Monday, November 13, 2006

What's Your Problem?

There was some discussion on another site about whether you needed to have a proposition or not as part of the creative brief.

So....here's my humble opinion.

Ad strategy normally starts with working out the brand problem. Once that's sorted, you work out what you want to do to solve the problem.

That's normally a course of action that means getting consumers to think and then behave differently. On all the products I've ever worked on it means an outcome that sells more units.

For me, a proposition is what you propose to say to the consumer. This proposal should be based around a functional benefit &/or how you want them to feel. And it's designed to get people to think and act differently to overcome the problem.

So if you don't have a problem, then you don't have to say anything.

And if you don't have to say anything, you don't need to advertise.


Brand problems that require a communication solution need a proposal.


Otherwise you risk a piece of communication which might resemble something like this....

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great video example :)

By the way, your post scared the living daylights out of me, thinking it was Monday 13th already and that I might have missed my father's birthday... after midnight blogging, it's a killer...

Vando said...

Gotta love YouTube....found a whole heap of Shaun Micallef stuff which kept me entertained for ages. I figured there had to be a spot somewhere for Meat Boy on the Jason Recliner!

Sorry about my pre-posting. I didn't think I'd get the chance to put it up today before I went to work, but alas here I am eating muesli at 6.30am in front of the blog.

Stanley Johnson said...

It's time to out myself...I love the Westgate Bridge. There, I've said it and I feel so much better now.

Vando said...

So do I. I still remember when I was young, dad trying to avoid the toll and we ended up getting lost in Footscray for 2 hours. I've never avoided a toll since.