Client Briefs mark the start of marketing developments for packaging, products or communication. Good answers need time and resources. So starting with a clear and inspiring brief is key. If you are tired of bland briefs that say “modern but classic” or “recruit without alienating our consumers”, read here some of the points we develop at Brand Reveal for strong work.
What is the context? Agencies are here to facilitate brands lifes. So they need to understand the brand market, performance, competition, strategies, activities, what works and does not. The richer the big picture, the more inspired the agency and the more appropriate the answer will be. So share everything you know (and don’t).
Written or spoken? Sometimes agencies complain briefs are oral. But what matters here is the conversation quality. The brand issues and required job may not be clear. A brief may call for “roots” expression. What kind of roots ? Or is “roots” a relevant point? Good questioning (and openness to challenge) ads value. This conversation must be captured in a feedback to confirm alignment on the issue and required job.
What is the problem? Briefing templates abound online. But they are not boxes to fill in, they are questions any brand should ask itself to define the issue it needs to solve. This is why brands speak to agencies. To solve an issue. For instance, a brief to develop an activity to recruit consumers will differ from a brief to premiumize.
What is the desired response from the target audience? A briefing happens because a brand wants a reaction from its target audience. So, define the “from” and desired “to” as a result of the activity. This means having an intimate understanding of the audience profile, attitudes, usage and barriers. Is this about awareness? Quality perception? Flavour barrier? Frequency of use? Image?
Is the brand credible? Among all the benefits a brand can offer, identify the one that will be relevant and actionable to the issue at hand. The task of the agency is to find a creative idea to express the benefit that will trigger the “from – to”. If the above is not well defined, any creative work will be hard to develop and evaluate, apart from the “I like it, I don’t like it”.
Opened vs. closed briefs? Not all briefs call for creative ideas from scratch. Some can be very directive, or “closed”. The way a question is asked determines the work quality. For instance: asking for a 5% bigger font size is not the same than asking for better title impact. On the second case, the agency will come with solution the brand may not have thought of.
What are the resources? Be clear on the budgets and timings. The agency will spend time and brains to help the brand, so the remuneration has to be fair. And you will get a very excited team as they will know their work is properly valued. Timing too is a resource: good ideas need time to mature: what seems great one evening may seem off strategy the morning after. Be sure to leave enough time to explore and nurture ideas, so when they are presented, they are bullet proof.
At Brand Reveal we see creative briefs as something more than a simple set of instructions. Briefs express problems we love to solve with creative ideas. A good conversation with context, consumers, issue, brand offering, and objectives is always a good start for excellent work. If you want to step up the creative solutions for your brand, let’s speak.