Clients - become a hero of your brief!

If you’re a client looking for great results from your creative team, then it all starts with writing a great brief!

The wonderful thing is…it isn’t hard! But sometimes that’s why it can be the most overlooked and misused part of the project pipeline. Sometimes we presume that because something is ‘simple’, that it’s also quick to achieve. Not true!

In most cases, it’s actually the first opportunity that clients get to stop and objectively deep dive into their business needs – but often or not, the time to do it just isn’t there. So often a brief is focussed on the end goal without the real thinking behind what is actually needed.

The main purpose is to document the goals, constraints, and context of a project – which in most

cases is to communicate a message. Among other things, it should include information like:

• Background to the requirement

• Business objective/s

• Key message/s

• Audience insights

• Expectations of the audience

• How success with be measured

• Timelines & constraints

• Budget

But beyond the details and the facts, it's the approach to writing your brief that will allow you to become the master of your brief!

So four things to remember when putting together your next brief:

1. Collaborate – A brief shouldn’t be some sort of private and protected document. Be open to working with your agency to fine tune it – infact I’d recommend it. You’ll both have

insights and get value from a bit of intelligent to & fro. See it as a shared objective document to get everyone on the right path – not an instruction from you for what to deliver

1. Don’t fear a template – Templates, especially from your agency, are a great way to focus you in on the information each party needs to discover and understand. It’ll also help identify any assumptions that might have been made, flagging details that might not be as objective as you first thought. But also true, is don't be afraid to sterr away from a tmeplate and make it fit YOUR spectif needs and objectives - although it's a formal document, it's not locked

1. Ensure a consistent writing style – Try not to copy and paste from formal, personal or promotional documents. The best briefs are a consistent tone of voice as a presentation of the facts and the mission ahead. Instead, just reference and attach any relevant supporting information

2. Lastly – know when to write a brief – no one is time rich, so both client AND agency need to have some common sense rather than it become all about the red tape. As a rule of thumb, no need for a brief if

   • there’s no budget

   • the job itself would take same/less time than actually writing a brief

   • only needs three or less people to get the job done – talk it through instead!

So give the brief the love it deserves, and it’ll pay you back in time, value and team performance!

Let's talke next time you could benefit from some extra love and support with your next brief!