Finalize the core message before sketching anything.

Before you allow the design team to open the file, or before you call in the service company for a briefing, there is one question that needs a clear answer: what is this campaign saying, to whom, and why should that person believe it? If the answer is still vague, then all the images created will only be aesthetically pleasing, not commercially effective.

Why should there be only one message?

David Ogilvy once said to focus your strategy on a single promise. Not three, not five, even if you have five features you want to showcase. The reason is not just for fun: viewers do not remember lists; they remember a feeling or a single thing. When a message is stuffed with too many ideas, none are strong enough to stick.

Kantar refers to this as the Meaningful Different Salient framework (meaningful, distinctive, salient). A message needs to address the real needs of the recipient, reflect the brand's uniqueness, and be prominent enough to capture attention. Overloading multiple points at once often undermines all three: nothing is deep enough to be meaningful, nothing is sharp enough to be distinctive, and the whole is not pointed enough to stand out.

Workflow sequence: message first, visuals later

The standard process for most multi-party public campaigns is:

• Market review and internal interviews to uncover foundational truths (insights): what is true about customers that the brand can leverage.
• Consolidate that insight into a single-minded proposition: a brief statement describing what the brand promises to deliver to the right person.
• Write a creative brief that includes the audience, context, promise, and boundaries regarding identity and tone.
• Both parties must review and sign the summary before initiating the production of any assets.

This summary serves as a common reference point for the internal team, service company, and KOL to align in one direction. Without a summary, each party interprets it differently, leading to a campaign that is consistent by chance, not by design.

The underlying truth: what makes the message trustworthy.

A message without foundational truth is just a hollow slogan. The foundational truth is something real about the customer or the market that, when you articulate it, the listener nods in recognition of themselves. That is the basis upon which to build the message.

The way to find the underlying truth is not to sit in a meeting guessing: you need to talk to real people, observe real behaviors, or at least review what customers are saying about the brand and competitors. If you don't have solid insights yet, step back and work on this strategy before hiring any production partners.

Focus the strategy on a single promise. The single promise is the seed for the creative team to generate big ideas.

David Ogilvy, Ogilvy on Advertising

Common mistakes when skipping this step

• Stuffing many messages out of regret: You have five strengths and want to mention all five. The result is that none are remembered.
• Starting from making a film or a banner instead of asking what to say to whom: Form comes before content, producing first and then scrambling to find meaning.
• Vague summary: Allowing the creative team to guess leads to each person interpreting it differently, resulting in multiple rounds of revisions that waste time and money.
• Finalize the message based on the boss's emotions rather than customer insights: The message reflects what the brand wants to say, not what the customer wants to hear.

The viewpoint of Sinh Vũ

Sinh Vũ takes this step before sketching anything: reviewing the market, interviewing your team, and then summarizing it into a creative brief and big idea approved by both parties. This brief serves as a common reference standard for all parties involved in the campaign.

Not because the process is impressive. But because without an approved summary, the question "Is this on the right track?" will not have an objective answer, only the opinion of someone with a higher position in the meeting. And that is when the campaign starts to drift from its original goals.

IPA and Les Binet also emphasize this point from an effectiveness perspective: optimize ideas and messages before creating assets, as creating assets without sufficient exposure at scale wastes budget twice, once for production and once for distributing something that is not strong enough.