and
Wendy’s
§ Outnumbered in store count by up to 15 to one
§ Outspent in the media by up to 20 to 1

31. Chick-fil-A customers
§ Older, better educated, wealthier, more white collar,
skewed female
§ Came to Chick-fil-A for unique, better-tasting chicken
sandwich

32. Chick-fil-A image
§ Clean, comfortable restaurant
§ Accurate service
§ Friendly, clean-cut employees
§ Strong values
§ A bit too perfect

33. Chick-fil-A image
§ Status driven
§ Finicky
§ Uptight
§ Self-absorbed
§ Boring

34. Chick-fil-A brand position
§ To choosy people in a hurry, Chick-fil-A is the
premium fast-food restaurant brand that consistently
serves America’s best-loved chicken sandwiches.

35. Chick-fil-A brand personality
§ Caring
§ Genuine
§ Clean-cut
§ Dependable
§ Unexpectedly fun
The creative solution
§ Feature lovable cows pleading for people to “Eat Mor
Chikin”

36. 3-dimensional billboards

39. Chick-fil-A campaign results
§ Unaided brand awareness has grown more than 80 %
§ Sales have increased 120 %

40. Weekly Workshop #3
§ Option: Individual or paired-work (2 students)
§ Theory for this week: FCB Strategy-planning model (p.102 – 104)
§ Question
▸ Students have find at least 10 product categories
and identify the brands that belong to each
quadrant (not duplicate with example from the
classroom)
▸ Deadline: 04 Feb 13 @ 11.45 / Library