Binary is a way of simplifying things down to their most basic.
This or that.
Black or white.
On or off.
No subtleties, just powerful, simple clarity.
Fast ,easy decision.
Then quickly move on to the next fast, easy decision.
That’s why computers work so fast.
Every decision is 0 or 1, that’s it.
Is it possible for us to use that kind of brutal reductionism for what we do?
Yes of course.
The secret is how you organise the questions.
Don’t ask everything at once.
Simplify it down so that’s it’s always one of two choices.
Then you can move through it really fast.
You’ll sit in a briefing and hear, “The brand obviously needs to grow share via trial, but still benefitting from market growth and capitalising on product benefits while maximising our brand values.”
If that doesn’t mean much to you, imagine how little it means to a consumer.
So we need to reduce everything down into a simple COMMUNICATION brief.
If it’s going to be simple, we need to know 3 things.
WHO should buy it.
WHY should they buy it.
WHAT should they buy it instead of.
If we aren’t clear on those 3 things, we can’t put them in the ad.
If they’re not in the ad, the consumer won’t know.
If the consumer doesn’t know, nothing happens.
So, learning from binary thinking, the first step is to accept that, at every stage, we can only do ONE thing properly.
So we have to reduce each stage to what that one thing is.
Question 1:
Brand Share or Market Growth.
Is your brand the market-leader or not?
Use the cola market as an example.
If you are Coca Cola you have way the biggest share of the cola market.
If you increase the number of people buying cola, you benefit much more than anyone else.
Whether consumers remember your name, or not.
If the market grows, you grow faster than anyone else, automatically.
But if you’re not the market leader (Pepsi say) you don’t want to do that.
You want to take sales from whoever is the market leader.
This gives you 2 very different sorts of communication briefs.
“Buy cola instead of other drinks.” (Market Growth, benefits Coca Cola).
“Buy Pepsi instead of Coke.” (Brand Share, benefits Pepsi).
Question 2:
Triallists or Current Users.
Do you want new people to try your brand? (Essential for a launch.)
Or do you want current users to buy it more often?
Of course it depends on factors like market saturation.
Again, assume you were Coca Cola.
Pretty much everyone has tried Coke, so it’s no good talking to triallists.
If you’re Coke you have to tell current consumers why they should buy more.
So a communication brief could be, “Have a coke with a friend.”
That way you sell two bottles instead of one.
But if you’re Pepsi, and you’re trying to take share from the market leader, obviously you need to tell Coke drinkers why they should try your brand.
So a communication brief could be, “Pepsi tastes better than Coke.”
Question 3:
Product or Brand
You could also refer to this as ‘rational or emotional”.
Is there a definite, logical reason to purchase your product?
Or is there an emotional preference for the brand?
In the case of things you enjoy, it’s usually an emotional preference for a brand: perfume, beer, fashion, confectionary.
No one cares much if those last longer, work better, or cost less.
They buy the imagery not the functionality.
In markets where all products are exactly like all other products, you do brand advertising.
But in other areas, facts can be more important: insurance, medicines, cars, technology.
People don’t buy insurance on imagery, they buy it on cost.
Do you have a provable product benefit that no one else has: costs less, lowers cholesterol, works faster, lasts longer?
You need to have the discussion before you do the ads.
Sometimes Product (facts) can become Brand (image).
Mercedes, Volvo, VW, Sony, Tesco, Sainsbury, Apple.
All these brands did great factual advertising which built their brands.
Please remember, the Binary Brief is just a language, it’s not a solution.
It’s to enable creatives to have a back-and-forth discussion on the COMMUNICATION brief in simple words they can understand.
It’s to force everyone involved to choose which ONE thing they want to say.
To force everyone to keep it simple, clear, and fast.
To force people to make uncomfortable decisions before the ads are written.
If we don’t do that for the consumer they’ll do it themselves.
The average person experiences nearly 1,000 advertising communications a day in their very busy lives.
Just like the binary, we’re either on or off
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Fascinating stuff. I’m learning more reading this blog than I did over 4 years at University! I’m currently working on some marketing for a tech product, and I’m forwarding this post straight to my project manager!
Reductionism is so important for all involved in answering and creating a marketing brief!
That’s great Seth.
The first thing is to learn the basics.
Tomorrow and next week, I’ll post some examples of creative ways to use the brief as a language.
Let me know what you think when you read it.
This binary brief is very much like writing music.
No matter how diverse the possible messages,
they belong to one category or another
and for each category
there’s a specific approach to the business problem.
Just like every song belongs to a music genre
and there are clear and simple rules
for writing it.
If it’s a waltz you want to compose
then there’s only one option:
divide it into bars of three beats
and put the accent on the first beat.
(And thanks, Dave.)
Mr Trott, thanks for this and the upcoming pieces of thinking!
never mind the creative brief, these Q’s work on business level..in fact an agency could use this way of thinking to go upstream for a client and solve product od business problems..
Just flagging up the binary thing because if there’s any 20th century trait that creates more problems than anything else (in my experience) it’s the propensity to divide issues into binary solutions.
Which is somewhat anachronistic.
While I appreciate the post and enjoyed the first one there is no greater evil than to assume if one is not on one side then the other applies. That if one isn’t IRA then one is UDF, if they aren’t Catholic then they are Protestant. If we aren’t Right Wing we’re left.
Binary reductionism really doesn’t do us any favours and furthermore, advertising (more accurately many of our customers) aren’t forumulaic now. In fact it’s the formulaic solutions that probably give us a bad name.
