I like the super boiled down brief idea, especially as it talks about “the problem”. I’ve seen too many answers which didn’t start with a question. The reason we communicate has to be to elicit some change; even if the brief is about maintenance the rest of the world is moving.

However the bit that’s missing for me is “who am I”.
Putting it all in the 1st person

Who am I?
Where do I need to go?
How do I solve this?

For me the winners at the moment have a constant core belief which keeps things unique over time.

http://danielmejia.wordpress.com/2007/02/17/a-brief-history-and-some-actual-models-of-briefs/

Because, every once in a while, someone exposes you to some thinking that is better than your own. That exactly answers lots of your own questions. That hits the nail squarely where it hurts!

I was thinking that maybe there’s a thought in having this super-boiled down brief that onlys asks two questions:

1. What’s the real business issue?
What are we trying to solve or shift or do? Why is this company spending money on communications today?

2. What sort of change would answer this problem?
Do we have any creative starter thoughts? Do we know what we want our audience to think after consuming our ads? Do we have a clear dimension for success? etc…

I’m only even willing to write that down now, because Richard was willing to answer the first question and I don’t think it’s fair to just reply with a nice “ho hum” response about how smart that is and how much I agree!

So, what else? What do other people think? Is Richard wrong? Why?

I know there’s lots of people reading this who passionately believe in the process version – the more templatised format… go on – have a pop – defend your realm… why?

1) Role for advertising.

The key part of any brief as a great solution is dependent on a well thought through problem (see Steel on this). BTW I remove the finger nails of planners that write background sections (either its importnat enought to go into the brief or it is irrelevant).

2) Target audience. Old fashioned term but this is about describing the audience in ways that makes us love and respect them

3) Proposition. What is this advertising to say?

4) Support. Why should I belive this, why should the team believe this, why should the consumer believe this.

This is pretty orthodox but of course it is the thinking that makes a brief brilliant and not the questions asked or structure.

I like to try two alterantives:

1) Role only briefs – this encourages doing not saying
2) Instead of a proposition you propose a potential strategy which presents a point of view and then crystallises it in a phrase. Allows you to go deep on a solution without blocking off other potential ideas (thankyou Jon Leach)

I just mean that we should be discussing and interrogating everything to find thoughts and ideas.

So, going off-brief should be more difficult to do and require harder work, not be a lazy alternative!

But, unlike Russell’s original post, I was really hoping to see what the briefing form looks like at different agencies!
(or get the exact set of questions)

Meanwhile, I can’t but agree with Richard – a template (which we have here at WCRS currently) is designed to help people go through a series of steps – to lead them and guide them. So, it becomes a time-saving device that skips some thinking.

I think planners need to fight for Intellectual Rigour – to be the people who find prompts/thoughts/stimulus for creatives – having already produced a razor-sharp summary of the exact problem comms are tackling.

But, so long as there are forms out there, I’m curious as to what they contain – do any truly ask a question that provokes new thinking?

I think there is only one essential question – what is the role for advertising/communications etc?

Luckily Russell Davies was kind enough to ask that question on his blog before. And even luckier for us, there were heaps of responses.

http://russelldavies.typepad.com/planning/2006/10/the_perfect_cre.html

Still striving for the perfect brief.

stephan