If your creative project has gone awry—and, unfortunately, that’s not an uncommon occurrence for agencies or brands—then you might want to take a closer look at the roadmap you’re using to establish the overall direction of your efforts. And that map is your creative brief.
The truth is you can track a number of the stresses of client-agency relationships back to poorly prepared creative briefs, because both sides get frustrated when they don’t have clear expectations. Clients feel like they’re not getting the agency’s best work and they’re not receiving what they’ve paid for. And creatives tear their hair out because they feel like their clients are being indecisive, and they just don’t know how to deliver their best work with an ever-changing brief.
The creative brief is really a pretty simple document with a few simple rules:
• Clearly communicate a campaign’s desired direction and outcomes.
• Educate the agency about the client and its goals.
• Align direction between all parts of the creative team and all stakeholders to ensure they agree with what ultimately needs to be delivered.
It’s basically the project bible, but putting a creative brief together is often seen as an inconvenience and most don’t put the appropriate time and thought into writing a brief.
The bottom line: Don’t blow off the brief. And follow some of these tips to make sure your next brief gets you what you need.
Rethink your template
Agencies: When was the last time you updated the questionnaire you use in the brief process? Get your team together and conduct an honest appraisal of what you’re asking your clients to provide you. Is it steering you in the right direction? Are the questions clear? Is it even customized to your needs, or are you using some repurposed template you found from a Google search? Consider redesigning your template to address your specific client relationship, as questions may vary depending on industry and product.
Brands: Here’s a little secret. Just because you’re getting a form doesn’t mean you have to only provide what you’re being asked for. In fact, it is okay to create your own brief instead of struggling to shoehorn it into a template that doesn’t fit your intentions, ideas and idiosyncrasies. If there’s something you think is important for your agency to know, tell them.
Ask the right questions
The brief process is really about gathering information, and you won’t get the information you need if you’re not asking for it. But as any interviewer will tell you, it can take asking the same question different ways to get an honest and clear response.
If you’ve started the brief process with a template, follow it up with an interview. Use the information that comes from the questionnaire to inform your questions. If things are unclear, ask for specifics. Dive in deep for details. This is your opportunity to get at what, why, when and how much.
Split your thought process
Think about your brief in two distinct parts. The first is a macro view of your business and target audience and will probably be the same for all of a brand’s creative briefs—and it’s the one time a little bit of cut-and-paste can be okay. The second part is a unique micro view that focuses on the specific campaign you’re discussing. This needs to include the goals, direction, references and must-haves. This is the area where you want to focus your attention.
Focus on the takeaway
When potential customers experience your new campaign, what is the one thing you want them to come away with? This single compelling idea is the most critical part of your brief. It’s the one thing you’ll need to refer back to as the project moves ahead.
A little tip here: The takeaway is not a tagline. It is the driving force that gets at the essence of the project in one succinct sentence. It is what will be pointing the creative team in the right direction.
Edit and simplify
This document is called a “brief” for a reason. Once you have all the information you need and you’ve nailed your takeaway, you need to boil everything down with a target of keeping it to one page. Remember, the goal of the brief is not to show off what you know or what research you did, but to provide clear, concise creative direction.
Also, check your language. You shouldn’t just copy and paste from your existing promotional materials, and the information you provide should be simple and jargon-free. Everyone from client final-decision-maker to entry-level creative needs to understand everything in the brief.
Get agreement
Once you have a final brief, get buy-in from everyone involved in the project, including sign-off from all parties, in writing. This is very important. Remember, you’re not agreeing to the creative itself, but to the direction of the campaign. This way, when a client says, “it’s not what I wanted,” the agency can go back to the brief and show that it was.
Make it accessible
Your timeline is your itinerary, telling you when and where your project needs to be. The creative brief is the roadmap, telling you how to get there. So, it needs to be continually available to everyone on a team, both agency and client. You can use a platform like OpenText Hightail, keep it posted where everyone can refer back to it, as well as keep all other relevant files, discussions, versions and feedback in one place. Then use it as your filter to ensure that every turn the project is taking is sending you in the right direction.
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Liana Tallarico leads marketing for OpenText Hightail, a cloud-based collaboration and file sharing software designed for creative content reviews and approvals. Before joining the Hightail team over 3 years ago, Liana started her career working for a number of advertising agencies prior to going client-side.
