NORTHERN PLANNER

So to finishing off thinking about propositions. (There was this post in case you're wondering).

So far we've covered most of the ground needed to think about writing a good proposition. Now we're going to have a little debate that goes right to the heart of planning for advertising and how brands should communicate.

There are two schools of thought when it comes to building communication and the strategy behind it. The most common is what we've already covered – reduce everything down to a single-minded thing you want to communicate or say. Make a proposition the answer to the following question: What single thing must we convey?

This is, of course, fine. It's a common language for planning and creative departments all over the world, because it makes things easy. Agree on a statement, bring it to life in the most compelling way, job done. But……..

Another school of thought has been around for a quite a while, challenges this view and is possibly more relevant today than it has ever been. This way of thinking is based on developing communication around what you want people to think, feel or do afterward – the take-out, rather than a 'message'. The focus of a brief should not be what to say, rather, what the outcome of the communication will be.

This tends to lead to a proposition that is expressed as a task rather than a statement. or not even having a proposition, replacing it with a creative challenge.

This is not new, JWT's creative brief has centered, around 'What is the key response we want from the advertising' for some time. It then asks you to highlight what attribute, news, need that's fulfilled or whatever, that might provoke this response.

So the core of the brief for Lurpak becomes: Make Lurpak the champion of good food

The core of Nike Hurt becomes: Dramatise how much pain and failure are part of what it is to be a true athlete

The core of Gorilla becomes: Put a smile on the face anyone who sees our ad

The core of ghd becomes: Make ghd the conduit for desires hidden deep in every woman

Make the Audi TT utterly synonymous with design

I think this approach is worth considering because it's rare these days to be 'just doing advertising'. You're looking for ideas that are more like stories that run across lots of platforms, usually across more than one audience. There's little that is 'single minded messaging' about that. You're looking for a theme rather than a 'message'.

Advertising was never really about 'message'. Like all communication, it's a two way thing – it's what people make of what you say, not what you say.

Culture is becoming less linear and simple. Look at the Matrix, Lost, video games, even sit coms. They leave you lots to work out, they ask you to put threads together, and we readily do it. Ads, brands,all that are expressions of culture and competing against it – so it has to be at once like it and stand out somehow. Ads become the signal for deeper content elsewhere.

We're navigating the world in a much more visual way these days – briefs need to be about an experience rather than 'message', tone of voice, brand behave

This is all put much better here.