Writing a briefing is so central to the advertising process, you’d think even a marketer could do it. But apparently not. According to the Better Briefs Project, which commissioned a global industry survey, it seems this is not the case.
It appears from the input of seventeen hundred marketers and their agencies around the globe that there is a significant gap between advertisers and their agencies when it comes to briefing competency.
While around four out of five marketers believe they are good at writing briefs that provide clear strategic thinking and use clear and concise language, it does not appear to be the same for the agencies on the receiving end. In agency land, less than one in ten agreed with their clients’ self-assessment of their brief writing ability.
In the words of the report, “Marketers are in the dark about the quality of their briefs, which creative agency staff complain are ‘unfocused’, ‘unclear’ and ‘dull’”.
But at least agencies and marketers can agree that it is ‘difficult to produce good creative work without a good marketing brief’. They also appear to agree on the consequences, with both believing on average 33% of marketing budgets are wasted because of poor briefs.
Mark Ritson puts the blame at the feet of the marketers, saying “Their failures begin with a total lack of strategy”. While the contrary Bob Hoffman takes this to support his belief that the “whole briefing process is a ridiculous shit show and waste of time”. He recommends that “A perfect brief is one sentence long. Anything more is just evidence that the marketing people are confused”.
Perhaps Bob has seen the one-sentence brief sent by a client to the account director by WhatsApp late on Friday night that read “Need an ad on Monday morning to sell more $%*&#” (this being the name of the product). It was certainly a succinct brief, if not very enlightening or timely.
Ex-Global Marketing and Creative Director at McDonald’s, Joe Talcott, recently replied to my question ‘who should write the brief?’ with a cynical and amusing “the person who has the most to lose if it all goes wrong”. I think he may be on to something here. Who has the most to lose in this process? If the briefing process goes badly, resulting in bad work, you can always blame the agency. But if the marketer has written a succinct and yet detailed brief, there is not much wriggle room if the whole thing goes south.
It got me thinking as to how other professionals deal with this issue. If I commission an architect to design my home, the architect does not expect me to have a detailed brief. Instead, they are inclined to ask questions, listen carefully, use examples to stimulate responses and explore options to get a clear brief of what is required.
Likewise with a lawyer. They are not expecting their client to come in with a brief of evidence. Instead, they again ask questions, listen, probe, and discuss options to get a clear understanding of the problem. And don’t mention the medical profession. Doctors are sick to death of patients Googling their symptoms and coming in with a fully formed diagnosis. Instead, they prefer to again, ask questions, listen, observe, order tests, and form the diagnosis for themselves.
Yet agencies seem to want their clients to know exactly what they want and then complain when the client gives it to them, and they don’t want it. Perhaps, instead of asking for the brief, agencies could demonstrate and reinforce their capability and expertise by guiding the client through the briefing process. Rather than complain, because their client appears incapable of writing a brief the way the agency wants it.
After all, is “agency brief writing” in the position description of every brand and marketing manager? I am not sure this is necessarily the most important skill for a marketer. If Mark Ritson had his way, all marketers would all be doing his Mini MBA to become a brilliant brand and marketing strategist first, then perhaps the brief will almost write itself.
Now the Better Briefs research has highlighted the gap, the question is – how do we fix it? If 80% of the brief writing audience think they are doing a good job, why would they want more training? Better the agency takes on the responsibility for writing a better brief, rather than complaining about the client’s poor skills. After all, in many ways, the agency is the beneficiary of that 33% waste in the marketing budget, consumed in agency hours and fees.
This article first appeared in Campaign Asia on November 23, 2021
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