No. The world is deeply complex and fascinating because of comlexity (not complicated, that’s different).
Everything is contextual (my biggest thought in advertising and more). It’s contextuality which opens up x to the power y of i.e. A large number variables to the power of a large number of additional variables.
While the remit of advertising is often within a box, that box is disintegrating and and to provide formulaic solutions, while good for discipline, is now providing diminishing returns.
Sure have a method. Fine, have a binary diagnostic But if at the end of it there’s a solution that isn’t quite patting a potential customer on the back then some contextuality is probably needed. Nuance even.
I’ve got a emerging post in my head Dave that is all about old school versus new school because your posts have given me a lot to think about over the last few months.
Your credentials are not in question as you’re in a class of your own (Good R4 the the other day), and furthermore you have embraced social digital with what from the outside likes like a determination to succeed in advance. Well that’s my guess..
However, sometimes we should embrace complexity and sometimes we should just sell. Tread carefully I say. Method and then sometimes just madness too. Or what looks ostensibly like madness.
Great stuff. I got taught this by creatives you taught. And I taught all the planners who worked for me. For years I had an old scratchy photocopy from Paul Diver but good to see you spell it out.
Hi Dave! Is there something wrong with your feeds? I didn’t get any in my feedburner (bloglines) this week, so I’m wondering. Great post, by the way!
I hope my boss would read this blog. He is no creative director, he just says “yes” or “keep working on it”.
Very true Dave. I am the dreamer in our team, but I am lucky to work with a “black & white” associate, and this refers to his demeanour, not his skin-colour! I submit everything we do regarding sales and marketing to his testing. I do not always go with his thoughts, but they usually refine mine. The question to be asked at the start of every venture is “What are we trying to achieve here?” and keep stripping away at the answer until it is a single quantifiable action from which everything else will flow. Love the last line..”Just like the binary, we’re either on or off”
[...] read all about it here [...]
(completely off-topic, but the idea of making the visible invisible to make the invisible visible is highly refreshing: http://ex-blank-page.blogspot.com/2009/01/street-post-production.html )
Dave, there was a discussion at Scamp’s about puns. Couldn’t help but noticed someone referred to you as ‘Pun’ King or ‘Punisher’.
How accurate is this? I thought you hate them.
Thanks.
No Pun Intended.
I don’t hate puns. I hate bad, lazy puns.
I wouldn’t assume people who sign themselves anonymous are any great authority.
Good thing I haven’t been anonymous, Dave.
Like the binary blog.
Maybe because I use it quite a lot for my own life.
But it tends to drive people unhappy because they cannot quite accept that they have only 2 choices in a situation.
We can blame MTV and Imelda Marcos for that.
A friend told me he had problems at work.
So I said, “do something about it.”
And he says, “I can’t.”
My reply - “so if you can’t do anything, then why let it bother you?”
(Which is a more polite way of saying, “Then why talk to me about ir?”
Bit simplistic, I know.
Anca.
there’s a comment on YouTube on music categories that goes:
“I dont get it why we have to call
this is somethin and that is something else.
it’s just music. if there’s a line, so fucking cross the line!!”
that’s what makes things great, not categories.
Dave.
this is priceless stuff.
The old Ockham’s razor. all other things being equal the simplest solution is the best.
Hi Costanza.
Ockham’s razor is a good example.
So is Hume’s Fork.
“We take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.”
- An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
Riki, I like your quote, but we’re looking at things
from totally different perspectives.
Categories don’t make music great,
they just help you zoom in and observe
a basic structure that allows you to write music.
(write = write scores, I’m not saying
that you can’t compose music without scores.)
The usefulness of WRITING music scores
is that an entire orchestra can use them.
And believe me, it is essential
to have the same scores.
You can obtain a G minor
using totally different tunings.
But two instruments tuned differently
can’t play together.
“Please remember, the Binary Brief is just a language, it’s not a solution.
It’s to enable creatives to have a back-and-forth discussion on the COMMUNICATION brief in simple words they can understand.”
See what I mean?
The next step is interpretation.
While working on the same binary brief
two creatives can have totally different ideas.
While reading the same scores
two musicians can have totally different interpretations.
There’s a structure in everything.
Water has no shape.
But it has a structure.
Interesting.
Anca is writing.
Short sentences.
Like This.
Now.
Where have I seen that?
Oh, yes.
I remember.
I wonder if it’s an homage.
But I doubt it.
Hi Charles,
My point is that the Binary brief is a communication brief, not a marketing brief.
We can be as complicated and subtle as we like in our thinking until we need to communicate it.
Then we have to simplify it or just become part of the wallpaper.
Ha! Nice one, James, it’s no homage, it’s less spectacular,
it’s just the text editor in my web browser
which I use because I have all blogs that I read
on the same tab, organised in columns.
Dave, every time I read your posts I want to design a book, copy and paste this entire blog, print it and hide it under my bed and till I need it again.
Oh, I have to admit, I thought of publishing it too. And get some awards for it.
I was lucky enough to learn this stuff from Dave at GGT in the 80s and believe me, those three questions just as relevant now. I use them all the time.
HI Kate,
You were one of the young planners I referred to in one of the blogs, who were better because they were keener.
Always a pleasure to work with people like that because everyone picks up on their energy.
It makes everyone put in extra effort, and the best work always comes from people who care more.
Keep it up Kate.
You know there are 10 types of planner in this world: those that understand binary briefing and those that don’t.
Glyn.
sorry to say, but I disagree. there are only 01 type of planners. if you know it you get it. there’s no second option.