Well I’ve been on vacation. Man vacation is awesome. Time away from this ad game that we lose at more than we win at it seems. I’m refreshed and looking at things in a different perspective. (We’ll see how long this lasts.) At any rate I ran across this article in the ever so brilliant Denver Egotist and thought it was a great quick reminder of how to sell what we do. I forget some of these key steps all of the time. I did find it interesting that the very first step is to make sure your work is on brief. Duh, that is the easiest step. Ad school 101.

Lately for me the usual easiest first step has been the hardest. The last couple of assignments I have worked on started off on the very wrong foot. Bad briefs!

Ambiguous briefs/strategies that made no sense and that honestly did not reflect the client’s true needs or desires. Who’s fault is that? Pointing fingers is pretty easy. I will do it for sure. Planners and suits I’ve got 2 fingers pointing at you. Oh and I’m going to point a couple at you too clients. But as a creative you should question EVERYTHING on a brief. Why is this here? What does this really mean? How important is this? etc. You never really realize exactly how bad the brief is until you actually present work to the client and it is nothing like what they wanted or think they needed. No amount of selling can get them over that. Continuing to work unsuccessfully against bad briefs and then making up your own briefs always requires 10 times as much time, energy and booze. It usually proves unsuccessful, for me anyway. By unsucessful I mean, me and my partner sold nothing or advertising with absolutely no concept rears it’s ugly head and you are in a creative nightmare for the rest of the year. (No sell is better, trust me.) All of this could be avoided with a good, simple agreed upon brief. It all begins with the first step! Uhoh my jadedness is showing again. Back to vacation mode.

Take a read and make sure to read Pt 2 of 2 as well.

Read the article here…

- Lindsay Stevens