A creative briefing is a birthday party
PART 4 IN A SERIES ABOUT THE PRACTICE OF CREATIVE BRIEFING
When I turned 9, maybe it was 10, no one showed up for my birthday party.
Now, it turned out there had been lots of confusion about the date of the party, and a bad cold had been making the rounds of my friends. And we had only invited maybe eight people, soâperfect stormâIâm waiting with the cake and no one shows up to help eat it.
On the other hand, I have memories of absurd delight on birthdays. Turning 50 was a hoot.
All those emotions, all that tingly sensation are a big part of what itâs like to receive a creative brief.
Natal days come packed with delicious tension. How could they not? You know itâs around the corner. You might see preparations happening days and weeks ahead. You might think everyone has forgotten. You might hope everyoneâs forgotten. And all of a sudden thereâs this profound changeâa new number, a new age to mark your existence. Also, maybe a sense of potential? Could this be the year thatâŠ?
Hence the metaphor. There really isnât a moment in business quite like a creative briefing. Well, maybe hiring and firing compare on a âlife changingâ level. But few moments in a career for an Ideas Person offer such dramatic prospects.
I have received hundreds of creative briefs, and helped author a few dozen. Some were hoot-like moments. Most were not. The word âsurrealâ doesnât quite do any of them justice. Which is why I think itâs absolutely worth exploring this odd juncture where thereâs a sense of revelry and concern, pressure and releaseâitâs a celebration of sorts, an inflection occurs, the world changes, the field is open to run. And maybe thereâs some stale donuts. But letâs back up a moment.
My sense is most writing about creative briefs, typically instructive, is done by those who typically author creative briefs (i.e. strategists like Scaman, Cole, Goodwin, Yakob). That perspective is valuable indeed; but itâs one side of the table. My goal in this series is to offer the point of view of the brief recipient, those tasked with doing something from a briefâwriting, designing, art directing, creative directing, coding, extrapolating, and otherwise unearthing and honing an idea.
As briefing itself asserts: Know Thy Audience. Thatâs why I started this series in the Fog, the metaphoric realm into which a brief recipient journeys right after the briefing ends. Part two argues for the business necessity inherent in creative briefingâi.e. without a brief, everyone is just guessing. Part three expands on strategy as vital infrastructure used by Idea People in the Fog.
And now weâre here.
In the room where it happens.
For all the drama, I suspect a movie about a creative briefing wouldnât land. On the one hand, the right creative brief can forever alter careers. (âHello, Oscar!â) Or it could be just another meeting. (âUhhh, can we get another writer on this?â) Odds are good it will be the latter. And weâll dive into why that is in another post.
But letâs channel our inner Robert McKee and eke out a narrative starting with all the feats occurring prior to a creative briefing.
The backstory goes something like this:
Thereâs a business issue. Itâs bad. Really bad. Imagine Brian Coxâs character skulking into a dimly lit conference room, the chart in his hands illuminating disaster for shareholders and employees alike. The room darkens further as he delivers the blow. Then we shuffle through the depressed faces of the executive team (imagine the best character actors money can buy), maybe cutaway to what theyâre about to lose (homes, respect, secrets)⊠before Keira Knightleyâs persona perks up.
Letâs slow burn this.
You see Keiraâs dramatis personae leads Strategy. She knows the power of the ellipses⊠and carefully unravels a way in which Marketing (and maybe itâs something more tactical with a better buzzword) has the potential to address the business issue effectively; reverse course potentially. Could it be? Now editorially, you probably want to hold here for a bit⊠see some of those infamous character actor reactionsâa mix of curiosity and dismissal, a sip of a beverageâbuild the tensionâŠafter all, did she step in it, orâŠ? Until Brianâs role huffs out approvalâsomething akin to âthe clock is ticking.â The arc has shifted.
However, since this is an A24 production, letâs keep the somber mood rolling as we flash cut through months of audience definition. We see Keiraâs team working late nights and weekends to uncover a specific mindset relevant to the business issue, and maybe even a specific type of moment in which the issue resonates loudest. Imagine conference rooms littered with Post-It Notes, and Zoom calls from coffee shops while laundry churns across the street. Spouses walking in on virtual focus groups. At least one of the team burns out because this is a movie.
