What Agency Project Briefs Often Lack

Anyone familiar with our industry understands the critical nature of developing actionable consumer and business-driven insights and translating them into meaningful campaigns. Insights are judged on their untapped potential to stir a desired consumer response. In the past, the desired consumer response was often simply consuming a product. The best way to do that was with creative campaigns that commanded attention.

With social media having made its way into the advertising mainstream (and it’s safe to say it has, judging by Facebook’s value now perhaps exceeding CBS), a brief’s insight has to do more than lead to a breakthrough creative idea. A good brief now should include insight(s) that can translate into ideas worthy of influence in the user-generated arena. TV, print radio and others aren't going away, but if your campaign doesn't revolve around an online/social foundation, you've likely got it backwards.

A mistake agencies often make with this idea is that a quirky micro-site is often the answer. While it may be part of the answer, that attitude is more often than not a tactic in search of a strategy. A good insight should empower your agency team to come up with social ideas that offer consumers something more than a quirky concept that has a 10% chance (even amongst your target) of drawing a response. Provide unique, unexpected services related to your client’s product ala Nike+, Domino’s BFD and Target’s College Facebook Page. Branded apps on iPhone and Facebook are also a great example of how to provide services that can ultimately tie to increased sales. Remember, great service(s) generate more online buzz than any creative campaign.

The next time you’re writing a project brief and distilling the insight, look at the social media implications by asking yourself and your team a few questions…

•How does what I know about consumers translate to a service my client’s brand can provide/be associated with?
•How does the service tie to increased consumption of my client’s product?
•Would the service be something consumers value enough to tell others about?
•How does the way we plan to talk about our client’s brand tie to the type of service we might like to provide?

Once you can answer these questions, you’ll be able to give your agency team a much better chance of leveraging their creativity to come up not only with great concepts, but better, more customer-beneficial applications to apply those concepts against.