Has the creative brief had its day?

Over the years I've worked to many, many creative briefs. In my planning roles I've written quite a few too. In fact, I've sometimes been guilty of obsessing over them – honing them down and down to the essential thought/proposition. And I've almost certainly made a number of account handlers' lives hell in the process.

But now I'm wondering whether briefs as we know them are such a good idea. (Sorry account handlers.)

Gaining focus

Certainly in the past, where the answer was always going to be a page ad or a DM piece, the creative brief was invaluable in gaining the required focus. It was also a way of instilling a degree of thought discipline in everyone involved in a project, offering something concrete to judge work by. And it helped projects be more efficient too.

Today, however, it's rare that the answer will be a page ad or a DM piece. Or if it is, it'll be just a small part of the answer. Today the answer is just as likely to be an experience or a community. And these kinds of answers don't sit well with the traditional brief.

Narrow vs broad

I think part of the issue is that creative briefs aim to narrow things down whereas today's communications need to broaden things out. It's the difference between the brief providing the answer and it better articulating the problem.

To be sure, I've always told creative teams to use the proposition as a starting place, to work around it rather than to it. But even so, the tendency is always to look for creative ways of communicating the core thought.

Propositions vs themes

Perhaps the answer is to look less for specific propositions and more for broad themes. In this, marketing agencies could take a leaf out of the books of design agencies where the core is more about using an organising thought as a hub.

Of course, this demands that everyone in the process becomes a bit more fluid, surrenders a bit more control and works a bit more collaboratively. But that's no bad thing.

Educated empathy

There are no certainties in this business. As much as every agency will have its own philosophy or methodology or trademarked explanation for why their stuff works, a lot of it simply comes down to an intuitive understanding of people. Those agencies that succeed can put themselves in the shoes of the customer as he or she actually is (not as the client or the demographics would have them be).

As you can probably tell, this is all thinking in progress. I'm sure there is a better way of briefing creative projects and as soon as I get some time, I'm going to start playing with alternatives. And, if anyone knows or uses a better system, I'd love to hear from you.

Comments

[Noël]

(Nodding)

As a copy creative (mostly in B2B), I think I've always tended to look for the broad themes/organising thought behind those painfully distilled propositions, whatever the project might be. And starting with themes, not propositions, would also give us room to shape those propositions.

'Of course, this demands that everyone in the process becomes a bit more fluid, surrenders a bit more control and works a bit more collaboratively. '

And there's the toughest bit. In my experience it's the clients who won't surrender control and the false security of a signed-off proposition or 10. Any thoughts there?

[Jason Ball]

Hi Noël

IMHO the whole control thing comes down to the still pervasive 'them vs us' thing between agencies and clients. I'm not sure it's really about anyone surrendering control however (or at least it shouldn't be).

There seems to be a worrying tendency to forget that ultimately we're all on the same side. I want my clients to be outrageously successful – I'm assuming they do too – the discussion then becomes how do we make them successful? The brief is a core foundation for that.

I agree with you on the "false security of a signed-off proposition or 10." In my experience, the proposition is certainly a problem. You either get the issue of it not being considered properly and signed off without really thinking through the consequences. Or the opposite where it almost presupposes what the creative will be. And that's before we even get to whether the proposition itself is springy enough to generate good ideas.

Moving to a theme approach could open this out and, potentially, create more possibilities. (Unless I'm being hopelessly naive of course.)

Thanks for your comment.