Creative Brief

What is a Creative Brief

Creative Brief is standard lingo in the field of marketing communications for the template that defines the top level goals, objectives, directions and approaches for any promotional and communications activities, including designing of flyers, promotional materials, writing of pitches, etc... (all these are "creative" activities hence the name "Creative Brief".

Project:

It has been many years since Tiki has gone through a branding exercise, since 2010 to be precise. The results of that original branding exercise resulted in https://branding.tiki.org which contains guidelines for the present. There are a lot of things in those guidelines that are in no urgent need to be changed. In particular, the visual identity still works really well in different contexts. The main brand "Tiki" itself is perfectly fine and is a registered trademark.

However, two aspects of the branding have been identified by current community leaders as problematic:

The full name of Tiki (Tiki Wiki CMS Groupware) is too long, conveys too many ideas, and for various reasons the word Groupware is not effective at communicating what Tiki is. Hence, it has been proposed to drop the word "Groupware" from the name.

The current taglines that have been used in various Tiki communications (https://branding.tiki.org/Tagline) are based on the message that "Tiki is an extremely powerful system that can do everything". However, it is now recognized that saying that "Tiki can do everything" can in fact amount to saying nothing. There is also better recognition of who is our key target audience.

We would like to resolve this before developing new marketing materials

Target Audience - Who are we talking to? (Target Audience)

Primary

Consultants

People who provide web-based solutions using Tiki to paying end-customers. These could be large companies, small businesses or independent consultants. Although in principle their size does not matter, we ought to at first be targeting independent consultants and smaller companies (2 - 50 people) as larger companies are likely to request enterprise system capabilities which involve much more.

Tiki community's growth strategy is to increase the number of people who hire developers and other skilled people to work on projects that use Tiki, thus contributing to its ongoing maintenance and improvement.

Skilled and motivated people are needed to bridge the gap between Tiki out-of-the-box and the final product that is delivered, and these typically are service providers to paying customers.

Secondary

IT employees within companies or Enthusiasm hobbyist/vonlunteers Webmasters within organisations that need a versatile tool

Depending on the company, IT employees may or may not have the time/budget to contribute directly to the Tiki community in ways other than simply using the software. But some of them do.

Hobbyists, volunteers at non-profits, small business owners who implement Tiki solutions for their own use. Some of them can end up being dedicated contributors in the community. On the other hand, these individuals (especially the more technically skilled ones who are the ones we want to attract) are less impacted by marketing but instead tend to do a pretty thorough first-hand job of evaluating what they want to use anyway.

Current perception - What do they believe?

Primary

Consultants:
“As a consultant, my biggest challenge is to provide each customer/client with the solution that suits them best. So I am always looking for an open source platform that can be configured specifically to their business needs.

But, in my best interest, I want to recommend a solution that has all the features that they need - on one platform, so it is totally scalable and can grow with them. Having an expandable solution will help me to suggest improvement I can bill so my business is not based on "one shot" strategy. I want to be the hero when my recommendation makes it easy to add on and update the features that they need.
There are lots of choices out there, but many require managing multiple platforms and slow release times of upgrades. I just want to make my life, and my client’s life, as easy as possible while building an ongoing benefit relationship. Being able to predict timelines and being able to activate and de-activate features that are needed - all in the same place - is a big motivator for both me and for them.

Most of my clients are not particularly interested in knowing each and every feature that comes “in the box”. They just want to know that they will have what they need - when they need it.

If I were to sum up their desires in a CMS platform, it would be:

• Easy to use - in all the ways they want to use it.
• Easy to upgrade
• Secure and easy to maintain
• And won’t cost an arm and a leg over and over again.

In their words it would be “No pain and no sticker shock.”

If I were to sum up my desires in a CMS platform, it would be:

• Easy to setup and demonstrate
• Easy to upgrade and easy to maintain
• Secure and controllable (monitoring/perms)
• Offers multiple possibilities for expansion and improvement.
• And keep being a source of revenue upon improvement/new feature request.

I want to be sure that the recommended solution is going to be one that doesn’t overwhelm them, but provides the assurances they need to move their business into the future.

And the same assurances are important to me as a consultant. After all, it’s my reputation on the line here.”

Secondary:

Customers of Consultants
Some are IT employees within companies which are detailed below, but also other decision makers in customers that are at the C-level e.g. CIO, CTO, CEO, CMO etc..., and also non-technical project managers or project owners in various departments.

IT employees within companies
“I work for a company that wants to use Tiki. Honestly, I have never heard of it before, so I don’t really understand what the benefits would be of using an “open source” solution. I may be even fear “open source” solution as the concept and the benefits of it is unclear to me. I must confess that I haven’t had to take a good look at the differences between different CMS systems. I know of Drupal, Magento, MediaWiki and WordPress, but have to learn more about an out-of-the-box CMS Solution. What does that mean anyway?

For me, I need to be assured that whatever this is, it’s not only easy for me to use - but all the people who work here as well. If it isn’t straight forward, all my time will be spent helping people figure out how to use it.
Collaboration is the main driver behind the choice to go this way. This company knows that is the way to engage everyone so we want a solution that fulfills that “build it and they will come” scenario. Even better, “build it and they will keep coming”. A real collaboration solution.

