Ideas First Recap #2 (4/13): Creative Briefs, Part One.

Wherein creative briefs are introduced and students are tasked with describing their fictional adversaries as part of the homework assignment.

CLASS RECAP
Our second class was spent on student presentations and creative briefs, two topics that will continue to dominate our quarter. It was great to see the unique creative styles/directions that everyone decided to use for their presentations—it's important for me to know how you are as an artist, so I can make sure we can find ways to apply to our assignments. As for your presentations, I'd like to have us work on ways to tighten the content and keep short and focused. That said, we’ll continue to work on exercises to help you edit your content according to the assignment requirements.

Creative Briefs
We used a brainstorming exercise to come up with a list of questions to plan a music festival. Questions considered both the big picture—where is it taking place, what is the date, who is the target audience—and details—will there be alcohol, how much security is required, what kind of vendors will be there. When clients approach agencies to assist with an advertising campaign, the agency provides the client with a list of questions which evolve into the creative brief. The creative brief is a summary of the campaign's objectives and goals, which becomes the framework through which the campaign ideas will be defined and tested.

The Account Manager, Account Planner and Associate Creative Director (ACD) often lead the creative brief development process, with members of the media, production and technology teams providing additional insights. Over the next couple of weeks, we’re going to write creative briefs for our assigned brands—those we love, those that need love and your personal brand. We’ll be exploring the following topics:

This Week

• Company Background
• Competitive Landscape
• Competitive Analysis
• Attitudes

Next Week

• Audience
• Marketing Challenges
• Marketing Goals
• Single-Minded Message
• Secondary Support Points
• Campaign Mood (Look and Feel)

Specifics regarding each topic are included in the Assignments section, below.

ASSIGNMENTS
Along with a field adventure of your choice, you will need to thinking about the following creative brief topics for your assigned brands and your personal brand.

Company Background
Describe your company. What products/services does it offer? How and/or why was it started, and where is it today?
For your personal brand, describe yourself: who are you, where are you from, and where are you now?

Competitive Landscape
What’s happening in your company’s market/industry? How is your company currently marketing itself? How are competitors marketing themselves? What would you say are the challenges and opportunities within the market/industry?

For your personal brand, what’s happening in your life? How do you market yourself to strangers, students, friends and family? What would you consider to be your primary challenges and opportunities at MAS and living in San Francisco?

Competitive Analysis
Choose three of your company’s competitors to research/assess. Come up with a 2-3 sentence (paragraph) summary of each company, including background and history information. What is their key selling point? How do they market themselves? Describe what each competitor is doing right and wrong.

For your personal brand, create three fictional competitors: the overachiever in class, the hipster that always gets the girl, the fashionista co-worker that receives all the attention (what is their background and history)? Why do you consider these individuals as your competitors?

Attitudes
What are people saying about you company? Refer to reviews, articles and/or blogs for quotes.

For your personal brand, what are people saying about you? Ask a friend, family member and acquaintance to provide you with a short testimonial.

We’ll spend a little time reviewing in class, but feel free to email me any questions you have beforehand.

This week's image is from Wong Kar Wai's "2046" an always dazzling, often maddening, love letter to heartbreak. The first frame of the film, which reads "all memories are paths of tears" inspired the tattoo I wear down my left arm.