We unlock the emotional power of fandom for brands.

Thought Leadership

From Discovery to Creative Brief: Getting to Your Brand Story

Consumers no longer choose brands on products alone, but base their purchases off whether brands share their same values. This emotional decision-making makes brand storytelling more important than ever, so there’s a lot at stake when a company enlists the help of an agency to craft their story. Much like an author brought in to write a biography, a brand is having an outsider build their voice, which can make trusting a new agency partner feel daunting. As the protagonist of their story, a brand should be thoroughly understood by their agency before pens ever touch the brief. A creative brief that uses a discovery and strategy process designed to get to the heart of the brand, diving deeper into personality, goals, and guiding values can alleviate any concerns the brand may have and help the agency produce a final product that remains true to their client’s essence. 

Brand Immersion Is An Important Step In An Engagement.  

We begin our discovery process with a checklist of documents we ask clients to send that includes their brand book and guidelines, so we can get to know their mission, vision, tone of voice, along with their visual identity. We have them include any brand assets that uphold those guidelines, because we want our work to feel cohesive with their current branding strategy. We also immerse ourselves in their full brand experience by taking the customer journey – visiting their store, buying from their site, and calling their customer service reps.  

Brand Strategy Helps Find The Unspoken Truths.

According to master strategist Mark Polland, a good strategy team will be able to sift through the complexities of the brand’s account to find the insights or unspoken truths behind the brand that allows them to create a simplified, informed solution for achieving their goals.

At Unconquered, we do a SWOT analysis to assess our clients’ strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats relative to their competition. This gives us the opportunity to explore the brand’s human value. By getting to know the competitive landscape along with their target audience, we can find their niche within the market and get a better understanding of whom we are speaking to. We dig deeper into their current marketing plan, the products or services they’re promoting, their media toolkit, and how they are currently focusing their engagement. This really allows us to understand how this project fits into their overall strategy, while crafting our own POV. 

Aligning Agency & Client Teams Is Very Important To Achieve Success.

When you bring together two separate teams, there can be differences in work structures. It’s important to align all team members to eliminate any potential silos or friction that could arise. Through our How We Roll brief, we ask our clients to give us insights into their day-to-day procedures and team culture, so we can quickly get on the same page. We cover everything from team dynamics, communication styles, meeting preferences, project expectations down to how we celebrate our success together. 

Designing A Thorough Creative Brief Creates Better Work. 

It is only after an agency really understands the brand inside and out and establishes best practices for a working relationship, should they get started on the brief.  While every brief outlines the big picture goals, expected deliverables, and what success looks like, a good brief clearly defines the problem the brand is trying to solve and what the hidden truths we are trying to reveal in the creative are. It should also properly communicate the project’s needs and what platforms it’s going to live on without limiting stakeholders with too many details or restrictions when creating the POV. 

We workshop our briefs together with our clients, which gives us the opportunity to ask questions that help us address their brand’s current goals and any roadblocks they’re currently facing. Clients aren’t always fully aware of their exact goals or the steps needed to ladder up to them, so working through the brief together allows us to hold important conversations that open the doors to more meaningful work.

It’s important for the brands to feel heard throughout the creative process, since it is their story being brought to life. Baking in empathy and communication into the creative process helps us humanize it. This is especially important because it can be very vulnerable for both the client who has a lot at stake and the creative team who are putting their all into it. When working with an agency, make sure they take the above steps to thoroughly understand the foundation of your brand before they roll up their sleeves and get to work.

If you are interested in hearing more about Unconquered’s creative process and how we can make it work for you, contact us for a consultation.