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Some Feedback On The Briefs Question…

Feb 21st, 2007 by


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Daniel (of AdStructure) posted a response to my “What’s In Your Briefs?” thing with this post here.

Have a look at it, because it’s a very comprehensive review of strategic shifts over the decades as well as some thoughts for today. And there’s some good thinking in there.

For me, there’s one flaw that (and I do it plenty too) we all fall into – which is the Complex/Simple/Complicated trap… by which I mean that we spend too much time thinking about process and possibility when we design brief templates – we build up what becomes an over-complicated structure, because we have to think about what ‘might’ need including… and what this means about advertising, etc… I guess this comes back to who the document is meant for as well…

For me, the creative brief is NOT a contract with clients, nor a focal document to spark debate internally (although it often becomes that), but a beginning… a note to creatives that inspires them and starts them thinking. Sometimes (the good times), you’ve already begun the debate and you’re summarising the discussion. Sometimes, it might be an update – a nudge in a new direction.

But, whatever you’re doing, it needs to be simple. Easily understandable. It needs to answer the questions that are pertinent to that particular brand, and not what generally might be OK.

I think it was Simon Calvert who told me (a long time ago) that you should build a thread that runs through the brief – that is the idea, really – a thought that begins to show early and re-appears throughout… That would also be the single-minded proposition (since those were still very much in-vogue at the time!).

Anyway, thank you to Daniel. It got me thinking again – which is all I really hoped for in starting to do this blogging thing! And, it adds to the thought that’s building in my head… Can you have a brief template that is purely the core questions, then you build around that with information that helps bring that thought to life?

Posted in Advertising | 7 Comments

  • http://danielmejia.wordpress.com Daniel Mejia

    Thank you Simon so much for your words of wisdom. Like I said at the end of the post, I went to a conference last week made by the planning director of the local Euro RSCG branch. What I learned there (although I was thinking of it before) is that ”the template” is just an starting point. It´s really ridiculous to try to make an strategy from just 10 more or less questions, you really need to keep asking and digging deeper until you can find something strong enough to build from there.

    In fact, I agree with you. The times I have worked on a brief, I have found some constants that should be worked outside the template for a further development. But for me is kind of easy to go that extra mile, because I actually work as a creative (doing a little planning too), but is it for planners on agencies that easy too? Aren’t that crossing the line into the creative team territory?

  • http://www.simon-law.com Simon

    You know planners tend to be frustrated copywriters, don’t you – how wonderful your job sounds!

    Anyway, re. stepping into creative territory… and this is a tricky one, because it’s down to quality, isn’t it?

    If you come up with a good idea, then it’s OK to overstep, but if you come up with a mediocre idea, then try to push it, you’re a fool!

    Moreover, though, I think that we should be aiming for something that does live up the the label “idea” – not just insights (or wan observations) but idas that get people thinking.

    You can’t achieve that all the time – sometimes, the strategy needs to be workman-like and get out of the way.

    Or, you need to have explored all these things. And given alternatives on the brief.

    If you haven’t already done so, go to http://www.wklondon.com and look at their downloads section – then read the Honda stuff – look at the brief that Russell Davies wrote for that – it definitely over-steps into creative territory. But it does it well. And, rather than suggesting that planning has produced one answer, Russell put forward a series of expressions of a single idea – a thought that held lots of ideas, actually.

    That, for me, is the single best piece of planning I’ve seen in the past ten years.

  • http://exitcreative.net/blog/ Clay Parker Jones

    Simon & Daniel -

    Great post and comments going on here…definitely very useful discussion for all of us. Like you guys say, it’s really impossible to say that there’s one template. I think the functional advantage of having a template, especially in a big agency or a big global network, is that everyone’s working on a proven-successful and agreed-upon framework. But I’ve found that in my time at mostly smaller places, each client and each situation calls for a different set of things that need to be written, designed or otherwise communicated to the creative team and the client.

