# The Goodby, Silverstein brief

One page, seven questions, as Jon Steel wrote it for Goodby, Silverstein and Partners. Steel calls the brief a fisherman's guide: it points out the spots and the tackle, it does not fish. The questions are questions on purpose. A heading can be left blank and nobody notices; a question cannot.

Source: Jon Steel, *Truth, Lies and Advertising: The Art of Account Planning* (Wiley, 1998), the chapter "The Fisherman's Guide." This is the brief Douglas Davis quotes in chapter 10 of *Creative Strategy and the Business of Design*. Wording of the questions follows the book's brief chapter; check the copy before quoting a line.

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## 1. Why are we advertising at all?

The client's current business situation, and the problem the work has to overcome, in a few sentences. With a clear sense that this work can help.

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## 2. What is the advertising trying to achieve?

The objective. If there are several, rank them, and list only the effects the work itself can produce.

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## 3. Who are we talking to?

The audience, as people, not as a demographic.

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## 4. What do we know about them that will help?

The insight. Not everything the research found; the one thing that will move the work.

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## 5. What is the main idea we need to communicate?

The proposition, in one sentence. The resonant truth most likely to shift what they think or do.

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## 6. What is the best way of planting that idea?

Tone, channel, the moment. How the idea reaches them.

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## 7. Why should they believe it?

The support. The facts, the proof, the reasons the proposition is true.

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Other formats on the class page: [the one line](/course/business-of-design/handout/brief-one-line) · [Goodby, Silverstein](/course/business-of-design/handout/brief-goodby) · [Ogilvy DO](/course/business-of-design/handout/brief-ogilvy) · [the design studio's](/course/business-of-design/handout/brief-design-studio) · [Workhorse's](/course/business-of-design/handout/brief-workhorse) · [the course template](/course/business-of-design/handout/creative-brief-template)