I have deep concerns and questions about seriousness and scale of the project. Questions like "how many people are using it", "Send me a list of Tiki website", "how large is the consultant base" or simply remarks like "it’s not like a serious commercial solution" comes often to my mind.

I want to know that adding features is easy for me to do or may require light external support.
When someone asks for a specific feature, will it be easy to find? What about security? What about upgrades?

Hopefully, this will be an easy-to-use, easy-to-configure and easy-to-upgrade solution. I want it to make me look good and to be the IT hero in the company.”

Enthusiasm hobbyist/vonlunteers Webmasters within organisations non-profits, small business owners who implement Tiki solutions for their own use.

“I love being able to share what I do over the internet with people who share my passion". I have reached a cross-roads on my journey where I need more than what I used to handle (wordpress or hosted blog), to trade up to a CMS tool that will be easy to use, and can grow with me as I look to increase my audience and look to collaborate with like-minded folks out there. I hope for an easy transition and also for a user community to help me with this new tool.

I know there are lots of platforms to choose, some that I am a bit familiar with, and many that I don’t know. I keep hearing about Open Source and that seems to be the way to go. Word is that some solutions are very restrictive and require 3rd party add-on features. There’s a lot of sticker shock out there to when people go to expand. I sure don’t want that.

Let’s face it, a year ago, I wouldn’t have thought I would be at this point, so who knows where I will be a year from now? How can I anticipate what my needs will be by then?

I want to choose one platform that will provide me all the features and functions that I need - the last thing I need is to juggle multiple platforms. I want it drop dead easy to add stuff - and to do upgrades.

Another thing on my “want list” is a welcoming online community who can guide me on my journey. I know that being able to share experiences and get support and advice from someone who has “been there” is an incredibly valuable asset - and will feature BIG in my decision.

There are so many reasons I want to make sure I make a choice that is right for me. But mostly, I don’t want to spend all my time wrestling my solution - I want a solution that frees me up to follow my passion and supports me all the way.”

Desired Perception - What do we want them to believe?

Primary

Consultants:

See Consultants Survey 2016 for more details.

• That it is definitely worthwhile learning Tiki and using it as the primary platform to provide solutions
• That TIki is definitely better - and not only better, I can convince my clients (who might be less technically knowledgeable) that it is better as well.
• That it makes good business sense to use Tiki to provide solutions
• That there is a welcoming and helpful community, not only because I obviously will need help in getting started, but I will be willing to contribute back when I can as well (although it's probably a percentages thing, we want to try our best to attract people who will be willing to contribute back rather than just free-riders).

Secondary

• Tiki is a mature and reliable platform
• Tiki has a growing and thriving community and will continue to be supported for years to come
• Tiki will become more and more popular because the ecosystem of consultants is growing and more and more optimistic about its future

What's the one thing we can say to get them there - the Selling Idea

(Gathering ideas space)
Where the very best collaboration happens.
The all-in-one, one-for-all collaborative CMS solution.
Easy-to-choose, easy-to-use, versatile, collaboration solution.
TikiWiki is the easiest/best all-in-one open source solution - for now and for the future.
Easy to choose (all in one), easy to customize (for features) easy to use (code for consultants AND end users), easy collaboration (features) easy support (community) easy to upgrade(rapid release or LTS).
Turn it on and everything works.
(Out of the box and into the future.)
Out of the box and into the blue.
Create, collaborate and ?????
Success in a box. Out of the box success.
Empowerment in a box.

Why should they believe it -

Tiki is more centralized. Tiki is the all-in-one model while Drupal (like Joomla!) is the small-core-and-add-what-you-need model.
Tiki is the CMS with the most built-in features. (from Tiki vs WordPress)
Tiki has all the features built-in (and you just activate/deactivate features), thus, every Tiki instance of a given version has the same code base. This makes it easier for a hosting company and for upgrades.
In Tiki, forums and social networking are done with built-in (optional) features, whereas in WordPress, they are separate projects (Tiki vs WP)
Tiki is easy to configure and customize to exactly what is needed - when it is needed.
Customizability to adapt to different client needs
Everything works with everything:
The whole community collaborates on the features instead of having modules/extensions/plugins which may have incompatibilities. Turn everything on and it will work.
Tiki code is much simpler (more like standard PHP), vs Drupal's multiple abstractions. (from Tiki vs Drupal comparison)
The Tiki code base is much much simpler to make it easy to customize and easy for new developers to participate.
Tiki is much easier to upgrade.(No upgrade pain - no sticker shock) from Drupal comparison.
When Tiki is upgraded, all the features are supported and the upgrade is smooth.
Tiki has more predictable upgrades with a 6-month release schedule - with Long Term Support versions -
Frequently released new versions for people that want the "latest and greatest"
A Long Term Support (LTS) version for users that want less frequent upgrades and still getting all the security fixes
The Community can check daily on upgrade success.

