The Musings Of An Opinionated Sod [Help Me Grow!]

Huge apologies for the delay, this has nothing to do with Gareth and Northern and everything to do with my slackness.

As I mentioned a while back, this assignment is about simplification.

Now, while that might sound easy, there’s a few things to remember:

+ Simplification is not the same as simple.

+ Simplification is not an excuse to be bland, boring or generic.

So what is the actual challenge?

Well it’s something that many of us are exposed to, the RFP – short for Request For Proposal.

An RFP is a document many companies send out to agencies as part of their pitch process and are normally an absolute bloody nightmare.

The reason for this is because they’re often 70+ page documents that go into the minutest of details without ever saying anything at all.

In essence, they’ve been designed to appear informative while actually encouraging more questions than answers.

The good news is the RFP you will be using for this assignment is not 70+ pages long, mainly because I couldn’t be arsed to type up that many pages.

The bad news is it’s as contradictory and confusing as it’s longer-form versions.

So what do we want you to do?

Well, having read the RFP, we want you to:

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1. Give a clear articulation of what you believe is the core objective of the RFP.

4. Present your findings via a 10-25 page presentation OR an 10 minutes video pitch.

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That’s it.

Easy eh!?

Ahem.

Well, to stop you freaking out [or – if you’re one of those super-confident types – help you look even more brilliant], we’ve created this assignment in partnership with those wonderful and knowledgable folk at Warc.

Warc – for those who don’t know – is a company that provides independent and authoritative global information on marketing, trends and new thinking. They’ve been around since 1985 so have shitloads of award winning, global case studies – all with in-depth analysis – so you can make decisions with greater confidence than crossing your fingers or using some random ‘factual’ charts you found on Pinterest.

Yes, I know this all sounds like some massive product placement – but it’s not – they just want to help the industry be better and perform better which is why they asked for absolutely nothing in return. The fools!

Anyway, to help with this particular assignment, Warc have kindly provided some free links to a bunch of their inspirational case studies so that you can understand and consider some of the market dynamics to enable you to forge a more informed, culturally provocative point of view.

What you use – if anything – is up to you, but it’s there to help.

However, before we get to all that, here are some things to note.

+ While in the real World, clients would answer specific questions you may have with the brief, we will not.

This isn’t just about coming up with something effective, it’s about being seen as the partner who can help them grow and go to places few could see, let alone deliver on.

So who are these judges?

Well there’s a few.

There’s me.

There’s Northern and Gareth.

There’s Rodi, one of my wonderful colleagues.

There’s David, International Editor at Warc.

There’s Raj, regional head of strategy at MEC.

There’s Steve, a very, very senior executive at Virgin Atlantic.

There’s Simon, a very important and experienced marketer at NIKE.

And finally, one more Steve – who is one of the senior designers at Apple.

The closing date is October 28th, so there’s plenty of time to get on with things and as usual, the submission voted ‘the best’ by the judges will receive a prize.

Should you have any questions, don’t hesitate to email me and I hope that people beyond just strategy have a go. There are no wrong answers, just different ways to approach everything – and while the ultimate decision will be made by people who have lots of experience in developing great ideas for great brands – that doesn’t mean they have the monopoly on everything that works.

Most of all, just have fun – as much as RFP’s can be unbelievably painful – if you rule them rather than they rule you, great things can happen.

Good luck and here’s the mad RFP and – as mentioned previously – some links, kindly supplied by Warc, that might help you be even more brilliant.

Warc Case Study Knowledge & Inspiration

1. Paper on how Uniqlo used digital marketing to build a global brand.

2. Focus on Puma’s after-hours athlete campaign.

3. Best practice paper on brand extensions.