One Word Equity

OK, so we all know brief templates are almost identical from Agency to Agency - they just use different terms that reflect the Agencies’ ‘approach’ (e.g. Disruption, Brand Essence etc.) At my new Agency, we have a “One Word Equity” (OWE).

One of the simian’s I met earlier in the week at a briefing decided to change the Agency’s OWE provided in our return brief. The OWE changed from an actual equity of importance to consumers, to, wait for it, “Brand Awareness”. Now, the fact this is indeed two words isn’t what strikes me as being particularly stupid (I just assume reading comprehension wasn’t his strong suit at school), what shocked me was trying to understand how his brain had misfired to conclude Brand Awareness was an equity in this instance.

This particular job is about a company becoming more accessible to consumers, in the physical sense. Therefore, the OWE could be ‘Accessibility’, or even ‘Convenience’. Certainly not ‘Brand Awareness’.

What’s more, the simian chose to enlighten us to his genius via email (I fucking hate that), and when responded to both electronically and by leaving several phone messages – we discovered the simian had become lost in the jungle and just couldn’t be contacted.

I warned our footpath fruit seller to keep a close eye on his bananas. In the meantime, we'll keep a traquilizer gun close to hand, and work from OUR brief.