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    Chicken or egg?

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    How To Use a Brand Brief.

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    Tangibility.

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    brand brief

    What Does A Brand Brief Cost?

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    At What’s The Idea? a brand brief costs $17,500. List price. The people willing to spend that type of money know it’s s steal. Having an “organizing principle for product, experience and messaging” makes every act of marketing easier. Compare $17,500 to the cost of a newspaper ad, website take-over, or a radio flight. It’s peanuts. Sadly, the word brief, in advertising and marketing has been reduced to an instructive piece of paper telling creative people what not to do. Ish.  They are often poorly written, almost all interchangeable, and not given much heed. But brand briefs – they are different story.

    For a robust brand brief I need weeks. A month actually. A good brand brief requires interviews, fieldwork, research and brain steep. If we’re talking about a brand brief for a billion dollar company there may be lots of qualitative and quantitative testing as well. Up goes the price. And money well spent.

    Done well, a brand brief informs all areas of business. If CRM is marketing template, the brand brief is its architecture. If PR is a communication template, a brand brief is its measure of success. If customer journey is a template, the brand brief is the bread crumb trail.

    If you are in the business of selling things, raise your hand. If you don’t have a brand brief you are a simple fisherman.

    For examples of brand briefs, showing claim and proof (brand tangibles), please write me at Steve at whatstheidea.

    Peace.

     

     

    Re-Massification.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    On a recent assignment my client and I spent a good deal of time on the target. The What’s The Idea? brand brief refers to the target as follows:

    Living, Breathing Target (Define the largest grouping of consumers, bound by a single shared attitude or belief, that will be most motivated to buy/consider the product? Provide a description of the target, not title or demographic.)

    Peter Kim a long-ago mentor used to refer to the target as a large group of various targets, with many different buying motivations.  But he then suggested “re-massifying” them back into a single group, with one shared care-about. I loved the word re-massify. Out of many one kind of a thing. Peter’s knew this was how you built a brand – reach as many people as you can, with a hopefully compelling value proposition.  That said, when re-massifying the target, trying to find a single shared care-about, one can water down the principle value. It’s hard work.  (And sometimes, you just have to eject part of the target, so as to keep your key claim compelling.)

    Well, on the recent assignment, my client added great value by not simply approving the presented LB Target, he pushed. And yes, we did lose some people when re-massifying. But it made for a more compelling brand brief and brand story. This additional targeting work made the creative process easier for the creative teams. An important result to be sure.

    I’m convinced the target description is one of the most important parts of the brand brief. Even more so than the “Core Desire” which is a distillation of the LB Target’s most important need.

    Get the Living Breathing Target right and most other pieces should more easily fall into place.

    Peace.

     

     

    Chicken or egg?

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Over the course of developing a brand strategy business I’ve been lucky enough to work with quite a number of clients. Some work has been pro-bono. Other full blown. I’ve been employed to develop master brand strategy, write marketing plans and even hired to write complicated positioning brochures and websites. My rigor doesn’t really change but the output does.

    In some cases, when hewing to the budget I hack my way to efficient use of time employing short cuts.

    The brand brief is a key tool I use for most all projects. It’s a document that, when written properly, tells a story using a smart sales logic. When it is tight, I’m able to create more comfortably and sleep better at night. When it includes bumps in the road, that road is less comfortable, and my work takes longer. Some of those hacks, ways to get to the brand claim and proof planks more quickly, don’t use the brief.  Rather, I collect my inputs, classify them into key care-abouts and good-ats, and boil away to my brand strategy answer.

    It has created a bit of a chicken and egg dilemma. Brief first? Or brief last?  

    Hacks are great to save time.  In my business though storytelling is where my clients light up. Nod their heads. Say I “get” them.  So brief first is preferred.

    Peace be upon you.

     

    Another Use for A Brand Brief.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    I have a client with a very successful technology company. His client list is a Who’s Who of other tech companies, the likes of which anyone would be proud.  When it comes to recruiting top talent, he competes with those same companies — even though the big boys are house hold names and he has a small firm. He often wins those recruitment competitions.

    I love this company. They do so many things right. They’re growing in head count. They’re giving back to the category by sharing IP. They are working hard to be inclusive in what is typically a homogenous technology landscape. And they incentivize women to enter the business through generous programs, while not paying lip service to equality.   

    As part of the welcome packet, all new employees receive the What’s The Idea? brand brief.  Mark Pollard has said many times “Strategy is your words” and this client wants employees to understand why they do what they do. The brand brief is the backstory that culminates in the “organizing principle for product, experience and messaging.”  It guides employees throughout their daily rigors. And behaviors. And deeds.

    You may call it culture. You may call it ethos. I call it brand strategy.

    Peace.

     

     

    How To Use a Brand Brief.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    If you are doing a marketing video in which you interview customers, let the customers read the brief before the camera rolls. It will help them frame the points you need. Otherwise, they’ll default to their own narrative.

    If you are asking a freelance writer to write a brochure. Give them the brief. It will create context for the writing and story.

    If decorating the office, give the designer the brief. It will guide decisions that support your business goals — not the designer’s portfolio.

    If are tired of your homepage. Give the web designer the brief on the first day.

    The brand brief is the most important tool a marketing company has. I know a CEO who shares the brand brief with every new employee.

    There are a hundred uses for a brand brief. Use it every day. Plants need water.

    Peace.

     

     

    Long Brief/Short Brief.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    The Gettysburg Address, arguably one of the most important speeches in America-dom, was 272 words long. (I read that on the internet.)

    As someone who writes strategy for a living, I’m a fan of the brand brief. Smart people in the advertising business will tell you a short brief is the best brief.  And when I say smart people, I mean high-powered, highly-paid creatives and strategists like Mark Pollard.

    Well, as a contrarian by nature I am going to take issue with the whole short brief thing. Just like a great piece of long form copy or other well-written pieces one cannot put down, I want a brief that gives creative people and marketers thoughtful inspiration. A spark.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve written my fair share of shitty briefs. And I’ve read my fair share of other people’s shitty briefs. Most were elongated by repetition. Some were just boring. Many lacked a thread that storified the brand.  But those were the result of improper research, lazy construction and brand craft.

    Briefs can always be briefer. They can always be better. But as stimulus to marketers and creatives they need to inspire. They need to open doors to exciting creative ideation and energetic consumer response.

    Back in the 80s there was a direct mail letter written by someone at Ogilvy Direct for American Express that out-pulled every other direct mail letter for years and years.  It was the absolute best. It was long. It delivered. It sparked consumer action.  That’s what a brand brief should do. Yes, the Gettysburg Address was short — about the length of this post. But length isn’t on trial here. Creative conviction is.

    Peace.   

     

     

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