    Simon, I think it’s pretty wishful thinking to say that the brief isn’t an important part of having the client buy off on something to get the work started in the right direction. I LOVE the WK Honda stuff, and I’m actively trying to get my very small agency to produce something in that vein, but sometimes there just aren’t enough resources or time to get something like that done. I wish that it were always possible to do that caliber of work! Anyway, don’t know if I’ve advanced the discussion or not…

  • http://www.simon-law.com Simon

    I know what you mean about the wishful thinking thing – i.e., not getting a client to sign off the brief.

    I think I’d better qualify – as is almost always the case with me!
    Here’s my thinking on it…

    I wonder whether the strategy and the creative solution aren’t more linked than we credit. So, we decide on strategies before we start creative work. In most cases, anyway.

    As a result, we sometimes have work that’s off-brief, but brilliant. Or, it’s off the strategy that everyone fixated on and agreed. Which can be tricky. And, if people were more stongly fixated on the business issue, that may be less of a problem… that would fix a lot.

    But, at the same time, I wonder whether we can present things together more often – so you don’t do the strategy solo, then judge creative work against it. Instead, you do them together.

    I’ll admit, we don’t do it often here. But we all do it when we pitch. And, done well, it shouldn’t mean the client is removed from the development process. Just a more open way of working…

    Hey, it’s a thought… I’ll try to turn it into something more sensible and actually post on it…

    Anyway, thanks for contributing and apologies for the slow response times this week!

    Simon

  • http://exitcreative.net/blog/ Clay Parker Jones

    Hear hear. I think the notion of getting folks to sign off on a creative brief is far more contractual and process-oriented than it “should” be in the ideal world. And I totally agree that a lot of times, there are insights found when talking about the brief AFTER it’s been approved. Where is the space for these ideas? Where do they go? Why do we continue to maintain that there must be one, single strategy?

    What you say about the client being removed from the development process is interesting. At my agency we have a few really small clients, most of whom haven’t been through the advertising process before. In one case, we worked really hard to be inclusive of the client and we ended up making very little money because the revisions went through the roof. I think it’s worthwhile in the long run, though, because now the guy has a better understanding of how it works.

    Sometimes I wish there were more chatter in the planner/ad sphere about the process of making these big ideas actually happen in real life…Can’t wait for your post on it!

  • http://yrinindonesia.nomadlife.org Yousuf

    Hi Simon,

    It’s me again. I like what you said about the importance of what’s in a creative brief rather than how it’s in or how much.

    In fact, I was thinking on similar lines when Russell’s request first popped up but never got round to mentioning it because I was scared I was the only one thinking this way and that it might not make any sense. Pretty sheepish of me as a planner, I know. Thanks for lending a voice to these thoughts, though.

    Sick and tired of boxes, I came up with a new format last week where I started with a fancy-sounding line and called it “observation/insight”, gave it a small support line/evidence and then moved into the nuts and bolts.

    For example, “Fools Rush In”… “In our desperation to fulfill our desires, we often forget what matters and what shouldn’t. That’s why people don’t realise that the true essence of purity is not in acquiring it, but retaining it”.

    The creative proposition was “What’s pure is permanent” for a small brand of eucaplyptus oil. Why? Because they use glass bottles since only glass can preserve the purity and longevity of genuine eucalyptus oil. But somehow people don’t know about this truth and all other brands use plastic and fancy add-ons like flip-tops, etc.

    My objective was that irrespective of the brand/product, the creative team should start thinking in a certain direction right from the beginning. This helps because then they try to retro-fit the single communication message with this motherhood statement and if it doesn’t click, they judge it succintly and if it does, they believe you much more.

    This doesn’t happen with the ordinary formats wherein the information overload is so overbearing, briefing battles become inevitable.

    I don’t know yet whether what I wrote at the beginning of the brief was an insight, observation, big idea, small idea, all of it or a bunch of crap, but it’s worked for us twice now. And I think I’ll keep it :)

    Cheers
    Yousuf

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