Every brand has its own, private challenges. It can be a need for greater awareness, a need to drive sales or a need to drive aspiration. Determining whether TV has a part to play in realising these goals means asking some key questions. Questions about the target audience, their lifestyles as well as about their perceptions of the brand.

And if brands do decide TV can help the communication contribute to the business objective, marketers will also need to provide enough information to determine which of the many ways in which you can now use the medium is most appropriate.

But the questions that need to be asked will be very brand specific – every brief is different.

So to help marketers determine what information they should address, we’ve asked four leading planners from creative and media agencies what issues they should think about before they put pen to paper.

Richard Hartell, Planning Director, Starcom MediaVest

“Before you can say that TV is the answer you need to go back a few steps and ask a whole series of different questions.

“What’s the business objective? What’s the marketing objective and what’s the role for communications within that? What’s the behavioural change that you’re trying to drive with your activity?

“The next set of questions relates to who you need to reach. What’s the right audience? Is the key target for this campaign big enough to warrant a TV campaign because even with smaller satellite and cable channels there can be wastage.

“The decision to go with TV is also dependent on other information about the target audience’s lifestyle. What is this group like and how important is TV to them in their daily lives and how do they consume it? TV is expanding beyond the living room into mobile and broadband.

“Does the brand have any of its own content that could be used to create media opportunities or should it be considering looking for other ways of getting closer to content.

“Other issues that also need to be considered are whether there is a fulfilment aspect to the business challenge or is there a product promotion that might tie up with the campaign.

“Do you want people to contact you for more information or to buy, which might lend itself to interactive TV.

“If you have all the answers to these questions and the answer is still that TV is the right route for your brand then you will need to consider more detailed issues: what’s the right TV environment for your message? How does the target audience translate into TV buying audiences?

“The final key issue to consider is how are you going to measure success for the whole campaign and for the media elements of it?”

Steve Hobbs, Head of Media, Carat

“There are two questions that will dictate the key to any TV campaign. The first is what is the activity trying to achieve? - persuade people to buy or change attitudes, for example.

“The second element is how is the current advertising performing? - is it highly memorable, for example, as this will determine key elements of the TV planning. As with so many things it really helps to look back to look forward, evidence of how previous work has helped to drive sales or change attitudes is vital.

“Consumer attitudes to a product or brand will also really make a big difference to the way that TV is used. If consumers do not care about your brand then the medium will be required to do a different job than would be the case if they were really into it.

“A brand that sits on the negative side of the equation will need more TV activity than one that gets the target audience excited.

“If the brand is looking to drive engagement then clearly interactive TV offers possibilities as well as offering an environment where brands can get more of their message across.
“Ideally we would be briefed at the same time, or before the creative is developed but if it's already been determined that the campaign will use TV before it gets to us then we’d also expect the brief to provide some pointers on creative direction as this can have an impact on selecting the right environment.”

Damian Mckeown, Planning Director on DfT and InBev, Leo Burnett

“Ideally a good brief doesn’t come with a media attached to it because there’s a lot of thinking to be done before we get to that.

“What it should be is very clear about what the communication has to say. Too many clients expect to be able to say too many things about their brand, their product or their company.

“A great client brief will be very single minded and it’s particularly important on TV where people assume because it’s a multifaceted medium they can say so much. While you can imply a lot on TV, explicitly you should be very focused. If you think of a great ad I’ll show you a single minded thought.

“To enable us to create such messages, the core information we need includes: the goal of the communication, is the aim to change consumers’ affinity with the brand, drive purchase or change preference. We need to know what the consumer does now and what the brand wants them to do.

“We need to know who the target group is and what this audience knows about the brand.

“The key element, however, is the brand insight – the idea that could help create the central theme of any communication. “We want to know what the client thinks their key brand benefit is and what they think the reasons for that are.

“Good clients don't write their briefs in isolation just as good agencies don't write creative briefs in isolation. Good briefs come from a consensual and considered discussion between all the parties involved. Many of the issues, questions and answers explored within a communications brief should have been discussed and agreed by agencies and clients prior to actually writing the brief.

“Good process at this stage will always reap dividends later; agency and clients will find themselves pushing the creative ideas forward – and making better ads) – rather than re-treading old ground trying to untangle the strategic knots that siloed thinking generates.”

Christy Stewart-Smith, account planner, Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO

“One thing that would be very good to hear from clients as part of the brief is what they intend the consumer to think after having been exposed to the communication and to describe how that differs from what they think now.

“Some clients talk about where the consumer is now, some briefs talk about where they would like the consumer to be. Very few talk about the distance between these two points and that’s more relevant than you would think in terms of deciding what kind of communication is needed.”

Article by Alastair Ray