a) Developing inspiring briefs

using the Brand Key and Communication Plan as the starting point; focusing the brief on the Discriminator; setting objectives in terms of consumer behaviour; debating and sharpening the brief with the agency team; generating stimulating, insightful, confident written briefs; clarifying the need for a new campaign or executional idea; selling the brief to the agency in a lively face to face presentation.

b) Building successful agency team relationships

building strong company/ agency teams; knowing how agencies are organised, how they work, how they make money; developing shared professional values and objectives; motivating agencies to take risks and innovate; developing integrated creative campaigns with multi-agency teams; maintaining the excitement and ‘spark’ when working with agencies; managing agency meetings; providing agencies with clear and realistic time plans.

c) Judging creative proposals

organising the agency creative presentation; understanding the core idea; judging whether the idea will affect consumer behaviour; applying the ABC principles (Attention, Branding, Communication); judging the campaignability of the idea; discussing and responding to agency proposals constructively; taking risks and being open to surprises; writing clear actionable responses to proposals.

d) Developing outstanding communication campaigns

ensuring ownership of the creative proposals across the team; using qualitative research to explore and build ideas with consumers; developing suitable research stimulus material; keeping the focus on developing strong simple ideas; assessing the strength of final creative proposals using quantitative research; providing clear guidance during the pre and post production process; analysing production quotes to optimise cost/quality trade-offs.

e) Guiding outstanding brand packaging design

defining the role of packaging design in the Key Vision and Communication Plan; reviewing the main elements of the brand’s visual identity; selecting design houses against project requirements; working in teams with other professions, design houses and packaging suppliers; generating and communicating inspiring design briefs; judging design proposals against ABC criteria; exploiting the communication potential of both graphic and structural design.

f) Evaluating communication effectiveness

assessing campaign performance against marketing and communication objectives; planning and interpreting market research to evaluate the impact of brand communication on consumer behaviour; modelling sales levels in response to advertising expenditure; monitoring developments in brand awareness and image ratings over time; evaluating the effectiveness of each element of the campaign; comparing communication effectiveness versus competitor campaigns.

Tasks:

·      Ask your advertising agency to give you some examples of good communication briefs they have received.

·      Attend a briefing meeting with the agency.

·      Set up a session with the agency team to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of recent advertising examples (Unilever and non-Unilever).

·      Practice applying the ABC judgement criteria (Attention, Branding, Communication) to ads you see around you.

·      Analyse the PreView results for a recent piece of brand communication.

·      Attend an agency's creative presentation.

·      Define the communication campaign and executional ideas for a selection of ads you see on TV.

·      Surf the internet to see how brands are advertising in that environment.

·      Attend a pre-production meeting with the agency.

·      Carry out an assessment of a campaign's effectiveness against its marketing and communication

objectives.

·      Check to see if any modelling has been done to measure the effectiveness of communication for a brand in your company.