BRIEFING : How to brief marketing partners properly
On the back of a recent IPA publication, I thought I would look into this subject and add my own input on what has worked over the years on both the writing and receiving.
Honestly speaking, to this day it is without doubt the thing I find the hardest. The starting process. The beginning of it all. The briefing.
As I run a marketing consultancy (Archmon) that helps companies solve their marketing challenges, along with 3rd party partners and with some clients more organised than others, I first hand witness, feel and have been bruised by the oftentimes complexity and occasional links in the chain that can break.
By tilting the golf driver 1 degree to the left the ball will land yards from where you need it to be. Getting the precision of the marketing brief super tight and hit straight at the start is more than half the battle towards doing not only better work, but making the ways of working experience more tolerable for all involved.
A lot has been written about the creative briefing process, but all areas of marketing deserve the same rigour.
In Archmon for example, any new client at pitch/proposal stage even, I ensure they fill out a one-pager briefing document, populated with questions that command answers, the pithier the better.
I not only do this to find out what is needed so we can deliver a better solution (obviously) but it is a great exercise internally for an advertiser; one to encourage them to align on what is needed, summarise the need in a tight and clean manner, and ultimately provide a single point of truth both between internal partners (marketing and finance say) and external (brand versus agencies, consultancies and vendors).
THE CHALLENGE IS GLOBAL
There is an excellently written (well you’d hope so given the education topic) ‘Better briefing’ pdf written by marketing leader and lecturer Mark Ritson and the excellent Better Briefs think thank in partnership with the IPA. As per following visual, derived from better Briefs Project 2021 data, there is a huge disconnect between perceived briefing process from advertiser and what the receiving agencies actually think…
I particularly resonated with this excerpt which reinforces the top of this write up:
A brief is a roadmap for creative thinking. It is a critical juncture in the transfer of information from marketer to agency. It defines the desired outcome of a given activity and guides the task at hand. Briefs play a crucial role in steering the creative process, which is elusive and unpredictable by nature
The key areas of this document covered include the following strategic areas of consideration :
1. STRATEGY FIRST
Strategy before tactics - what is the plan of attack?
Strategy is sacrifice - agreeing what NOT to pursue is as important.
Strategy then brief - first things first. Sharpen the axe before you chop the tree down.
2. COMPLEXITY BREEDS SIMPLICITY
Of course any fool can make things sounds complicated. The art is to consider the complexities, run it by smarter stakeholders and distil it into a simple output that all associated parties can easily understand in plain language.
3. AUDIENCE, POSITIONING AND OBJECTIVES
Here - we have the importance of nailing the holy trinity of…
WHO are we targeting? (Audience)
WHAT is the offer (Positioning) and…
HOW to win target (Objectives)
THEN WE WRITE THE BRIEF…
…and this is broken down into key areas that I have added own thought to :
1. Define advertising need - important to clearly define why brief is necessary, and the marketer’s job is to define what it wants advertising, creative and media do to that it itself is not already doing.
2. One brief = one strategy - a reminder to be single minded and align on a ruthless strategy of what is and is NOT happening, to a clear outcome of the campaign work. Something different? New brief please.
3. Build the backbone - Clear Objectives, Budget and Audience throughout. ‘The objectives shape the budget. The budget determines the audience size, and the size of the target audience must be able to realise the objectives while staying within budget.’
4. Set linked objectives - what clear outcomes need to be achieved? There are a number here, but in this document they have been summarised neatly into 3 areas - Behavioural, Attitudinal and above all (in my opinion) Commercial. Remember we are selling a product or service so be true to that north star.
5. Target the right people - real ‘Marketing 101’ stuff, but importantly you target your audience and if a limited budget, particularly important to be incisive. Wastage is good for signalling and a luxury, but smaller businesses don’t always practically have that option.
6. Marry the message with proof points - the output needs to be single minded to cut through the limited attention we all have, and back up evidence/validation/proof pointing will further serve to deliver message salience (e.g. 8 out of 10 cats prefer Whiskas)
7. Align in evaluation - often an area where brands slip up and I will admit - I have been guilty myself in the past of fast-tracking (as are - reassuringly for I - 70% of brands apparently). It is important to create an evaluation framework of the brief. and decide how to benchmark it against other briefs.
