NORTHERN PLANNER

So you’ve written a good brief. Good, but unfortunately not great. The thing is, creatives remember great briefings, but they rarely remember the brief. The conversation is everything. The brief becomes a point of reference and nothing more.

There’s loads of spiel about the the creative brief being the Holy Grail – the part that aligns right brain thinking with left. When you strip away the mystique, it’s simply your chance to inspire the team. The process is messy, you need to be talking to them a lot – the spark can come from anywhere in truth. So make the briefing as inspirational as you possibly can – and keep talking.

The first thing to think about is your target audience – for the briefing I mean – which is the creatives. No one works in the same way, and you should be designing your briefing, and your brief for that matter, so suit the way they want to work.

Here’s some people I’ve worked with –  I haven’t asked their permission to show a picture, so here’s some pretty accurate lookalikes.

This is Nick. He wants to feel like he  owns the strategy. It’s usually best to have a very open conversation with him and find a way to get him to draw his own conclusions – the trick is helping him make the right ones.

Paul doesn’t like tight propositions. He’ll look at finished strategy and argue that you’ve missed the most interesting thing. It’s best to include him in everything as early as possible, the factory tour, the lot, and make what excites him work.

Jim is a maverick. He wants some finished thinking with a strong creative direction already there. He’ll want to thrash that out and then be left alone to make it as interesting as possible.

Stuart likes to feel part of a team. He’s totally open and just wants to be included in everything. As long as he gets that, he’ll be open about his side of things. But do look like you’ve made some effort to think about it.

Martin  is very arty. He responds well to imagery, film and metaphor.

If you know whom you’re briefing, the document itself should be designed to fit their way of working, and so should your process.

Not everywhere does pre-briefing meetings, and if they don’t, try and do them unofficially. Talk to them way before the briefing, and way after.

You’re not a suit who speaks for the client, you’re not the creative director – their boss. You’re the planner, you’re neutral. And as such, you’ve a great opportunity to be a non-threatening sounding board. Use it, since it seems the more conversations you have about the work, the better it gets.

And there will be different way to unofficially get a chat. One grumpy team used to love me making them proper coffee (blatant I know), there was a female team that used to like mothering me – they couldn’t resist giving me advice about my tragic love life.

As far as the briefing is concerned, the more sounds, pictures and films you show in the place of words, the better.

Like target audience – there’s nothing more powerful than showing a picture of them. Like the way this describes why someone my age has such a strong relationship with vintage Nike clothes (when we were ten you HAD to have a Nike windrunner). And BMX bikes for that matter.

This picture shows the strong connections between British Asians family and food. So does this quote, "The most special ingredient in our food is laughter".

This film illustrates the curious love hate relationship that pervades most strong male friendships.

While this one dramatises what twenty something slackers think of people with serious jobs.

In any case, try and do some theater. Make it interesting.

Here’s some general tips from creatives:

Insights are great, creative starters are not.

Don’t assume the answer comes from the proposition

Include us in the client’s business.

Information is good.

Breathe life into the target audience.

So there you go, that’s my two penneth on creative briefing. And remember, this is only a start.