HARD CUT to an Important Meeting. (Remind Hans Zimmer the score shouldnât shift from minor to major tonality just yet.) This isnât the birthday exactly, but if youâre a strategist it feels like senior prom meets your second wedding ceremony. And thereâs Powerpoint! Keiraâs character leads us through the reveal of a Strategy. Itâs the Don Draper âCarouselâ scene but earlier, when someone not Don figured out the slide projector was really about memory and nostalgiaâand then they wrote a brief and Don came up with the bit about it being a Time Machine. So itâs not a Big Advertising or Design or Comms Idea⊠yet. But because of the strategy thereâs energy and enthusiasm and palpable hope that ideas could exist which would motivate the audience to change, and thus affect the business issue in a way thatâs profitable for us. The character actors murmur enthusiasm. Brian Coxâs character canât admit heâs thrilled because heâs seen this fail before and also we need the drama to sustain; but letâs be honestâhe knows Keiraâs team just pulled everyoneâs bacon from the fire.
So now weâve got some confidence solutions exist; we just havenât landed on the exact words or images or design or UX or the shape of the product or any of that âcreativeâ stuff yet. But thereâs hope, right? Hereâs where the typical ad or design or digital or experiential teams get put on notice: A Creative Brief is Imminent. The Pleasure of Your Company Is Requested on Such and Such Date and Time at a Location of Great Import.
Itâs time for the birthday party.
So letâs think about the invite list. Who needs to be in the room where it happens? And, for that matter, can we also talk about the room itself?
Stepping back from our movie for a moment, letâs discuss the roles in a creative briefing.
As asserted earlier, weâve essentially got two sides: Those whoâve authored the Brief, and those who will receive it (and go create ideas as a result). And weâve got additional roles like account teams and project management; which, for the sake of narrative efficiency, weâll label as Supporting Roles. No offense meant to all the amazing account directors and project managers I knowâbut this isnât your movie.
I was in a briefing once with 30 people. We can talk about the efficacy of having six creative pairs working on an assignment. But in this case, we had two strategists leading the briefing, plus the 12 creative people and then 16 supporting roles. Iâm not sure we needed 53% of the room filled with people not directly involved in either writing the brief or receiving it.
Conversely, Iâve been in creative briefings where several creatives didnât feel the need to show upâthey sent a partner, said theyâd catch up later. And in all candor: Thatâs Lame. Also stupid. The baby only gets born once, so itâs worth whatever it takes to insure youâre there.
Which is another way of saying anyone whoâs going to have to make something based on the brief ought to be in the room. This includes production artists and producers and coders; especially if timing is critical. I have been amazed how many times a brief is delivered, a conversation is imminentâa conversation that could change our careers!âand⊠one of our Idea Persons had more important things to do? Little secret of agencies in general here: They are often very busy, and understaffed. (Itâs the business model.) So it is entirely conceivable an art director could be under the gun to organize files for Assignment 12 while the briefing for Assignment 13 is underway. This is where project managers earn their pay, and shift expectations so the art director can attend the briefing.
Thatâs one of side of the room: The Recipients.
On the other side are the Authors.
As I argued previously, we need the smartest possible person authoring the brief. So we need them in the room, too. Whomever has the best grasp of the underlying business issue, whomever has wrestled with the gods to define the strategy, must be present. (âFive minutes to set, Ms. Knightley!â) Maybe this is one person or maybe itâs three or sixâdoesnât matter so long as theyâre present to add value. Oh, and that value could very well be a Client Whisperer.
Ignore some of what I said a few paragraphs previous. You might have a person on the team who is extremely savvy when it comes to Discerning The Mind of The Person Who Will Buy the Idea, and they may not be a strategist or a creative-labelled individual. This extremely valuable person should be in the room too, since a critical part of comprehending a brief is comprehending the people who inspired its need in the first place. Also, this unique person is probably going to be instrumental in selling whatever we come up with, so having them in the room makes selling ideas all that much easier.
The point is, weâre not casting meeting attendees to fill chairs or entertain. But thereâs no point in hosting a briefing if the best possible cast canât attend. No oneâs standing in for Kiera Knightley.
Weâve got our cast.
Time to party! Or, more accurately, talk.
More than anything, a creative briefing is a conversation.
Youâve seen this before: The clever girls plan the clever thing, the criminals plan the crime, the pilots plan the mission. Thereâs spirited debate, thereâs foreshadowing, maybe we CG a 3D floorpan of the museum and animate the route past the lasers. Itâs back and forth, itâs âsay that again but differently,â itâs charades and innuendo and scribbling on paper. All the movie tropes to signal this is more than just another meeting.
So weâve got Ms. Knightley. Sheâs attended by a small cadre of whip smart strategists. Then our Recipients have to be played by a mixed bag of scene stealers alongside whomever is our superstar Idea Person(s â could be an ensemble cast). Itâll be brilliant. Mamet will rewrite the dialogue.