How best would you describe the desired positioning of the community?

Tiki is an extremely flexible platform that you can configure in different ways to provide reliable and scalable solutions. Once you have configured a solution, it is easy to use that as a template for other projects. Moreover, you can learn from all the other solutions that others in the friendly, welcoming, helpful Tiki Community have created, and use those as templates to get started easily.

What are the brand identity requirements for the community?

Logo/Word Mark

The existing "diamond" logo that Tiki has is still excellent as the "product logo" and is to continue to be used.

But there is a need for a more expanded visual that would be used, for example, in marketing materials, banners, etc, that would incorporate the "diamond" logo itself.

During the roundtable meeting of 19 May 2016 we agreed on going that direction:

Pretty much everyone we spoke to liked the cube because:

1. It communicates that Tiki can be configured in different ways to create interesting solutions.
2. It communications that Tiki has many powerful features.
3. It resonates with people who are "smart".
4. The Tiki diamond logo has strong branding representation in the centre of the cube.

Concerns raised:

1. That because "Rubik's cubes" only have one solution, it might be misinterpreted as such. For this reason, we prefer the one where the colors are the same for all sides of the cube, instead of the one where the cube has different coloured sides (like a traditional Rubik's cube).
2. That we might be communicating that Tiki is "difficult". But most people felt that it resonates positively with people who are smart and those are the people we want to attract to Tiki anyway, and those people would not interpret the cube as difficult.

The graphic designer who did this has been asked to see if he could take these comments and improve further. One idea was maybe to rotate one edge of the cube at an angle.

Unless there is a better alternative proposed, we felt that the cube was the direction we ought to pursue.

Name

During the roundtable meeting of 19 May 2016 we recommend to use the name of:
"Tiki", thus dropping the "Wiki CMS Groupware" part of the full name. "Tiki" has already been for all purposes the "short name" for a long time now. Concerns and how to address them:

• Would it be confusing to people if Tiki is still referred to by it's full name in the transition by 3rd parties? It's not so bad, because it is obvious Tiki is short for the full name. But efforts should be taken to communicate to all third parties to inform them of the "name shortening".
• "Tiki" means something in English - i.e. the polynesian gods, or Tiki bar, thus when you search for merely "Tiki" in Google, even though tiki.org is on the 1st page you are distracted by the images of polynesian Tiki gods that appear first. If you type "Tiki software" or "Tiki platform", all is fine though. But if you think about it, the problem already exists today - you have to type "Tiki CMS" or "Tiki Wiki" or "Tiki software" to get tiki.org to be number one. And this won't change even after the shortening of the name (as CMS and Wiki will still be keywords for tiki.org as far as Google is concerned as there will be many mentions of those words on our site). If we are really bothered, we could consider using "Tiki software" or "Tiki platform" instead of just "Tiki" in communications, or use "Software" or "Platform" in the tagline.

Tagline (proposals)

Toolbox of Integrated Knowledge Infrastructure
Toolkit of Integrated Knowledge Infrastructure
All-in-one, out of the box!
A Magic Box for Web Solutions
A Smarter Web Toolkit
Build your own site, out of the box
Conceive, Publish and Expend your web
Content Management Toolkit for the Web
Embed ingeniously content, communication and data for the web
Forget about limitation
Free Open Source Web
Free Open Source Web Toolkit
Install, Customize, Publish!
Integrated Knowledge Toolkit for the Web
Open Source Web Toolkit
Open Source Wiki & Content Management Solution
Software for Web Solutions
Software for Your Web Solution
The enhanced toolbox to build and manage your web
The Smarter Solution for Your Web Needs
Toolkit for Web Presence
Web application bricks that make everything possible
Web Content Management Toolkit
Web Content Management Toolkit
Wiki & Content Management Solution
Your Web Solutions Platform
Your Web Solutions Toolkit

It has been noted that Drupal has an "action oriented" tagline "Build something amazing". Might be worth exploring taglines that are verb oriented rather than noun oriented, without losing the essential communication of what Tiki can do (but note that Drupal is at a different marketing stage than Tiki - Drupal is more well-known and everyone already knows what it does and so there is less to communicate in that respect).

Additional Requirements

Testimonials and quotes

We need to go out and collect these, and record quotes, interviews.

New promo sheets

Replacements for Promo Sheet targeted at the Primary target audience and also separate ones targeted at the Secondary target audiences. The secondary target audience includes customers of the Consultants so it would be important to provide enough material that Consultants can use to communicate a consistent and effective message to convince that group.

Banner/Flyer type design

To be used for brochures, flyers, banner - short succinct message, compared to Promo sheets above.

Case studies

Something more substantial than Featured Tikis. Actually case studies explaining the value proposition, how it helped - targeted at the Primary and Secondary target audiences.

Website improvements

Text to reflect new messaging. Other aspects to be improved as well.

What are the language requirements?

English - translatable to many different languages

Are there any mandatories, exclusions or considerations?

• "Tiki" must remain the brand, as the amount of effort to change that would be unfeasible.

Page aliases
Draft Branding and Marketing Creative Brief 2016