Client Briefs

Why do clients write briefs:

A brief is the most important piece of information issued by a client to an agency. It’s from the brief that everything else flows. Therefore it’s essential that every effort be taken to prepare the best possible documentation of what is required. The client brief can be considered the platform for a communications campaign. The better a company’s brand position is defined and the more its key business issues are described, the more likely it is that strategic and creative thinkers in agencies will be able to apply their specialist skills to produce great solutions. 

The biggest waste of agency resources is to put them through the process of developing a solution repeatedly without concrete direction. It wears on relationships and is costly in wasted staff time. Both clients and agencies say that ‘time pressures’ are the main reason for inadequate client briefs. But in fact not writing a brief to save time is a false economy.

One of the criticisms that marketing people face from their colleagues in finance and in the boardroom in general is that they lack accountability for the very significant sums of money they spend. The caricature of the flash and superficial marketing executive will only be dispelled by a more professional approach. Ensuring that briefs are written for every project from every agency is an essential place to start. 

Principles of a Good brief:

The process of developing, discussing and agreeing the brief in this manner in itself adds value. And if more than one agency is involved in developing the campaign (as is often the case with media and creative agencies) it is advisable to brief all parties together with one written brief and one subsequent briefing meeting. A written brief is also vital in ensuring the ‘buy-in’ of other key people in your company. This buy-in is essential in order to avoid the significant waste of time and resources that can happen when senior executives challenge key assumptions in the brief, leading to belated changes in direction. Written briefs should have the buy-in of all interested parties before they are delivered to your agency. 

A good brief is not the longest or most detailed, it’s the one whose clarity and focus creates the platform for a great strategic leap, a blinding customer insight and an effective solution. Briefs are called ‘briefs’ because they are meant to be brief. They are a summation of your thinking. Try to attach all relevant supporting information as appendices. This appeal for clarity and objectivity, however, is not an attempt to reduce your creativity. For instance, often your dramatisation of the brand’s situation and the key issues it faces can spark off great creative thinking. The tried and trusted ‘factory visit’ should not be forgotten and there may be other more innovative ways that you could light the creative fuse

Start by making sure that your objectives are crystal clear. Use concrete business objectives rather than vague terms such as ‘to improve brand image’. Since no remuneration agreement that contains a performance related element can be made to work without appropriate measures of performance, quantifiable objectives should always be set. So, clearly defining the objectives to establish the project’s ‘success criteria’ is the number one principle of writing a good brief.

What elements should a good brief contain:

Project Management;
You should ensure that the basic facts of the project are provided. These will vary according to your internal systems, but the following are common bits of information that are required. 

Where we are;
Describing the current position of the brand, its background and the key issues it faces defines the start point for the journey on which communications will take the brand. 

Where we want to be;

This section defines the desired destination of the journey on which successful communications will have taken you. The goal should be set in the context of the overall corporate business and marketing plan, as well as what will be achievable by this specific project on the proposed expenditure. 

How do you get there;

It’s unlikely that advertising or other communications will achieve the defined objective alone, so it’s essential for the agencies involved in developing these communications to have a full understanding of the total marketing and communications strategy 

Who do we need to talk to?;

All communications are designed to elicit some form of response from a particular group of people. These target groups should be defined and prioritised as accurately as possible via demographics, lifestyle, product usage, attitudes, etc.
How will we know we got there;

You and your agencies need to know what success will look like. Measures should be put in place to establish whether or not the campaign delivers against its desired objective. 

Practicalities;

Your agencies’ responses to your brief will have many implementational consequences, so it’s important that all the key practicalities for them to bear in mind are included in your brief. 

Approvals;

The final piece of detail needed in the brief is who has the authority to sign off the work that the agency produces. This person should also be the one to sign off the brief before it is given to the agency and, preferably, to attend the resulting presentation.