02/08/2024 05:29:11 AM 
(2) 
(2) The Account Planner's most important "product" is supposed to be the creative brief.
Jon Steel devoted chapters to it in his landmark book,"Truth Lies and Advertising" and "the brief" is still the yardstick by which strategic input is measured.
However, things have changed:
1. The world has gotten faster
2. Technology has fundamentally transformed communication
3. Breakthrough matters more than anything
4. Conversations are often a brand goal
5. Powerful insights aren't always easy to find
6. Creatives often don't want to have the most pointed and sharpest brief
7. The internet has empowered every creative to challenge the brief and perhaps even come up with a better one on their own
8. Communication has now fragmented to such a point- how can there be one brief for everything?
9. No one reads anything anymore
I was stuck yesterday by the comments from the Groupon CEO, which seemed to directly reference the brief.
"The firm that conceived the ad, Crispin Porter & Bogusky, strives to draw attention to the cultural tensions created by brands. When they created this Hulu ad, they highlighted the idea that TV rots your brain, making fun of Hulu. Our ads highlight the often trivial nature of stuff on Groupon when juxtaposed against bigger world issues, making fun of Groupon."
Clearly, he saw how CPB's brief opens the door for a powerful idea and obviously, we all know now how the execution has been questioned.
I want to hear from everyone- creatives, designers, planners what they think about the current and future role of the creative brief- is it still vital and alive, or is it broken and irrelevant? What have people done to refresh it and to keep it alive? What needs to be done?
I want to encourage a broad-ranging debate and a discussion.
Obviously, I am making a very general/generic statement and we know that so much has to do with the quality of the brief itself, rather than the format.
I also know that it's not about the brief, but briefing and it should be about continued conversations and collaboration and all those other critically important things, but at the end of the day, most creatives still get handed a piece of paper at some point in the process and that's what i want to hear about.
Planners are using a variant of a tool that's 20+ years old and I am keen to know where it stands today.
All your thoughts will be shared on this blog and hopefully we can have an interesting debate.
Some good things to stir the debate
Gareth Kay's Presentation- The Brief in the Post-Digital Age
Nick Emanuel's- Creative Brief Workshop
Patricia McDonald - Planning for Participation
Griffin Farley's Presentation- How to do Propagation Planning
Russell Davies- The Perfect Creative Brief- from 2006
Jasmin Cheng's Research Project on the Creative Brief
Howard Marguiles on What Creatives want from Briefs
Will Whalley on The Tyranny of the Creative Brief
Richard Huntington- What's in a Format- a review of different agency briefing formats
Finally, a creative viewpoint on the problems of a bad brief
Posted by Ed Cotton
My 2 cents...
I think it's important for the brief to be a living, dynamic document. Like you said, collaboration is key and if input from art directors and copywriters is present throughout the process, they will be more likely to use it as a guide and develop creative that is on strategy. I believe the primary purpose of the brief and briefing is to simultaneously inspire and focus creativity. Therefore, no brief should ever look and feel the same as the last or the next. The questions and format should be tailor made to address the different brand, audience, objective and so forth for each campaign. Keep the team involved and on their toes.
Posted by Caitlin McRobbie on 02/08/2024 07:03 PM
I think it's important for the brief to be a living, dynamic document. Like you said, collaboration is key and if input from art directors and copywriters is present throughout the process, they will be more likely to use it as a guide and develop creative that is on strategy. I believe the primary purpose of the brief and briefing is to simultaneously inspire and focus creativity. Therefore, no brief should ever look and feel the same as the last or the next. The questions and format should be tailor made to address the different brand, audience, objective and so forth for each campaign. Keep the team involved and on their toes.
Posted by Caitlin McRobbie on 02/08/2024 07:03 PM
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Planners are to blame for this. We've become a species of habit. I believe if the creatives are going to be handed a physical document (read:creative brief) at the end of the day, can we atleast explore different formats? For example, if it's a brief for a toilet paper brand, can the brief be written on toilet paper itself? Or if it's a brief for a cineplex chain, can the brief be made to look like a movie ticket? I think as planners, we need to shake off our laziness and almost clockwork-like tendency to start typing out a brief in a Word doc - the creatives are not going to get inspired by mere 'plannerisque' smart text anymore.