The Art of Briefing

Only God knows how many briefing templates, I’ve created during my career at agencies, hoping clients would fill it out. Nope. It didn’t happen.  I’ve asked, I’ve explained but it seemed like the word brief evoked some allergic reactions. I’ve begun to wonder whether it was my fault. Was I too pushy? Were my questions too stupid? Were my templates too bad? Clients kept on sending short mails with target group (people 25-45 years old) and budget and the list of wishes. So I called back and asked: What are the objectives? What do you want to achieve? Hmmm. Silence followed by some vague explanations. Then one day - Eureka! Finally I got it. After long consideration and many discussions with both clients and my colleagues, I have found out that people fear briefing as it implies responsibility.  Writing things down on paper means not only that you have to give a deep thought to your business, see the way you are going and define where you want to go, but it also makes you responsible for the results. Brief creates unwanted expectations, not to agency, but to the marketer. My experienced showed me that many tend to dislike it. They would rather keep their media down to 5 insertions in glossy magazines, rather then get into discussions and uncomfortable questions about the state of their business. And on the other hand, the intimidating briefing form I was trying to enforce wasn’t helping in any way.  The amount and the depth of information, the form and the boundaries the template implied, made it impossible to succeed.  It is impossible to hit the jackpot with briefing using the traditional methods cause briefing is a process and it requires a specific set of mind and approach.

Stay Curious
First of all it is an exploration. We are not supposed to jump right away to the answers we believe to be correct.  Briefing isn’t any linear process, we might get lost before we find out what the right path is.  The trick is to let it happen and stay curious.
Secondly, briefing should be focused on deep understanding and honesty – saying what you think and believe.  Honesty is the beautiful virtue and it can make magic at briefing meetings when both agency and client are inclined to say what they think and believe.  It takes everything to the next level, it allows not only being clear about tasks and expectations, but also ignites insights and ideas to be used later on.

Dialogue
So you may ask, how can one get a good brief? My answer is, you have to make one yourself. How? By talking with your clients, by having an interesting dialog session* that is a collaborative creation, an exploration of the issue and focuses on the clients and the task. Afterwards writing it all down and reviewing with the client before the final approval.
Dialog session usually starts with the definition of task. What do we expect to achieve? What are the objectives? The next step is the exploration of the task from a number of different perspectives: business, organization, competitors, trade, brand, consumers, society and communication. We just ask questions prepared before and the questions that emerged during the session. It is about listening and monitoring the flow of information. The point is to leave the meeting with a clear understanding of the job to be done, and why it needs to be done, as well as, how to measure the success (KPIs). Not just a piece of paper filled with marketing jargon.
Of course we need the piece of paper for the files and to be sure we have the common understanding of the goals and KPI’s. This time, it is not a template but the document crafted as a result of in-depth discussion about the client business, understanding obstacles and challenges, the consensus on the purpose for the communication and KPIs.
The simple change, turning briefing from questioning into conversation, make it more bearable, useful and insightful tool for creating ideas and making things happen.

Article written for TalentZoo