One insidious cause of poor advertising: “Seven Sins of the Creative Brief.” Brands that lead with a bad creative brief-or no brief at all-can often cause campaigns to unwind before they’ve even begun. Here are seven insidious causes that can sink an advertising campaign.
Sin #1: No Brief
The cardinal sin is the failure to develop a creative brief
- Internally, the brief-development process forces marketers to understand what they need to accomplish and the strategic path to that end
- Externally, the creative team is flying blind without any guidance
- Paradoxically, the lack of a brief frequently leads to longer development times as teams debate what’s “right”
Sin #2: Poor Objectives
Objectives such as “make a digital campaign” or “increase sales” are poor and impoverished objectives because they do not convey what specific advertising is meant to do.
- Increased sales can be a desirable outcome, but understand what metrics need to be moved and by how much to accomplish that business goal.
Shiny-Object Syndrome
As new opportunities emerge, we see brands chasing the “shiny object” as opposed to starting with the strategy.
- New media channels can present exciting opportunities, to be sure, but don’t get caught chasing tactics. Chase your customer.
Sin #3: Targeting Everyone
The idea that we should target everyone is neither realistic nor sensible for most brands in most categories.
- Consumers are different-they have distinct functional and psychological needs-and this means you have to talk to them differently to be persuasive.
- Targeting everyone requires a nearly inexhaustible media budget, which is out of reach for many brands.
Sin #7: Bad Measurement
In an age where digital channels allow more measurement-exposure, click-through, and even purchase rates-brands routinely fail at measurement.
- How does this happen?
- They fail to plan, and thus the results they get from measurement have little utility
Sin #4: The Lack of Insight
The best advertising connects with the target customers because it shows understanding of their needs and pain points.
Sin #5: Overpacking Positioning
Why should people buy your product?
