Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

You probably ought to prepare the Creative Brief and use that as your RFP.

The Creative Brief should state your positioning and any supporting rationale/explanation. It should essentially serve as the spec sheet for what it is you want the supplier to deliver. If they know what you want, they have a chance of meeting your expectations. And you have an objective way to evaluate their work. It's not just an "I like it!" or "I hate it!" subjective reaction.

The question will be "Does this meet the specs I laid out in the Creative Brief or not?" If yes, then it's good. If no, then it's not.

It will also be interesting to see how your proposals reflect your expectations. It will quickly let you know whether the creative team/individual understands what you want.

You'll have to develop the Creative Brief anyway, so why not do it up-front and use it to help you select the right person/firm to do the work?

Eric,
I'm traveling right now and can't give you some of my existing materials.
If you can contact me after Wednesday next week, I'll be happy to help.

Also be upfront with what parts of the project you are prepared to actually pay the outside talent for. Is it just for the big idea or the complete project?

I can remember being retained by a client that wanted us to work on their catalogue. They said initially it was the full project. Digging deeper it turned out that they already had suppliers for the print and photography. All they really wanted was the big idea for the design and someone to work with their people and meet their deadline. We declined the project.

Also be great if you could collect all of your digital assets a head of time - logos, illustrations, graphics, etc.

Nothing worse than getting into a project just to find that stuff has gone missing or isn’t up to snuff.