Marketers as Inspirers

When someone asks me one of the proudest and most important skills I have as a marketer, I always say collaborating with creative teams to produce amazing work--some of the proudest of their careers, I always hope. Designer Murat Mutlu has this great quote on his blog: "The process of getting a bit of paper containing a brief and turning into a real life experience is pretty great." Just think, it is the marketer's brief that needs to light that fuse. This requires translating the business, simplifying the customer insight, conveying what the product does in clear way, and tying it to a higher purpose for the brand. Most importantly, it requires talking to teams in a way they will hear you. And for designers and creative teams, that means they need to feel it.

I am not going to get into the skills of writing a kick ass brief here, more on that later. But I will dwell on inspiration and the art of briefing. As I continue to (b)log the best of the best I have found so far, this is an iconic example of how to capture inspiration in a brief by Damian O'Malley who is a savvy agency planner in Europe. He recreated the story of Michelangelo's brief for the Sistine Chapel. It also helps bring to life why creative collaborators get a wrinkle in their forehead when you literally tell them what to do: "Change this color to red." "Use the word 'joyful', instead of 'happy'". "Customers think we are X. Tell them we are Y." Creative teams work from a concept and why they are doing something, not what they are working on or how they do it. Thank you Damian O'Malley for getting this point across in such a compelling way.

Please don't perceive the comparison of creating a product or a brand to the Sistine Chapel as disrespectful. It is meant to be the exact opposite. Brands and the companies behind them create jobs, protect money, plus much more. It is an awesome responsibility that should be taken seriously and with integrity. I think branders should strive to find the significant meaning for customers, even if that means reaching for aspirational analogies like this that are very far out of our realm.

The Brief For The Sistine Chapel