Leverage Brand Trackers to Help Build Strong Communications Tasks

The challenge

Establishing strong and clear communications tasks is one of the most important contributions that comms planners can bring to campaign development. Strong comms tasks become the framework through which creative teams develop work, clients evaluate the work, and our audiences ultimately experience the work. So, the question becomes: How can we develop effective communications tasks that become the foundation of a strong campaign?

Understanding Client Mindsets

Advertising clients are usually either inward or outward oriented. Inward facing clients gravitate towards KPIs that come from within the organization. Outward facing clients focus more on 3rd party insights that will help the organization create content and experiences that are of value to their customers. Both styles and world views always exist within the same client organization, varying in balance from person to person regardless of rank. As comms planners, we must develop strategies that address the needs of both client mindsets.

An outward oriented client is a precious safeguard that helps ensure the brand is not just talking to itself. They understand that the work we create needs to breakthrough by being bold, interesting or of use to the target audience. They love to see research from Google, Forrester, Flurry and other 3rd party partners. They lean forward when data-driven narratives land customer insights, that in turn drive integrated ideas.

Inward oriented clients don’t always have the same degree of patience when it comes to data-driven narratives. They want to know how the campaign and creative executions will improve their business metrics, now.

Design your communications plan to address the client needs

The most important thing to do when designing a new campaign from the ground up is to orient your comms tasks around the inward facing mindset. By grounding the approach in the organization’s internal goals and metrics, you will be able to establish a foundation for all of the integrated thinking that will bring the campaign idea to life across all mediums.

I’ve had success with addressing this by developing comms tasks that are aligned with the client organization’s brand tracker. The tracker will often provide data on specific areas where your brand is strong or weak relative to its competitors. By identifying the weak points, you will find barriers that need to be addressed with comms tasks. The areas of strength on the tracker will also help you select and support the brand qualities that customers already value.

Aligning the comms tasks with the brand tracker will help your inward and outward facing clients understand the value of the subsequent creative work that flows out from the communications tasks. Clients will be able to evaluate the work and see it’s impact within the campaign ecosystem. And more importantly, your clients will be able to make the communications tasks and architecture their own by adopting and using the language, further establishing and validating the agency’s strategic approach for the integrated campaign.

Once the foundation is built, you will be empowered to expand outwards

Aligning your comms tasks with measurable KPIs from the brand tracker will grow trust and confidence among all of your clients. Your creative teams will be empowered to create famous work across all mediums and your clients will understand how each element will help grow their business. That will give you some space to brief in experimental opportunities that your creatives, clients and audiences will love.