Sure, the ad is clever, but is it right?

Q: Our agency is never short of ideas, but how do I know which will work the best?

A: To ensure great creative, it's crucial to build from a solid foundation. The foundation, also known as advertising of objectives and strategy is what you'll use later to help you select the best of the agency's creative concepts. Think of the foundation as a summary of the "who, why, how and what" of the campaign. By helping your agency build a good foundation, you can be confident its solutions will work--thus, helping you decide which of the solutions they suggest will deliver the strongest ROI.

* Who is the target audience for your product? To help the agency zero in on the right message, be as detailed as possible when describing your prime potential customers.

* Why should they bank with you instead of your competition? In other words, what makes your bank different from all the others ... and how will that difference benefit the customer? You should be able to articulate your most important benefit in a one sentence positioning statement. If your positioning statement takes more than one sentence, or drags on, it's probably wrong and could lead to bad creative.

* How do you want to present your bank and its services to the target audience? This gives the agency a guideline for the creative work. Should the overall tone and approach be humorous? Warm and sincere? Folksy? Edgy?

* What do you want your target audience's response to be? Are you trying to build brand awareness, stimulate interest, to have people contact you for more information, or generate new accounts?

Once you and your agency have built a strong advertising strategy foundation, it's time to turn them loose to develop the creative for your campaign. With new creative in hand, see how well each solution aligns with the foundation you built together. Then ask yourself:

* Will it attract the attention of the target audience? Will potential consumers readily understand the message and realize how you want them to respond?

* Is it memorable? Does it have books that will attach the message along with your brand name--to the mind of your potential customer for a reasonable time?

It's a no-brainer that most of the solutions your agency offers should conform to the foundation. The question really is to what degree of "yes." Is the "yes" closer to "probably yes" or more "resoundingly YES!" Don't worry about hurting the agency team's feelings--they may have their favorites, but they really want your feedback and the opportunity to deliver a winning campaign.

Give them a chance to explain which creative approach they believe delivers a "resounding yes." Then think it over carefully. If you don't agree, work toward a compromise or send them back to the drawing board. Remember, the agency's expertise is advertising and your expertise is your customers: So when push comes to shove, trust your gut.

Cary Hatch is president and owner of MDB Communications a full service, advertising, marketing and public relations firms in Washington, D.C., telephone: [phone]; e-mail: [e-mail]