Skimpy briefs should be banned

I’m not saying agencies are perfect, far from it in fact, but if you really want to investigate the source of the majority of really awful advertising and communications then take a long hard look in the mirror.  For some reason many clients think they are at least as expert, indeed some even more so, than the agencies they’ve engaged. They don’t make suggestions - they bark orders with a level of confidence in their creative ability that can suggest advanced megalomania! What’s surprising is that this kind of behaviour is rarely seen with client-lawyer, client-accountant, client-IT consultant, or even personal relationships such as patient-doctor but all too often, when the monthly meeting with the agency comes round in the calendar, many clients forget that they are an engineer/accountant/whatever by training and become marketing gurus – with all too often desperate consequences.

Having said this, the client is the most important contributor to the very best communications, indeed behind every great campaign is a great client – typically for two reasons. 

Firstly, and most importantly, the client is responsible for the brief.  Show me an awful advert and I’ll guarantee there was a brief full of holes, not thought through, totally lacking in coherence and with ambition that is not matched with any sense of reality. A brief is the distillation of all knowledge and understanding of a product, service, competition and market – some liken it to a map setting the direction but this doesn’t go far enough - the best briefs inform, yes, but they also inspire and excite.  They have you gasping for air and set your mind into overdrive causing you to think about them night and day, in the car, shower, when watching a film – the best briefs talk to you when you’re asleep and have you wake up in the middle of the night saying “oh yes I’ve got it”. Sometimes what clients regard as being a brief beggars belief.  “I want something creative that will blow them away and double footfall” is the sort of thing that is all too often heard in the briefing meeting. “Crap In, Crap Out” is the response that has been heard from just about every creative department as whilst there’s nothing wrong with the goal of doubling footfall, or achieving this creatively, this just isn’t a brief.  So what’s needed to make a great brief?  The most important and helpful thing a client can do is to answer three simple questions:

• Who is the target audience?
• What do they currently think and do?
• And what do we want them to think and do?

And the key here is the understanding of what your target audience currently thinks because if we want to change their “doing” we need to first change their thinking and to do this highly effectively we need to know what they are thinking right now – then, armed with this knowledge, we can set about changing their thinking, through clever communications, which will in turn change their “doing”. As simple as this is, all too often clients don’t actually know what their target audience is thinking indeed some don’t even know who their target audience is and substitute themselves instead with dire consequences.

The second thing great clients do is recognise great creative work when they see it and to achieve this you need to turn off your own personal views, preferences, likes and dislikes.  I would suggest that the best work of nearly every agency has never ever been seen outside their offices as the client has rejected it because “I don’t like it”.  Well let me ask you some questions – are you the target audience? Do you buy your products and services? Do you even use your own products and services? If the answer to any of these is “No”, and it will be for most, find a way of suspending your own prejudice, otherwise you’ll run the serious risk of passing over something that might transform your business. Scott Bedbury, the client from Nike who approved the creative idea of “Just Do It” told me that this line might never have seen the light of day if he’d listened to his own head rather than the persuasive arguments of the creative geniuses who thought it up – that would be like the record company who passed up the chance of signing The Beatles for the reason that they “can’t see much of a future for guitar bands”!

Rather than expend your energy as a critic instead use your creativity in the writing and crafting of an excellent and full brief – you will be richly rewarded.