A great brief can unite a team by communicating common aims and objectives. Graham Wylie, director at Decision Point, offers eight core components to getting a brief right
Behind every great campaign is a great brief; one that captures the spirit and sense of what the marketer wishes to achieve and communicates it across the implementation team. It may start life on the back of a napkin, or it may come from a pre-determined template, but the brief is the foundation stone for everything that follows.
Unfortunately there is no single answer for what makes an effective brief; what works for one organization at one point in time may not work for another. With B2B buyer behavior changing and marketing strategies evolving towards more continuous real-time engagement, there are those that argue the ‘brief’ is an outmoded concept. But it still creates vital ‘time out’ at the start of a new project to really think through the issues and needs to make the campaign a success. And in writing it down, internal debate is structured and clear decisions can be made. In today’s busy departments, a written brief may feel like something you don’t have time to do, but there is a strong argument a good brief saves time in the long run and helps to improve the outcome.
So what should a written brief include? Here are eight essential elements:
1. Ownership and summary
At the top of the page every brief needs a unique identifier, clear ownership and a broad statement of what the project aims to achieve and by when. It also needs strict version control. More hotly debated is whether or not to include the budget. At the very least there should be some guidance as this saves time later on in the process and ensures one eye always remains on the overall ROI.
2. Objectives
Every brief should be aligned to the business plan, which makes it easy to set the business objective. In most organizations this is likely to be a measurable outcome, such as a revenue or market share number. The communications objectives contribute toward this by driving a related outcome, such as influencing awareness, propensity to purchase or lead numbers. A good brief
is clear about the starting point and end point, so if you don’t currently measure something, it can’t be used as an objective for the campaign.
3. Audience insight
If you can’t define the audience, you can’t engage with them in a meaningful way. Whether targeting particular segments or specific buyer personas, the brief has to describe the factors that influence their thinking about the brand and the problem it solves.
How is their market context changing? What are the key decision points in their buying process? How strong is their current relationship with the brand? How are they currently meeting the need we hope to address? Is fear or optimism the most powerful driver at this point in time?
4. Proposition
Some ideas are easier to communicate than others. If the project positively reinforces everything the audience knows about their business and your brand, then it can be communicated very differently from an idea that challenges industry thinking, or a product launch that takes the business in a new direction. A good brief gets under the skin of the proposition, detailing the features, advantages and benefits. A great brief digs deeper and finds the emotional resonance for the proposition and backs it up with all the relevant data.
5. Competitive positioning
Who is the relevant competition for this audience and proposition? What do they do well, and where are they weak? What is known about their current strategy and how are they likely to respond to this campaign?
6. The differentiated idea
The very essence of the campaign, that brings together all the strands to articulate why the target audience should do anything, why do it now and why buy this proposition. This should be backed up with the most compelling reasons to believe. Does it pass the ‘so what’ test?
7. Timing and evaluation
A good brief identifies when the major milestones happen and what they are. It also makes clear when and how success will be measured against the business and communications objectives.
8. Signoff process
Confirmation of any particular compliance sensitivities beyond usual best practice, and clarity around who needs to review and approve the brief itself as well as any campaign elements. For example, it’s helpful to know if the legal team needs several weeks to approve final copy.
A brief can be the work of a single individual or it can be created through collaboration, internally and with agency partners. So long as the key questions are addressed and the answers documented and agreed, then you have the foundation in place.
If the brief is treated as a tick-box exercise with no time for consideration and reflection, or becomes an internal obsession and subject to constant rewrites, then it is likely to fail. The trick is to create enough structure and time to explore all the relevant issues while retaining the flexibility and urgency to move beyond planning to get the job done.
