NORTHERN PLANNER

Once upon a time, when I was working somewhere else, there was one of those Great Re-inventions of the Creative Brief. You know, where the boxes get moved around a bit and the their names undergo a little tinkering, before it's unveiled to much fanfare. One of those.

As with many  journeys, the end was much less interesting than what tumbled out in the struggle (internal projects are always a struggle aren't they?) to get there. As part of that, the planners actually went out and asked the creatives what they wanted from briefs, and naturally, much of that became what creatives wanted from planners.

First point, the creatives didn't see planning as the people to solve the strategy puzzle, in fact, most of them didn't have much of clue what planners really did. They saw themselves as much more than making the answer compelling, they saw themselves as the problem solvers. You can argue all you want about the fairness/veracity of this view, but it does demonstrate the need for planners to include creatives in the process.

Second point, the briefs and briefings that creatives really found useful were not the bullet hard single-minded ones (despite what they actually claimed), or the ones where someone persuades them to do what someone else wants, they were the ones packed with ideas around a theme, a direction. In other words, don't tell creatives what to do, make them think, just make sure you're making them think about the right stuff!