Gmkt Marketing Task Prep

---
name: gmkt-marketing-task-prep
description: Prepares you for a marketing take-home task or assessment-centre case by decoding the brief, planning the time, practising on a sample brief, critiquing your own draft and rehearsing assessor questions. Use for "run gmkt-marketing-task-prep", "marketing take-home task", "assessment centre case study", "marketing case study interview", "prepare for a marketing presentation task", "practise a marketing brief", "critique my task draft", part of the Claude for Marketing Graduates Pack by Polar Bear.
---

# Marketing Task Prep

## When To Use
You have a take-home task or an assessment-centre case and freeze at the blank page. Use this to understand what the brief really asks, plan your time, warm up on a practice brief, and then get a hard critique of the draft you wrote yourself.

## When Not To Use
If the next step is a conversation rather than a task, use Marketing Interview Questions. If the employer's rules forbid any outside help, including preparation, follow them and use this only for general practice on the sample brief.

## Inputs
- The employer's rules on AI and outside help for this task, which you check and paste.
- The real brief (what is asked, the deliverable, the format, the time, any criteria) and, later, your own draft.
If you have none of this, I start from the type of task (written, slides, presentation, group case) and a sample brief, and mark the output as practice only.

## Approach
TARGETjobs' guidance on assessment-centre case studies holds for marketing tasks too: clarify the objective, manage your time, and lead with your recommendation. This skill turns that into a routine, with one rule on top. Claude practises with you on a sample brief for a different, fictional brand and critiques your own draft; it does not write the task the employer will assess. The failure it prevents: three hours on research and mood boards, then a rushed recommendation on the last slide that the assessor never reaches.

## Workflow
1. Ask up to three questions: what the employer's rules on AI and outside help say for this task (default, if unclear: prepare and practise only), the deadline or time allowed, and whether you present it.
2. Decode the real brief with you: the question actually asked, the deliverable and format, the criteria (stated or implied), and the time. List anything ambiguous as a question you could ask the employer.
3. Plan the time: a split for understanding the brief, analysis, the idea, building, and rehearsal, with the recommendation written first, not last.
4. Practise on a sample brief I write for a fictional brand in a different category, never the real one. You draft against it; I critique, so the method is warm before you start the real task. For a practice deck, Claude Slides (beta) can lay out your sample-brief draft.
5. Critique your own draft against the brief: does it answer the question asked, is the recommendation first, is every claim supported, is anything missing from the criteria. I critique your draft of the real task only if the employer's rules allow outside feedback; under the default, I critique your practice draft and you apply the lessons yourself. I point to gaps; I do not rewrite your work.
6. Rehearse: eight to ten questions an assessor might ask about your presentation, one at a time, with feedback on how clearly you answered.

## Output Format
```markdown
# Marketing Task Prep
**Task:** [type] · **Due:** [date or time allowed] · **Employer's rules on AI:** [as pasted, or "prepare and practise only"]
## Brief decoded
| Part | What it says | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| Question | [text] | [plain reading] |
| Deliverable | [text] | [format, length] |
| Criteria | [stated or implied] | [what good looks like] |
| Ambiguities | [item] | [question to ask the employer] |
## Time plan
| Block | Minutes or hours | Output |
|---|---|---|
| [brief, analysis, idea, build, rehearse] | [time] | [what exists at the end] |
## Practice brief (fictional brand, practice only)
[sample brief]
## Critique of your draft
| Criterion | What works | Gap or unsupported claim |
|---|---|---|
| [criterion] | [note] | [note] |
## Rehearsal questions
1. [question]
## Decision
You decide by [date] what changes go into your own draft, and you confirm it follows the employer's rules before you submit.
```

## Done When
- The employer's rules are recorded, or the default is stated.
- The brief is decoded with every ambiguity listed.
- Practice used a fictional brand, the real draft was critiqued only where the rules allow, and the critique names gaps against criteria without rewriting.

## Quality Bar
- Recommendation first, always: the critique flags any draft that buries it.
- No invented statistics in the sample brief or critique (`[number: source needed]`); claims in your draft are listed with their evidence or `[evidence needed]`.
- No promise that the task will pass, and no comparison with other candidates.
- Claude helps you prepare, practise and critique; it never produces the task you submit unless the employer's rules allow it and you say so.

## Next
Run gmkt-interview-questions (Marketing Interview Questions) to rehearse the interview.

## About the makers

This pack is made by Polar Bear, a consultancy built by ex-McKinsey founders with a dream to make AI work for People, not instead of them. We help our clients build people systems and AI-first ways of working, and we run our own company on Claude. If your team has outgrown the self-serve version, message Pauline (linkedin.com/in/paulinebertry).