the Beauty of the Brief

While companies are working with deeper cutbacks to budgets and staff, marketers are under increasing pressure to deliver expected results. People are working longer hours, taking on more projects, and given excruciating deadlines to hurdle all the while managing personal affairs and holding on to their sanity.

At the office, sometimes a good idea comes out of a meeting but the turnaround is very tight. It’s lobbed over to you or perhaps you volunteered to get it done. Whether you’re a seasoned marketer or just starting out in your career, resist the urge to simply pick up the phone to your agency or creative department and provide verbal direction to get them working on a project. That might seem like the fastest solution, but often it is not. Without a thoughtful brief, objectives are easily lost and directions misinterpreted; often resulting in rework, frustrated people and potentially a compromised outcome.

Being strategic is about getting everyone on the same page, literally. It’s about providing clarity and direction so people know what’s expected of them and how success will be measured.

I find that a project brief is an excellent communications tool to build agreement and provide direction. There are many examples of project briefs available depending on the complexity of the project. Key questions that should be addressed in a brief are as follows:

What’s the objective?
- What challenge are you hoping to overcome?

What’s the goal?
- How will you know if you’ve achieved your objective?
- What measurement will you use and build into your plan?

What’s the background?
- Why are you doing this?

- Is this a competitive reaction or a brand building opportunity?

- Have you done something like this before? What did you learn?
- What are the obstacles or issues that could be in your way?

Who is the target?
- Be specific

What are the must-haves from the nice-to-haves?
- Are there specific brand messages that need to be communicated?

- Are there legal copy or design considerations?

Approval Process
- Who are the decision makers versus informed parties?

- Knowing this up front can save valuable time and rework costs.

Budget and Timing
- Be specific and realistic

I find that writing a brief is a great discipline. It gives people clear direction and frees them to be creative within known parameters. Briefs require some time and thinking up front but in the long run will motivate your team and ultimately, achieve the best results.

If you have a great brief or idea, please share it or provide a link.

Optimizing your marketing spend to leverage the Empowered Consumer

The internet has forever changed consumer behavior and the resulting paradigm shift on marketing strategy is both daunting and liberating. There's an explosion of places consumers can assess your brand, compare products and pricing versus your competitors, rate responsiveness to your customer service or judge you by your company's values or actions. The internet also gives brands an incredible number of touch-points and tools to reach out and engage the consumer in very real and meaningful ways. The key for marketers today is to ensure the optimal investment is made at each of the four key touch-points along the consumer purchase decision cycle.

1. Get your brand into the consideration set - building brand awareness
2. Get "found" during the consumer research stage - SEO/SEM, product reviews, blogs, etc
3. Close the sale at the purchase point - conversion online or in the store
4. Post purchase management - customer service, product reviews, loyalty, Facebook page, etc

I came across this video on the Geary Interactive blog (produced by Twenty-two Squared). It's a great demonstration of the new purchase decision cycle and today's empowered consumer. The savvy marketer will ask: has my marketing mix changed to adapt to the new consumer purchase decision journey? Am I engaging current and potential customers at the right moments to influence their purchase decisions? Are all my customer facing activities integrated - marketing, PR, CRM? Do I know what drives loyalty and have I harnessed it with word of mouth programs? This shift in consumer behavior provides a great opportunity for marketers to be smarter about their investments by giving the consumer the information he or she needs to make a purchase decision, at the right place and at the right time.

Attention small business owners - this book is for you.

All You Need is A Good Idea, a new book written by Jay H. Heyman. Reviewed by Karin Koonings of The Essential Orange as part of the Post2Post Book Tour


How many times have you thought…..how can I build my business more effectively? Should I advertise on the radio? Should I do a direct-mail campaign? Or is an email campaign more cost effective? Have you often hired an ad agency or “marketing guy” and wondered….is this ad going to do it for me? How do you evaluate if it’s a really good piece of communication? Or are you guilty of telling your agency to add yet another key message to the perfect ad they’ve presented...?

To create marketing messages that actually get results, all you need is a good idea - and that truly is the key takeaway of Jay Heyman’s book. Entrepreneurs often have good product ideas – but a good idea without an effective marketing message or strategy is dead in the water.

What I love about this book is that it is written in a very conversational style, yet, the thinking is grounded in classical marketing strategy. The author gives real-life examples and tips that are very practical and don’t require large budgets. It’s an easy and entertaining read and unlike many business books, the ideas actually stick.

One of my favourite examples in the book of a good idea is of a New York sightseeing company that uses double-decker buses. Instead of the traditional red, the buses are painted yellow and black to resemble a New York taxi. A simple yet creative idea that made this tour company stand out from their competition.

Heyman’s whole mission is to give business owners the confidence to create or evaluate good ideas so they get sales results. Good ideas are fresh, often taking something familiar and giving it a new twist, something unexpected yet relevant. Good ideas differentiate and build a brand and also have the strength to carry a campaign. They have the power to make you smile and they are single-minded.

If there’s one thing I missed in the book, it was examples or tips on how small business can leverage the digital or social media channel. The success story of Blendtec comes to mind as a great example of a powerful idea well communicated. Nonetheless, this book is a great guide for small business and to prove this out, I thought it would be a good idea to test drive some of Heyman’s suggestions to see how they worked.

Test Driving the Book, Part I - Mythic Paint




I used the print ad evaluation exercise on p 78 and expanded it to create a “creative check-list” incorporating many of the concepts found in the book. I’ve applied the check-list below to the first print ad I found in my October 2008 issue of Dwell magazine which so happened to be for Mythic Paint. Here are my findings:

Could I understand the strategy in the headline?
• Not really unless it was that Mythic Paint was brought to earth by aliens

Was the idea unexpected yet relevant?
• Unexpected yes, relevant to me, not so much

Did it have the power to make me smile?
• It had to power to make me go “huh?” and flip the page

Was the ad single-minded? No
• Mythic Paint = aliens
• Highly durable
• Zero VOCs and zero toxins
• Uncanny combination of beauty and safety
• The world’s only high performance, non-toxic paint
• The legend (what legend?) goes on
• Dumbstruck/frowning woman a definite turn-off

Does the ad help differentiate the brand from competitors? Yes
• It is certainly different, but I’m not convinced that it’s memorable

Is the idea brand building & campaignable?
• Not in my opinion
• The ad does not build credibility or trust to support product claims
• Painting is hard work and there does not seem to be any payoff in the imagery

Test Driving the Book Part II - Safecoat Paint

Let’s look at another paint ad (perhaps it’s a tough category). In the same magazine I found an ad for Safecoat Paint that used one third of a page.

Could I understand the strategy in the headline? Yes
• Breathe easy (no fumes, non toxic)

Was the idea unexpected yet relevant? Yes
• The use of canary (think: coal mine) metaphor was very relevant

Did it have the power to make me smile? Yes
• It recognized my intelligence and gave a twist to the familiar

Was the ad single-minded? Yes
• It’s a safe paint – for you and for the environment
• The certification allows me to trust the product claims
• And hats off to whoever came up with the name and the packaging – it reinforces the message of safe and eco-friendly

Does the ad help differentiate the brand from competitors?
• yes, although I believe there is more opportunity to bring more emotion and energy into the ads


Is the idea brand building and campaignable?
Yes – it definitely has legs.

This exercise shows how “All you need is a Good Idea” can help the small business owner recognize, create and evaluate effective marketing messages.

It's a great book. Well done, Mr. Heyman!

Visit Jay's blog here
Check out more book reviews hosted by Idea Sandbox here