In between these two parties is a document. The Brief. And weâll spend plenty of time on the document itself in the next post, but for now the brief instigates a search for understanding between the authors whoâve spent time comprehending the business issue and its attendant audience, and the recipients now tasked with converting insights into motivating words and images and motion and interaction.
Not to spoil the ending, but whatâs said here in this moment is everything.
It should last as long as it needs to. And it should include those who might make it as effective as possible. I donât think you can understate the economic value of the time spent talking here. Maybe donât schedule a briefing for only an hour, or before other meetings, or right before a four day vacation. You want to leave time for the conversation to last as long as it needs to.
And then thereâs the room itself.
On the one hand, it doesnât matter? But then again, I suspect the room has more impact than we give credit. This gets into the whole mechanics and theater of the briefing moment which is worth discussing further, and later. Suffice to say, enough space, enough chairs, enough light, the HVAC, the roomâs decor, any lingering detritusâit all communicates? Imagine a birthday party gone wrong. How much of that wrongness was attributed to the ambiance, the venue, our ability to access it, what we sensed upon entering?
*But Wait Thereâs a Pandemic and Look, Weâre All Working Remotely From Now On Caveat: What if we canât meet in person? Or what if some of the team are on location for another project, canât we just do this via Zoom? Of course you can. The âroomâ is whatever we need it to be but the rules still applyâand even more so. This meeting is different than any other type of meeting. It needs to create unique energy and facilitate transformation. Whatever that requires you to do to achieve those attributes and outcomes through the screen, do it.
The point is (to return to our movie metaphor), if the casting matters so does the production design whether thatâs in person or virtual. Itâs worth the investment.
Now, if youâre invited to a birthday, maybe youâre expected to do certain things? These are a few of my unwritten rules for people in a creative briefing.
If youâre receiving a creative brief, it helps to assume good intent
Iâve suggested the odds of receiving an inspired creative brief are low, but thatâs a poor excuse for acting the jerk. As noted, writing a brilliant brief is likely harder than finding and crafting a brilliant idea. Assume those who authored and are sharing the brief put in magnificent effort. Idea People are going to need help later on, so donât burn bridges at the start of the journey.
If youâre receiving a creative brief, you need to ask questionsâas much to confirm youâre paying attention as to help illuminate the subject at hand
Per the bit above about conversation, the whole point of a briefing isnât âOne party talks and the other party listens. The end.â Your job as an Ideas Person involves interpretation and re-contextualization; itâs not passive. More to the point, the brief is not set in stone. It absolutely is open to interpretation and questioning. It is entirely the questioning, and the conversation that helps the brief make even more sense.
Oh, andâŠ
If youâre presenting a creative brief, you should require questions to be asked
Maybe consider the briefing a mild failure if there arenât questions? Itâs kind of ludicrous to assume the toner on the page is enough. Consider our filmmaking construct: An actor like Brian Cox isnât going to blindly accept and recite a script. They want to understand the motivations behind the words. They want the backstory. Iâve seen plenty of actors cross out the staging description and characterization, leaving only the dialogue. This could be another way of saying how a brief is received and interpreted matters an awful lot and if you wrote one, you really want and welcome the marking up and the re-writing to some degree?
Oh, andâŠ
If youâre at a creative briefing, please donât confuse the brief with a legal document
If youâre attending a briefing and harboring the suspicion a creative brief is literalâit is not. Itâs the start of an idea process, not the end.
Remain until itâs clear
I mean, within reason? The underlying concern here is too many briefings are scheduled for a fixed period, which triggers all kinds of weird energy when the period arrives. Especially if things are not especially making a whole lot of sense yet. Which is why a briefing is more like a birthday than a stand up scrum. Itâs special. Give it that sensibility when booking the time and allowing for whatever needs to play out to play out.
Leave an escape clause
Because of course weâre busy and other projects are bursting and the children need attending. Create a time and space very soon after the original briefing where confirmation can occur. Maybe thereâs cake left over. But donât keep meeting over and over.
I think thereâs one really good way to evaluate if a creative briefing was successful. Simple question:
Was it profound?
You walked in feeling one thing; did you exit feeling fervent, perspicacious, tingly? The best creative briefs have a way of altering the fabric of the cosmos somewhat. The briefing changes your outlook, changes you. AgainâIâm writing from the perspective of the recipient, those charged with creating as a result of receiving the brief.
In retrospect these moments ought to have heft and significance. Mutation of some kind should occurâafter all, thatâs why weâve bothered to create a creative brief in the first place.