Good things come to those who wait. True if you're looking for a pint of stout in a bar on March 17th, not necessarily so if you're looking to find a creative edge and crack out some relevant and radical work.
Waiting for the brief to land on your desk, having passed through layers of committee and umpteen eyeballs usually means the edges have been removed before you even get to sharpen your pencils.
Creatively, a self initiated brief means less pressure on the work, less opinions and less scrutiny leading to more opportunities for sharper work that will cut through.
Creating your own brief is not only a shortcut to creative glory, it also nurtures a creative relationship with your client counterpart. It demonstrates that you have a passion for their brand and constantly thinking about ways to make it famous. This kind of passion ripples through the client organisation. It builds trust, and trust gets you a seat at the grown ups table when it comes to future brand decisions.
When Simons Palmer Clemmow DENTON & Johnson picked up the Wrangler account in the 1990s, the omni-inspirational Mark Denton created his own brief and subsequent award winning outdoor campaign. The posters were a nuclear rainbow detonated in a world of blue denim that consumers lapped up, juries betrothed and revived the brand.
Wrangler : Simons Palmer, DENTON Clemmow & Johnson
20 years later when WE ARE Pi were waiting to launch a new brand campaign for Wrangler, inspired by Denton, we created our own brief. The boardroom client's eyeballs were focused on the launch campaign allowing our creatives and our closest, most passionate client partners to work together, away from interfering eyes. 'Wrangler/Wrongler' preceded the launch campaign and demonstrated the brand POV with only two words; it went on to create a fanfare within the organisation, on the streets and at awards juries.
Wrangler / Wrongler WE ARE Pi
The pandemic also presented us with an opportunity to create our own brief. Bars and clubs were closed and people were stuck at home looking for a reason to party. Desperados' Rave To Save was a pro active passion project that saw us hack the pedometer on people's phones to count dance steps. These moves were then turned into donations for the clubs who desperately needed the cash injection at the time. This self initiated brief, originally activated in one market is now in its 4th year and runs across Europe and Africa. It has expanded to become Desperados Dance Club - an interactive program that rewards people for dancing with free tickets to festivals and clubs - it dominated dance floors at 30+ summer festivals helping everyone to continue to party during a cost of living crisis.
Desperados Rave To Save : WE ARE Pi
Waiting is for tables. Sharpen your pencils and create your own briefs. Collaborate with your most creative clients, nurture relationships, win awards and find yourself sitting with the grown ups.