New Compendium Launches To Help Improve Poor Briefing By BetterBriefs

The Compendium Publishes the issues with briefs and how to make them better, featuring humorous cartoons that bring to life some of the key issues around marketing briefs.

These draw on the core findings from BetterBriefs’ global 2021 study into marketing briefs, such as revealing while 78per cent of marketers believe their briefs provided clear strategic direction, only 5per cent of agencies agreed; 65per cent of agencies and 32per cent of marketers are unclear on who the target audience is in briefs, and 68per cent of marketers and 88per cent of agencies weren’t clear on how the idea and creative work would be evaluated coming out of the brief.

The cartoons are accompanied by fresh commentary from industry thought leaders who share their unique perspectives and insights on the issues that plague briefs. These include:

“There is always a tension between the desire to focus on a few objectives versus the fear of omitting any of the desired outcomes we seek. As is usually the case, the truth lies somewhere between the extremes,” Peter Field and Wiemer Snijders said.

“If you don’t know who you are going after, it will be impossible to develop positioning, objectives and proper budgets. It’s also going to hamstring your agency who, no matter how gloriously talented, are going to struggle creating anything effective for an anonymous, unclear market,” Mark Ritson said.

“[There are] perennial marketing truths dating from the mid 1900’s: many people working in communications can’t communicate; many marketers don’t ‘do’ strategy; they struggle to define the word, let alone cite or write a good one; and effective, enduring, communication ideas are precious,” said Daryl Fielding and Merry Baskin.

“As marketing and agency partners, we are on a shared quest to harness creativity. It’s not about hijacking the creative work; it’s about leveraging the power of a creative process to help shape the path together,” Rosie & Faris Yakob and Emma Perkins said.

“Sharing the same ‘evaluation criteria’, or as I put it, ‘what defines great work’ makes everything a million times easier. Before you start work on your next campaign, get together, get inspired by the best work in the world, and make your list,” said Hurman, James Hurman and Orlando Wood discuss creative evaluation.

“Humour is often the first step towards acceptance. Visualising the issues around marketing briefs through these cartoons helps put the topic on the table and into conversations. We are on a mission to reduce the large number of poor briefs in the world, and with the support and insights from industry leaders, this compendium is one way to assist with this,” BetterBriefs co-founders Matt Davies and Pieter-Paul von Weiler said.

“This compendium provides sound practical advice, through perceptive cartoons and expert advice to help combat the common pitfalls around briefing. Getting the brief right, right at the very beginning is not only an efficient use of a client’s time but also makes best use of the agency’s talent and energies that ultimately crack it. We hope this will be both an amusing and valuable resource for all marketers and agencies,” Joyce Kelso, Associate Director of Marketing, IPA said.

“The brief is one of the most powerful but woefully overlooked tools in marketing. I love that this compendium calls out this elephant in the room. These are my favourite types of cartoons to draw — holding up a mirror to what we’ve all experienced and poking fun at what gets in the way of doing better work. Better briefs will ultimately make us better marketers,” Tom Fishburne, the marketoonist said.

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