The creative brief is the most important document an agency has
The need for creative briefs from clients has caused some debate lately, but Craig McLeod argues it is needed now more than ever.
A lot has been written about the creative brief lately. Last year Patricia McDonald wrote a great piece entitled Planning for Participation. Or there’s Martin Weigel’s recent post: On the necessity of briefs, client briefs and creative briefs.
Or perhaps the RGA/Beats presentation in Cannes, in which Omar Johnston boldly stated, “Fuck briefs.”
It’s all very contentious
The creative brief may be evolving, but as long as we’re in the business of translating business problems into creative solutions, it will be necessary. So before we talk about how the brief needs to evolve, it is useful to discuss the principles that must remain the same. These may sound basic, but they remain as true as ever.
“Apple – The end of bland computer tyranny.”
Out of interest WAS that the actual brief for 1984? Or were you just making that up as a mock-example?
If it has been sited somewhere as the brief, I’d be surprised if that wasn’t a bit of re-written history.
You forgot one:
The briefing is far more important than the brief.
Well done on your article Craig. Spot on, Briefs need to have ideas (or the inspiration or spark) in them. When they don’t have ideas in them, you waste everyone’s time and money, and end up with ordinary work and frustrated staff and unhappy clients.
Great piece Craig. As an industry we sometimes forget the basics and our role to stay true to the creative process. I’ll be passing this on to my clients!
What a searing insight into the creative process – who knew a brief was important? And what a surprise it’s some planner desperately clawing for relevance leading the charge.
Pissweak attempt at sarcasm by myself aside, can we please see less of this recycled, dumbed-down tripe Mumbrella? I’d take myself to ad school if I wanted to get myself across elementary material like this.
Dear Jeff.
Phew, such vitriol! Such vinegar! Although it’s difficult to know where your sarcasm ends, I can assure I was not attempting ‘searing insight’ into the creative process (for that I would recommend the linked articles – stirling stuff), more a dull-reminder about basic principles. As Voltaire once remarked, “Common sense is not so common.”
Recycled? – absolutely. Nothing new here. (My personal belief is: why create, when you can steal?) But that’s the great things about principles – they’re supposed to be repeated.
If the above points struck you as unnecessary, then I commend your brief-writer (as should you). Personally I have always found well written creative briefs difficult, rare, and constantly under threat.
Good luck with your sarcasm, I’ve heard it improves with practice.
Happy Friday!
Glenn wrote “Briefs need to have ideas (or the inspiration or spark) in them”.
Ummm, no. They need to have a clear position on what they want to say and reasons for the customer to believe it. That’s all. The ideas are what comes from that.
Far too often I see propositions that are trying to be ideas rather than statements. When that happens, the creatives are being asked to come up with an idea on top of an idea – you’re already 2 steps away.
If you’re writing briefs like that, you don’t need a creative department – you only need someone to mac up your idea.
Apologies Brad, I probably should have said “valuable insights instead” instead of “ideas”. Well written briefs with valuable insights, make it a hell of a lot easier for creatives to develop valuable ideas. And yes l agree you do see heaps of briefs where propositions are trying to be “the idea”, and these briefs need to be filtered out in “briefs meetings”, before these briefs get to creatives. Correct catorgrization of briefs is important too,
As some briefs are for additional creative executions of an existing idea, or additional executions of an existing idea, in new streams, and yes sometimes you may only need someone to Mac these up for you, with the creatives approval of course Brad.
Being a planner myself, Brad hit the nail on the head.
Much simpler, straight-forward definition of a brief.
Glenn’s unintentionally misplaced words prove Craig’s point nicely. See how we got steered off in the wrong direction? Same deal with briefs. No harm to have a pointed reminder of this. Plenty of juniors read this blog. And plenty of seniors still need to.
Timely reminder to all, regarding the alarming lack of clarity and quality of many briefs I’ve come across recently – both here and overseas. Another couple of things I’d like to add to the above, are courtesy of the few inspiring planners, I’ve had the pleasure of working with over the last decade or so.
1: The best briefs are brief.
2: The very best briefs are vision, not instruction.
3: Creative departments are like computers – rubbish in, rubbish out.
Thanks for this article Craig. I particularly liked the reminder about bearing in mind who the creative brief is actually for, and the advice that “In this respect, it is far more important to be interesting, than to be right”.
This rings true, and I think is often missed as we seek to convey facts accurately rather than to inspire creativity.
Well said Craig and elegantly presented, I’m pinching it and using it in a presentation tomorrow. Haters gonna hate brother…
this is a nice refresher. its been my personal experience during ogilvy days that as servicing if your brief has sparks of an idea or an idea in it, it pushes the creative envelope further. i always think the creative leap is better of a jumping board rather than from the ground. The suggested propositions or ideas in the brief are the bridge between the marketing problem and the potential creative solution. At times creatives built on it and at times bettered it with completely new creative. Never the less the output was far better than with a matter of fact problems listed down brief. i gained, my creative gained, my agency gained and so did brand.