For ads that get results, make sure you have a clear target.

Ideally, the Strategy Brief is the blueprint both agency and client refer to throughout a project's development. It gives the creatives (the copywriter, art director and creative director) a specific, clearly delineated target of what the ad should achieve.

The process of creating a carefully-conceived strategy worked well in the pre-tech days of David Ogilvy and Bill Bernbach, when ad men would sit down together and really work out the intricacies of a targeted strategy. Since then, the ad agency climate has changed, and the once hallowed Strategy Brief has become a formality: a hastily filled-out list, handed over at the last possible minute to agency creatives so they can hurry up and start brainstorming ideas for an emergency project.

As a result, the art director and copywriter end up wasting much of their "brainstorming" (or concepting) time trying to interpret what the real message should convey. When creatives are handed a strategy with such bland, general statements as "Our product means quality" or "Get the customer to call us," they have no real target to shoot at, and even less chance of hitting it.

Weak Strategies=Lame Ads

Often, a weak strategy is the result of an account executive trying to please a client. Hands-on business owners with a product to sell often want to cram so many messages into an ad, they end up with the kind of busy, jumbled clutter audiences ignore.

The good news is that so many ads fall into this trap, the advertiser who has a clear marketing message (a result of a well-thought out strategy) is the one who will "break through the clutter." This is true whether the media is direct mail postcard, brochure, radio, TV, press release or newsletter.

"You can't stand for something if you chase after everything."

The creation of a sound strategy brief is often the first place the traditional ad agency model breaks down—and one reason freelance copywriters have an advantage.

Without the overhead and department levels that come between the client and creatives in an agency, the freelance copywriter can personally participate in the strategy session to truly refine the strategic message.

Most strategy briefs have the following headings, in some form or another:

•Objective

•Features & Benefits

•Key Message

•Competition

•Target Audience

The objective may be as simple as "we have a new product we want to advertise in a small space newspaper ad" or "build awareness through branding." These are general, but acceptable and worthy objectives. The next section is where weak thinking sets in and leads to trouble: features and benefits. There is a huge difference between the two—a difference that can make or break your message.

What's the Difference?

A feature is something about the product that is unusual or impressive. A benefit is the concrete difference the feature makes in the consumer's experience.

As an example, a copy machine feature might be the collating button. All the copiers have these now, but there was a time when people had to lay out one of each page and dole them out into piles. A tedious waste of time. The benefit of this collating feature is that when the copies are done, you are out of the dreaded copy room. Done and on your way. Same thing for the staple feature. No standing around fiddling with a stapler and getting paper cuts.

The difference between features and benefits may seem elementary, and it is. The problem comes when the well-meaning account executive writes out a list of features and assumes the target audience will translate them into benefits on their own. The news is that people don't want to work to figure out the hidden benefit. They probably don't want to listen to/read your ad in the first place, much less do the math.

A good ad does the translation for them. And it comes from a place of understanding the audience, not preaching at them.

If you look at some of the most successful ad campaigns in history, they don't even bother to go into the features; they just lay one clear benefit out for you on a platter. All you have to do is buy the product. No thinking, no math, no translating.

The third potential pitfall in creating a strategy brief is the "Key Message" portion. It's the heart of the strategy statement and should be kept simple. A good one is the result of boiling everything down to a single key message that people can latch onto—and remember. Too many clients want to cram six messages into this slot, thinking that just because it's one sentence, it's one key message.

The following is not a key message. It's an "everything AND the kitchen sink" statement that's so overblown; it's doomed to fail:

MircoComputing is now working closely with Telesoft as an ASP partner and can provide the highest scalability and reliability, and give you full service and support all at a very attractive price and it's available now.

See how many messages are crammed into this "one sentence?" It's a real-life example (with names changed to protect the guilty) of what happens when a company tries to chase after everything and ends up with a mess of nothing.

A single ad could have clearly announced ONE of the following:

1.Microcomputing/Telesoft partnership

2.ASP service provider

3.Scalability

4.Reliability

5.Full support

6.Price deal

7.Product (software) is available immediately

Note that in the preceding list there are no ands or commas. These are two dead giveaways that the strategy writer is cheating. If someone hands you a key message statement with either or both, send it back or boil it down yourself to the one element you want to stick in your target audience's mind.

Keeping It Simple

Think of your key message in this way: What territory do you want to "own?" For years, Volvo has owned "safety," while Federal Express has "dependable." Choose your battle and make your flag easy to read and different from the competition's. That's how you break through the clutter.

If your battle plan is lame, what chance do your have of scoring a hit? A good strategy is a like a road map that keeps both the agency and the client on course. Even if the copywriter comes up with a brilliant ad concept, if it isn't on strategy, it won't be effective. This is true for any project; whether it's a print ad, slogan (tagline), web content or direct mail.

The best scenario is to sit down with your agency copywriter or creative director and work out a strategy together. Don't be in a hurry; take some time to do some actual thinking.

Remember, a good copywriter will keep drilling down for the real strategic insights so that when they open their creative arsenal, they have a clear target for that laser-guided message you're paying them to create.

If you'd like advice on creating a good strategy for your product or service, contact the author after you've checked out her portfolio at www.zagstudios.com