Every brief we take starts from the same question: why would anyone give this their attention for free? Not tolerate it between songs, not scroll past it slightly slower than usual — actually choose it, talk about it, pass it on.
That question sounds simple, but it quietly reorders everything about how a campaign gets made. The idea has to be the media. The story has to survive being retold by someone who isn't paid to retell it.
The retelling test
Before anything goes into production, we ask whether a journalist, a group chat, or a stranger at a barbecue could repeat the idea in one sentence and have it still land. If it needs the media plan attached to make sense, it isn't earned — it's paid with extra steps.
“If the idea needs the media plan attached to make sense, it isn't earned.”
What that means in practice
- Brief the best idea, not the nearest capability.
- Write the headline you want someone else to write, then earn it.
- Make the work talkable before you make it big.
None of this is a rejection of paid — it's a sequencing argument. Attention you've earned makes every dollar of amplification work harder, because you're amplifying something people already want to pass on.