Get-Who-To-By

Description

The purpose of a Get-Who-To-By line is to capture your marketing strategy in a concise way for a creative brief. Often, creative briefs are not brief at all. Many contain so much information that the creative teams receiving the briefs are unclear and overwhelmed. The Get-Who-To-By line synthesizes and distills the most important elements of the creative brief into a single line. It includes your target audience, the problem they are facing, the response you desire, and your main proposition or message. When written well, the Get-Who-To-By line is effective tool for communicating your marketing strategy in clear and conversational way for your team.

‍Question

Who are we targeting and what do we want to happen?

Steps

Describe the audience that you are targeting (Get). This may be an existing audience persona or customer segment for your brand. Capture this as specifically as possible to narrow the focus for your team.
Describe the relevant target audience problem (Who). This sets up the situational context and the opportunity for your brand to ultimately address. Ensure this is a truth from the audience, not a desire from the brand.
Describe your desired audience response (To). The response may be how you want to change audience perception or stimulate behaviour. This represents what you want your initiative to ultimately achieve.
Describe your proposition (By). For marketing campaigns, this is the single message that you want to communicate. This ultimately addresses the audience problem (Who) and creates change (To).
Once all sections are completed, review your Get-Who-To-By line to ensure that it is aligned and coherent. Include it prominently within your creative brief document and in your briefing meeting.

Considerations

When writing a creative brief, write your Get-To-Who-By line last as a way to crystalize your strategy.
Where relevant (and not overwhelming), include additional information to provide context to your line.
Remember to use your Get-To-Who-By line as a lens for evaluating resulting creative ideas.‍