FURTHER THOUGHTS ON MAXIMISING THE BRIEFING OPPORTUNITY
New client engagement could warrant a ‘pre briefing’ - for example when I start working with a client on a retainer basis, I have a one-page form similar to a briefing one which defines ways of working and starts the expectations from an overall marketing standpoint. Also this has the benefit of a trial run of working together before a campaign specific brief. Appreciate this is not a luxury afforded for some creative shops or campaign specific partners, but if the opportunity arises a pre-brief scenario can work.
Make it clear what success looks like - this is an overall fulcrum which is central to all the elements pre-listed in the pdf. If the advertiser can articulate clearly what success looks like for the campaign then that sets the direction of travel, objectives and more. Furthermore, by asking what the desired output is from the agency/marketing partner, you are further defining the need for the advertising brief in the first place.
Never NOT review/discuss/challenge - As I mentioned before the single points of truth of the one pager are a great starting point. But what it also does most usefully is to evoke conversation. We then need a follow-up meeting. We can discuss the points on the page and unlock more ‘complexity’ or ‘context’ - but as long as we talk. The assimilation of the completed brief document is key. Could be another millimetre difference on that golf club. If I have learnt one thing, it is that no written brief in the world can capture the essence of every thought behind it unless the briefer is a critically acclaimed poet or author. So ALWAYS get context, and question the areas and assumptions that perhaps aren’t themselves as proof pointed as we would like. As the Better briefs paper states :
Unchallenged, poor briefs trigger a raft of negative consequences. They lead to confusion, shallow creative thinking and often mediocre ideas. Which in turn lead to unhappy clients, rounds and rounds of creative work, rebriefs, de-motivation and ultimately less effective work in-market. The BetterBriefs study found that 1/3 of all marketing budgets are potentially wasted due to poor briefs and misdirected work
Play it back to advertiser - A key part of the process seldom cited. Once brief has been received and you have assimilated their verbal responses and synthesised any other useful data/insights, play it back to them, to ensure you have understood the brief before you go ahead and do the work for the output. As a checkpoint. To ensure you are on the right page. To ensure no winds of misunderstanding have shifted the trajectory of the ball. Although very seemly dull and repetitive, it is an exceptionally underrated and important part, and further serves to prevent said demotivation and ensure all parties feel good about their direction.
FOOTNOTE & SUMMARY : Getting on the same wavelength
‘WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?’ All the above is purely academic if when the rubber hits the road it all falls apart like a house of badly communicated cards. Below is how I lead one of my one page briefing documents. A deliberately nebulous question demanding a succinct answer. Again, encouraging stakeholders to clarify what exactly they want (and not). This is a good starting point.
But the devil is in the details. Clarifying the need, delivering key objectives, creating evaluation criteria, identifying the target and the budget, and adding proof points are all critical elements of best-in-class briefing.
I would go a step further for certain briefs where appropriate. Ask for customer data, Google Analytics, cost of acquired customer if known, average order value, number of customers or leads, typical audience definitions and sizes, even logins to back it all up if possible. Get under the hood and understand that business. Interrogate the annual reports or company accounts. Speak to a customer. You get the idea.
But above all, words are words. And like I say unless it is Fitzgerald or Tolstoy doing the briefing, you need to turn it into a real world conversation. Here is a quote that I will highlight by myself (a bit meta I apologise) :
“THINGS ALWAYS GET LOST IN TRANSLATION”
Ensure you are teeing off in the right way, and never treat the written brief, however comprehensive, as gospel.
Never forget - This is a human to human discipline, with humans signing off work by humans to advertise to other humans. A glorious chain of erratic links. So please, just talk!
SA
PS. I hope you are getting a semblance of value out of this. If so, and you think any other marketeer or business owner would, feel free to share/forward this to them and encourage them to subscribe. Also, follow me on LinkedIn, Twitter or my company page. Thanks
Footnote : If you want a copy of the briefing one pager I use, let me know!