How to make a competent technical task for a designer and copywriter. Part 1

In addition to the marketer acting as the task director, the designer and the copywriter—direct performers—participate in the creation of advertising creatives. In today's article, we understand what information needs to be specified in the terms of reference for the designer and copywriter.

Advertising creativity—what is it, and who is involved in its creation?

Advertising creativity is a way of informing the consumer about a product or service, expressed in text and graphic form. In simple terms, this is an image and a slogan that make up a single whole.

The task of creativity is to catch the attention of the audience, to inflame its interest, to cause an emotional response, and to encourage them to click on the link, to interact, and to react.
Creativity is the first stage of the sales funnel. The more successfully the creative is composed and the more accurately it hits the needs and pains of the audience, the more effective the advertising will be.

Two parties are involved in creating a creative:

• The head. Sets a task, monitors the execution process, and checks the result. This can be a marketer, head of marketing, director, owner of the company, or any other decision-maker.
• Performer. This is either one specialist (graphic designer, 3D animator, motion designer, copywriter) if the task is simple, or a group of specialists, or a contractor on the side.

To create a static visual campaign, you will need the skills of a copywriter, designer, and photographer.

Why create a detailed technical task for a designer and a copywriter?

If you want to do well, do it yourself. We hasten to disappoint you: This advice does not work in business. Unfortunately. Or fortunately. If everyone had followed this covenant, the world economy would never have evolved above the level of handicraft production, modern states and public institutions would not have appeared, and civil society would not have been formed.
But another council works. Set a clear task for the performer, give detailed and clear instructions, describe in detail the result you want to get, attach clear examples, and, if necessary, teach him. And be sure to speak the language of a specialist.

Online advertising is created by several specialists

The digitized result in the form of clicks, requests, leads, calls, subscriptions, and purchases that an advertising campaign can bring is important for a business owner and a marketer as a project manager. The service or product is "packaged" in text and visuals. Slogans are written, and color design is selected.

Copywriters and designers are creative personalities; they create content and think, unlike entrepreneurs and marketers, not in numbers but analogically, "lamp-like." The difficulty lies in the competent formulation of the task—the translation of business thoughts into creative language.

What you should think about before the technical task: marketing base

Before narrow specialists begin to create a creative, it is important for a marketer to form a marketing base. It includes:

• Product description: qualitative and quantitative characteristics, properties, the expected result from the acquisition, etc.

• Competitive analysis. It is important to find out exactly how your competitors serve the product, which visuals and slogans they use, on which sites they are actively advertised, and on which they are not. It is important to highlight the product's strengths that competitors do not have.

• Describe the audience, its needs, and its aches and pains. It is important to decide who exactly will be interested in the product, why it will be interesting, and what needs it will cover. Poor elaboration at this stage will lead to the fact that advertising will be shown to an audience that is not interested in the product.

How to make a technical task for an advertising creative

A competent technical task for the development of an advertising creative contains the following information:

• A clear and understandable title. In the title of the terms of reference, briefly and clearly define the task by answering the questions "what to do", "to whom to do" and "to what extent to do".

• The name of the performer and his contact details. Be sure to specify the responsible person to whom the task is assigned.

• A description of the task. Approach the description as responsibly and scrupulously as possible.

• Initial data. Product description; description of the target audience; expected result from advertising

And also:

• Stages and deadlines. Specify specific dates and times: the date of setting the task and the date when you want to provide the final result or an interim version. If the task is complex and the work is carried out in stages, write the deadline dates for all stages. Urgent tasks are always a priority. If the deadline is not specified, it is likely that such a task will be postponed by a specialist.

• Placements and technical requirements. Provide a detailed description of all placements and technical requirements for creatives and advertising texts: format, dimension, file extension and weight, volume in characters, etc.

• General requirements. Describe the styles, elements, logos, fonts, and colors that you need to use.

• Quantity. Specify the required number of creative and text pieces.

• Analogues. Choose suitable examples.

• Link to the result. Specify the link to the folder or disk where the finished result should be.

• Contact details for contacting the author of the assignment. If you have any questions about the execution of the task, the specialist will always be able to quickly contact the manager.

• Additional materials. These can be images, audio and video clips, links to other tasks, literature, Google documents and tables, files, analogs, external resources, chats, etc.

The larger the task, the more detailed the terms of reference will be.

Important! 

Be sure to make up the terms of reference in text format. Structure the text using paragraphs, headings, lists, tables, and links. In the process of completing the task, it is much easier to run through the structured text with your eyes than to listen to a long audio message and try to find the right piece in it. Do not use audio messages to set tasks; this is a bad idea. Leave the audio format to the radio hosts.

Heading

A specialist who looks at a competent title should immediately understand the essence of the task, who the performer is, when to start the task, and whether there is a deadline.

It is worth including the following in the title:

• the date of the task statement and the deadline date;
• the essence of the task in one short sentence with maximum specificity;
• the last name and first name of the performer.