Brief or Grief?
Anand Narasimha
How to create inspiring Creative Briefs
It’s one of the most integral parts of any advertising or
communications agency, almost as integral as the creative
folk themselves; we’re talking about the Creative Brief.
How do we define the Creative Brief?
Putting it bluntly, “It has become the most sterile, unimaginative
and ignored piece of paper floating around in the Agency”.
Randomly pick up copies of creative briefs across agencies
and you’ll see what I mean. Speak to a cross-section of
creative people and they’ll nod in agreement. Attend a
typical briefing session and observe that creative people
(the recipients of the brief), are yawing, dozing, you-tubing,
doodling or drifting. The brief is the most junked, trashed
and if you’re the more expressive kind (like David Droga),
the most torn, shredded piece of paper today. Briefs have
become Griefs!
Yet, there’s hope! Every creative person worth his salt is
always quick to acknowledge and applaud a great brief. So,
there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with the brief, it’s just in
the way it’s being used, or abused. Putting together a good
brief is a dying art, which needs to be revived and how.
Briefs are not just important, they are
critical
A brief is actually the inflection point in creating advertising
and communication. It’s the point where logic (the strategy)
starts turning into magic (the idea). It’s where planning ends
and creativity begins. We keep indulging in the over optimism
of giving a bland brief and hoping to get exciting creative
work in return. Garbage-in-garbage-out, is as true here as
in computer programming.
Re-branding the brief
In an era where re-branding is fashionable, its time we revitalized the brief. Its new definition should read, “The most
insightful, inspiring and igniting tipping point in the creation
of advertising.”
Insightful- packed with gems and nuggets that bring the
strategy to life.
Inspiring- makes the creative team go ‘Wow!’ and take
ownership of the brief.
Igniting- triggers the creative to buzz with ideas that they
can’t wait to get cracking on.
In fact, a good brief is like ‘an ad for the creative people’.
What makes a great brief great
While most agencies have their own briefing formats, based
on their conceptual frameworks and creative philosophies,
the basics of a great brief are fundamentally the same.
If you were the Pope briefing Michelangelo on painting the
ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, what would it be?
Grief: ‘Please paint the ceiling to cover the cracks.’
Brief: ‘You are commissioned to paint our ceiling for the
greater glory of God and as an inspiration and lesson to
his people, frescoes which depict the creation of the world,
mankind’s degradation by sin, the divine wrath of the deluge
and preservation of Noah and his family.’
Here are 5 key changes that can help re-energize our
creative briefs and make them smarter and sexier:
From complex jargon to simple
expressions
Don’t try to impress with how much mumbo-jumbo you know,
try to simplify the task at hand.
Rather than saying, ‘Increase TOM and brand saliency’ it’s
much better to say, ‘Make the brand famous’.
Instead of ‘Enhance width and depth of consumption’, why
not ‘Get more and more people to use more’.