Comments on: take the frickin’ insight off the frickin’ pedestal

By: Ross Simmonds

Ross Simmonds — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 16:09:35 +0000

This is a great post, I love your approach when briefing the creative and will probably give it a try myself and see how it turns out. Looking forward to reading more of your posts, this blog has been a great find..

PS: The commenter who said it’s a creative weaving between imagination & insight is dead on.

By: Bethany

Bethany — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 00:42:44 +0000

This is brilliant! You’re a brilliant woman. Thanks for making it ok to talk about insights this way.

By: M

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 09:31:36 +0000

Hello people? A certain breed called the suits are also involved here. Fine. Artworks, client relationships, management – sure. But briefs come from Account Management people as well. The unsung heroes.

I do like the collaborative thinking concept, the problem is that it just doesn’t work all the time. A lot of the times, creatives are not able to explore different ‘routes’. They’ll come up with great ideas for a particular direction, but while writing the brief – we need to explore various possible positioning of the product. Once that is decided, the collaborative thinking might work, IMHO.

By: @bebutler

@bebutler — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 21:23:01 +0000

nice approach but also requires team-oriented creatives too. which is tough because often their model and incentive for success even more than ours is to come up with the one brilliant idea too.

By: ‘Flash Reads’: A New Communications Research Approach for the Digital World | Millennial Marketing

Tue, 11 May 2010 02:53:11 +0000

[...] is the BBH planner, Liz Martin, from her blog, @uberblond arguing against the idea of a ‘frickin’ insight on a frickin’ pedestal’. “The [...]

By: bryan smith

bryan smith — Sun, 09 May 2010 20:50:43 +0000

When we talk about collaboration, we mostly talk about bringing people who aren’t defined by the industry as ‘creatives’ into the creative process. Which is fine and good, particularly for those of us with ‘planner’ in our titles, but what you’re proposing is the natural evolution of a time in which the line between strategy and creativity has wonderfully blurred. If what we make has evolved, so too should how we make it. And If we get to play in the creatives’ sandbox, they should also get to play with us in ours, until eventually there is only one sandbox: that in which smart & creative marketing solutions are generated.

I couldn’t agree more — provided, of course, that the strategist step up to their side of the bargain. This ain’t an opportunity to push off the hard part of the brief to creatives; if anything, I’d argue that a planner has to be at once MORE focused and MORE creative working in the way you describe. Because you have to be intensely rigorous in defining the interesting task, and a perpetual engine of lateral thinking to start & facilitate its cracking.

By: Seb

Seb — Fri, 07 May 2010 15:12:15 +0000

My best pieces of work have always come from this more ‘collaborative’ approach. This post is just spot-on. Well done!

By: @adamronich

@adamronich — Thu, 06 May 2010 15:42:37 +0000

I’ve had similar thoughts for some time. I used to work with a planner and we’d agree that there is no truth only things we all agree upon. This lead to challenging the idea of a Big Idea, that there would be one right creative solution to a problem, without the exploration of the creative process. Then I had an actual honest conversation with a Creative Director and he opened up about his contempt with a single idea on a brief and that with it already baked in and sold to clients we’ve done his job for him (even though he’d been part of the brief writing process). I’ve sense sought inspiration from a design thinking approach. That perhaps planners aren’t just responsible the dilution of information to fit the format of a brief, but instead orchestrators of a strategic process where we carry momentum by applying information and logic to help ideas reach their full potential. The difference is that the beginning of the strategic process is focussed to finding the right, most compelling problem to solve – the reframing if you will. Then starting the creative process with how might we ____? I look at the way the game is changing and as we start creating experiences and digital platforms we should think for like inventors than marketers. To your point Ub’s (can I call you that, we just met) it’s beta testing insights and strategic direction and building support alongside the creative ideas.

By: @uberblond

@uberblond — Thu, 06 May 2010 15:42:04 +0000

Hey shana,

It’s a really good question. This approach is a lot more work for a planner, and part of that added work is how our client role has more dimension as well!

When the clients are working on their briefs (and I’m working with them on their briefs) i do two things: i encourage them to keep their insight broad and focus more on what they want the target to walk away believing. I also prep them that we’re going to drill into the problem more and in getting to our solution we’ll probably come back with a tighter insight in that doesn’t contradict their thinking, but rather slots under it. I’ve found that clients are open to this approach and it doesn’t contradict what agencies have always done: take their briefs and drill into even harder.

It’s about talking more, telling the clients what we’re up to and in a lot of ways involving them more in our process. I’ll show the clients the internal brief and the various avenues/insights in. After workshopping with the internal team we’ll give the clients a call and let them know the insight territories that are yielding good stuff. Just keep talking to them, let them know we’re just drilling down more, using their brief as a launch pad and then taking the whole solution even further.

By: Donald

Donald — Thu, 06 May 2010 15:37:53 +0000

Mmmm, yeah, I’m always prepared to expose my goo but I’ve never needed to.

The creatives at every non-traditional advertising (brand / integrated / digital) place I’ve been to in the last 8 years are immensely grateful that someone has taken a stand and said it like it should be. Exposing your goo would only make them feel unconfident about what they had to do.

Really good creatives rip planner briefs apart and feed you your own goo.