‘Just have fun with it. Be wacky!’.
Words to chill a creative’s very soul.
A massive red flag that after a few days work you’ll be starting again. When your idea ‘isn’t quite right’ or ‘not doing what we need it to’.
The task of an ad or design is to communicate a key thing to a specific audience.
So the thing you need to be the most creative is often dull and boring.
Information about the brand, the product, the benefits, the audience.
A clear brief.
Simply tell the creatives the problem that needs solving.
From that solid foundation it’s all about finding ways to make the facts interesting and attention-grabbing. Both in the work and in the brief itself (just in case any strategist thought I was saying the best briefings are boring, absolutely not).
Big imaginative leaps are usually a series of small steps from a logical starting point. Finally you’ll arrive at a place that no-one, even you, would have expected.
An outsider to the process often can’t see how you’ve ended up where you have.
It’ll look like you’ve… ‘Been really wacky!!’ or ‘Had fun!!!’.
Rather than been consumed by sweaty panic in the run up to the deadline.
But the work will all be built on complete logic, so you won’t have to start again.*
*I absolutely cannot guarantee you won’t have to start again.
