The post on Client briefs and briefings seems to have got a bit of interest so I thought I’d make available a rudimetary briefing format for Clients to agencies.
I’m sure that it’s not perfect but it may help, especially if your clients or you as a client don’t have an approach to briefing that is set in concrete.
This is a short paper I wrote for Clients to help them create better briefs for their agencies and therefore get more effective work out of them.
Lets start with a clear definition of roles – for the people and documents involved in briefing.
Clients are marketing professionals and brand guardians. You understand what performance the business needs from its portfolio of brands, the problems that those brands face in delivering this and the way marketing communications can be applied (alongside the other weapons in the mix) to get the results you need.
Client briefs should reflect this role and should act as a contract between client and agency to deliver communications solutions that meet that brief.
Agencies are creative problem solvers that understand the way to engage people with brands both strategically and executionally.
Agency creative briefs are internal documents we use to get the solution you need from the various creative disciplines in the agency. That’s the fundamental way in which they differ.
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Thank god for that, a few of you have started the ball rolling and submitted briefing formats.
We need a whole load more and from every corner of the globe.
Just got my mits on Naked, M&C and BBH’s formats. We now need briefs from places like AMV, Mother, Wiedens, Goodby, Crispin Porter, 180 you know the kind of thing. We also need briefs from some tip top digital agencies – Glue, Dare, Poke in London come to mind – it would be interesting to compare and contrast these with agencies from a stronger advertising tradition. And how about briefs from design agencies, sales promotion and PR?
Kurt Cobain’s death certificate. To my mind most creative briefing formats certify the death of the thinking. Image courtesy of Night Star Rominus. I have…
I don’t like the word edgy. Edgy is appallingly overused in our business to describe work that that is uncomfortably unconventional.
Image courtesy of Mainman.
Droga 5’s The Great Schlep idea has been doing the rounds recently as one of the smartest and most engaging political campaigns in a Presidential election that is dripping with smart and engaging political campaigns.
But I thought I’d lob my two penny worth into the fountain of adulation for this piece of work.
Image courtesy of stoopidgerl.
Only planners would have spent the summer celebrating their 40th birthday. Unless I am very much mistaken, the creative fraternity aren’t given to marking Bernbach’s marriage between art directors and copywriters or account handlers to commemorating the launch of Microsoft Excel for Windows. But the Johnny-come-lately of the advertising community has always felt the need to prove its contribution and to celebrate its survival.
