Developing a Creative Brief is a bit like throwing a perfectly aimed stone, right into the centre of a lake.
Video and Animation content is essential when bringing websites and social media to life, but how can you ensure that content representing your organisation delivers well above and beyond expectations.
As you might expect from us, we follow three steps to ensure that creative briefs developed with our partners lead to successful projects, which make their mark in the overcrowded space that is ‘online’ in 2016.
Three Steps:
- Agree what success looks like.
- The objectives of the professional content we create varies greatly for our partners and for their different projects. The plan might be to sell more (if so how much more?) or to successfully launch a new brand or secure crowdfunding (what figure is needed and by when?), some projects are about the telling of a story (what does that need to motivate the audience to do?) or the presentation of an initiative or event (what feelings should the content drive?) other projects again will be designed to improve training initiatives (how best can they access the content and how will improvements in knowledge be quantified?) and the list goes on.
- Define the audiences you want to connect with.
- After deciding the project type and how success will be measured, the next step is to think very carefully about the audience the content is directly aimed at. We are always extremely worried by anyone who in developing their creative brief tells us that their project is aimed at ‘everyone’. Almost no professional content ever targets everyone, and if it does it will be so generic in message that it is more likely to compel viewers rather than appeal to them (think safety, law, security or transport). Instead think about the very best outcome, aiming for precisely who you do need your messages to engage with, and like a stone thrown into the centre of a flat calm lake, letting the ripples reach out, becoming less and less relevant as the concentric circles reach the shore. You will still pick up positive connections well away from the centre, but in taking a properly structured and focused approach to connecting with your core audiences in the centre, others will inevitably be reached.
- Only design content which will definitely deliver the first two.
- That sounds really obvious doesn’t it, but if you think of the tools and techniques available to the partners we create professional content for here at Three Motion; then the list of equipment and techniques we use is very long indeed. Many partners we work with for the first time start their first conversation with us like this, “We need an animation” or “How much will it cost to fly your drone over our office” or “Can you film our conference”. All are completely valid requests, but often they aren’t connected to the solution the partner hopes they will deliver, once steps one and two have been fully considered, or they deliver part of a more comprehensive and focused project.
The success of any professional production agency is based on the quality and effectiveness of the creative content it creates for its partners. The very best way to select the right creative partner is to review real projects delivered by them to achieve objectives which in some way match yours.
Any production house unable to show you great material, supporting case studies and offer direct links to their partners should be viewed with real scepticism. After all good or bad, once your content budget is spent, it is spent, so back winning teams with a track record of success, who start by asking the questions above and live with the objective of making your campaign a massive success.