A well-written brief of effectiveness dramatically increases chances of campaigns in the EFFIE contest. The first step the agencies have to make in order to hope for a prize in the festival of effectiveness in advertising, EFFIE Awards, is to fill in the submission form, known as „Brief of Effectiveness”.
This brief asks a lot of details about the strategy behind a campaign and about its results, because it is meant to convince the jury that the campaign managed to combine all the disciplines of a marketing program and that it delivered superior results in meeting the objectives it was designed to achieve.
„The brief is extremely important for winning a prize, because it shows if you had the strategic coherence or it was just luck”, says Razvan Matasel, deputy managing director & head of planning Leo Burnett and member ot the EFFIE Awards 2007 jury.
„EFFIE means long term discipline. The filling in of the submission form should start at the very moment the agency receives the brief from the client”, he added.
Razvan Matasel was in the organizing commitee of two editions of EFFIE Romania and he was a member of the Euro EFFIE jury. He says those who fill in the briefs of effectiveness shouldn’t try to fool the jury, because „they don’t have a chance”. On his advice list there are six essential points: „cut all the words and all the ideas that don’t add nothing to the story”, „everything you write should be interesting”, „isolate the communication’s effect”, „take time to build the graphics, because they are worth more than 1.000 words”, „the objectives must be clear and measurable”, „the selling objectives are not enough – we talk about a festival that measures the communication objectives, so they have to be there too”.
Matasel believes the planners are those who should control submission process, but he underlines that, most of the time, the brief of effectiveness is the result of a team work, where the client has a very important role.
„The client’s support is vital, especially for writing the paragraphs about the communication’s effects. For example, the section about the components of the marketing mix can’t be filled in without the help of the marketing specialist”, says Matasel.
From his experience as a participant to EFFIE, Razvan Matasel says he didn’t have problems when he asked the clients to give the agency the supportive research data, considering they don’t have to deliver absolute numbers and they can provide indexes.
Even though the brief of effectiveness is very important, it is not enough to win a prize, it has to be supported by the real execution of the strategy it describes.
„The jury is formed by the best specialists in communication from Romania. Just a nice story can’t influence them. Let’s not forget the brief is accompanied by the creative executions that have to dramatize the strategy described in the brief, confirming or infirming the accuracy of the written information”, explains Matasel.
Entries will be received untill the 9th of March 2007, at the organizing company – Millenium Communications (for any further information please visit www.effie.ro).
The entries will be judged in two rounds, on the 27th and on the 28th of March. The winners will be announced during the Award Gala, that will take place on the 29th of March.
When they fill in the submission forms, the participants should keep in mind that the jury only has a few minutes to analize a campaign, in the first round. That’s why the briefs should be written clearly, so they can be easily read and understood.
The brief of effectiveness can be downloaded from the web-site www.effie.ro or it can be provided by Millenium Communications.
The EFFIE Festival is organized in Romania by the International Advertising Association (IAA) and the Romanian Advertising Agencies Association (RAAA), the 2007 edition being set up with Millenium Communication. The American Marketing Association New York has the licence for organizing this festival in Romania and the contest’s procedure follows step by step the international EFFIE standards.
For any further information, please contact:
Irina Florea
PR Manager
Millenium Communications
Phone – 0730 202 281
E-mail – irina.florea@milleniumcommunications.ro