How to talk about branding WITHOUT ASKING PEOPLE WHAT EXOTIC ANIMAL THEY ARE

There are good branding exercises, and there are silly ones. Here’s a simple one, which we used at the late great design firm Kilter. It’s been a part of my tool kit ever since.

It’s based on the realization that companies don’t choose their brands any more than people choose their personalities. You discover your brand. Frankly, you acknowledge your brand. 

This question helps you do that:

What five adjectives do you want people to associate with your company?

This question is provocative enough to get you to think and broad enough that you don’t need to argue about every single word. The five words will likely add up to something distinctive that will provide real direction.

While they inform every word you write, your brand adjectives are seldom public. But here’s mine:

 Strategic, witty, responsive, smart, conceptual.

 Accurate? 

How To Write A Better Creative Brief

 All creative briefs are good. But some are better than others at getting to stronger work, with fewer detours. In my experience, successful briefs do five things:

1.     Focus relentlessly on audience. This goes deeper than finding out their title. The good briefs also include demographics—age, gender, income, profession. The great ones provide insight into the buyer’s real motivations. They know what they value, how they think, and what keeps them up at night.

2.     Make it a tool, not a task.  Do not treat a creative brief as a box to be checked. It should reflect a serious discussion of your audience, your product’s strengths, the current and desired perceptions of your product, the relevant supporting facts, and the appropriate tone. Avoid jargon dumps and strategic dithering. Note budget and timing. 

3.     Separate direction and background. The goal of a brief is direction. Anything more than a page is suspect. That said, point the creative team to additional background materials. The goal of those is immersion—which is a very different thing.

4.     Don’t try to be creative. You’re not trying to generate the solution, but to guide it. Be clear about what should be said and why it should be said. Leave the creative team decide how that is said—or visualized. You will get better work while making creative teams love you.

5.     Gain buy-in. If key decision-makers don’t agree, you will be redoing it anyway, after you’ve burned more hours and depleted good will.    

That’s it. Going on at length about briefs would seriously miss the point. And if you look at the work I’ve showcased on this site, most of it started with a pretty good brief.