Job seekers allowance
Walking past a pub on the way home yesterday evening I spied my old creative director supping a pint. 10 minutes later the old days were back; him, me, lager and discussion. He is talented as hell – scarily so, sharp to the point and fiercely no-nonsense talking. He makes me wish I was more instinctive.
We got talking about briefing and about how we need to reframe expectations of briefs to be more understandable; to drive to what is special, where the stand out come from, and what’s its going to do for you.
4 (or is could have been 5) in we stumbled upon the conclusion that a good metaphor is the job market. In many cases, a brand like a candidate competes to become occupied, it competes against other candidates, it needs to be relevant to the role specified, to have experience and stand out amongst a crowd.
We thought this was amazing. Writing this on this very bright morning having woken up in my clothes it seems to make sense but it’s not as brilliant as it was at 1 am – but it’s tidy.
20 Marlys said (September 2nd, 2009 at 3:34pm)
Used it today old chap. It bloody works too. If you want to see the colour drain from a planners face use the recruitment consultant technique developed over five pints of back to back bud with my good friend Tim. This is how you do it. When given a brief that sounded great around a meeting room table during a really successful “workshop”, that you weren’t allowed to attend cos your a creative and will get bored/ get honest/ get disruptive, simply ask the following question. If this product was a candidate trying to get a job off of me what would he say or what is on his CV that would make me pick him over the other candidates. Then cock your head to one side, stare and say absolutely nothing.
The first words uttered should be what you execute against. Cuts down on briefing time and makes a monkey out of the powerpoint briefing document that justifies the “workshop” – Brilliant.