Serial Killer Strikes Again.

Brain squirming like toad: Police

 

After taking the lives of television, advertising, marketing, strategy, and the big idea, Technology resumed its murderous spree by snuffing long-time industry mainstay: Creative Brief. 

While there are few who will miss Creative Brief, its sudden passing has left many in the ad industry lost and helpless.  "I think I can speak for most creatives when I say Creative Brief was a real pain in the ass and certainly not popular," says Biff McTrendie, senior Art Director, "but we all took our lead from it.  So now what do we do?"  In response to this latest crime, police have doubled their efforts to track down Technology before it strikes again.  But according to Chief Inspector Kevin “I always wear black™” Roberts "Technology keeps changing so fast it's hard to keep up or know who's next." 

Crowdsourced Flash Mourners gather on Madison Avenue

 

To be sure, Creative Brief was a troubled soul.  Yes, it was inconsistent, often bloated and full of itself, but these traits were not its fault.  And despite these flaws creative teams relied on it for their livelihood for decades. Calvin Ramsbottom III, retired CEO of Ramsbottom, Ramsbottom & Schmidt, the agency that founded the modern creative department methodology, said the loss is tragic but Creative Brief had a lot of enemies and there were a few "newcomers" to the industry who were gunning for it.  "I set Creative Brief straight years ago," said Ramsbottom.  "I kept it humble,  made it to stay to one page and stick to the basics—identify the problem, determine the one thing to say, define the target and describe the deliverables.  And for many years Creative Brief worked with every agency.  But lately it started listening to others.  That's when Creative Brief went from looking lithe and enchanting, like Fred Astaire, into something foreboding and scheming, like Sidney Greenstreet.  Sad really."

One company, however, is trying to make sense of the situation.  Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners of Sausalito CA, has crowdsourced  people from all areas of the advertising industry except creative departments, to help find out why and how this happened and where the industry goes next. According to this group, the reasons behind Creative Brief's demise are: 

1. The world has gotten faster

2. Technology has fundamentally transformed communication

3. Breakthrough matters more than anything

4. Conversations are often a brand goal

5. Powerful insights aren’t always easy to find

6. Creatives often don’t want to have the most pointed and sharpest brief

7. The internet has empowered every creative to challenge the brief and perhaps even come up with a better one on their own

8. Communication has now fragmented to such a point- how can there be one brief for everything?

9. No one reads anything anymore

Fortunately, some actual Creatives crashed the 3-Day Account Plannerapoloza.  They told them in as many words that the Creative Brief is supposed be a fount of so much insight and illumination Moses could have delivered it. And its sole purpose is to SELL because that is the business we are in— not identify which group will be the human champion on social media, or what kind of engagement is needed "to engender within (the digital spaces or out among the people)" as some online pockets of goofiness believe.

 My two cents: If account planners are feeling their creative talents are going unrecognized they are either in the wrong department or in the wrong business. Soccer Trophy generation, may I introduce the real world?

™ George Parker, adscam.typepad.com