Eric Faulkner, partner and chairman of Madclarity, is back with his regular column on B&T. And this time out, he’s teaching you how to write a ‘sick’ brief. Or perhaps not.
A few days ago, I saw an email from the Better Briefs guys. It reminded me of some research they did a couple of years ago. Something like: 80 per cent of clients thought they wrote great briefs. And 80 per cent of agencies thought they were crap. I always wondered why those 80 per cent of agencies didn’t tell their clients that their briefs were crap.
Maybe it’s because they know that the clients wouldn’t listen. Maybe the agencies were frightened of getting fired… or maybe neither the 80 per cent of clients nor the 80 per cent of agencies knew what a great brief was in the first place.
So, since we are now living in the Age of Ignorance and Stupidity, I thought I’d exacerbate the problem by outlining a few ways to make matters even worse.
- Ask junior marketers to write the agency brief. It’s a much cheaper resource and it’s a great learning experience for them.
- Always use a template. Everybody does their best thinking when they have to fill in boxes.
- Copy and paste most of it from the previous year. It avoids wasting precious time that could be spent on analysing your Instagram data.
- Start with several pages of background information. Your agency obviously knows nothing about your business and it’s a great way of focussing their attention.
- Copy and paste a few charts from old brand health research. It gives your brief gravitas. Make sure the fonts are so small that no one can read them … then you won’t have to answer any difficult questions.
- Jargon and acronyms are essential. The more obscure the better. Nobody will understand what you’re talking about, but they’ll all think you’re really smart.
- Once the brief is written, arrange a briefing session with the agency team, but don’t send them anything in advance. Surprise is vital with a briefing session and you don’t want a lot of silly questions from the agency.
- Before the session, ask your junior marketer to re-write the brief in PowerPoint, with plenty of pretty photos and charts, to keep everyone entertained.
- Always brief your creative and media agencies separately. A bit of healthy secrecy and competition between the two never hurts.
- And finally, never focus on a problem in the brief. It’s really demotivating for the agency and it will be someone else’s problem in a few months.
Let me know how you go with those briefs. Or better still, send me some more of your best ways to make matters worse.
