What's in a 'great' creative brief?

Marketing and advertising are all about reaching the right audience at the right time and with the right communication, they say, but what ensures that the sum of it is greater than the whole is the creative brief.

In fact, the Father of Advertising, David Ogilvy, once said, “Give me the freedom of a tight brief!” But what is this creative brief and what should it entail to ensure that curiosity doesn’t kill the cat and it helps make communication better, BestMediaInfo.com reached out to ad agency professionals on what is it that they look for in a ‘great’ creative brief.

Agnello Dias

In the views of Agnello Dias, a.k.a Aggy, brand consultant, a really good brief stems from a product/category truth that leads to an insight leaving one at a take-off point. 

“A constraining brief is one that does not stop at the take-off point but goes on to prescribe the landing point. In other words, it almost mandates a creative solution. So, an ideal brief has three broad parts- It stems from a product/category truth, it finds a fresh insight and it stops at the right point,” he said.

Harshad Rajadhyaksha

According to Harshad Rajadhyaksha, Chief Creative Officer, Ogilvy, there are three main things that he looks for in a great creative brief- a singular focus on what the work needs to achieve, a precise idea of who the communication should talk to and a relevant and inspiring human insight that the creative process can build on. 

“Of course, there can be other additional elements that could help, but I like it when creative briefs are indeed ‘brief’ and don’t run on into pages! It just means that effort has been taken to cull out unnecessary distractions that could often lead to muddled work,” he added.

Amer Jaleel

In the views of Amer Jaleel, Creative Entrepreneur and Former CCO and Chairman, Mullen Lowe Lintas Group, the biggest mistake that people make in writing a creative brief is that they think that it is something that leads to creativity, which is absolutely wrong! 

“A creative brief should itself be written around a creative idea. The idea has to be in the brief. The writers and art people and digital strategists are supposed to take off from the idea. They’re supposed to execute the idea which is why it’s the job of senior creative heads to write the brief with or without the contribution of anybody else,” he said.

He also went on to add that the other big mistake that people make is stopping for the sequencing of the process, no good has ever come out of handing the work to strategy guys and then waiting endlessly for them to give something useful. 

“Kill the chronology of the brief. Give it to the whole lot at once. Let them figure it out. Mash, mix and have someone to recognise the idea when it jumps out. Now brief the creative team,” he said.

Manish Bhatt

According to Manish Bhatt, Founder and Director, Scarecrow M&C Saatchi, the primary reason for any brief is to basically figure out what exactly is the objective- whether it is to increase the footfall in the retail outlet, a new launch, communicating a benefit to the consumer, etc.

“Once you figure out the objective, then you get to what the target audience is because the tone or voice of the campaign needs to go along with it. It can be a consistent voice or taking a slightly different tone to talk to the youth. So, it all depends on what tonality you want to add up for a particular campaign, particular ad, or brand. If it's a macro campaign, then you probably understand what is the story- whether it is to be derived from the brand’s story or what's new in the context of category, consumer life, etc.” he said.

He then went on to add that while creating awareness is a very generic need of the marketer, one must keep in mind that if the product holds a great story to tell in terms of what it is inspired from and what culture it reflects amongst others, then it in itself becomes a good story to tell.

“That's a primary thing because it's like that of musk deer. People just run around the whole jungle to find the musk, but it actually resides in the navel of the deer,” he added.

Mithila Saraf

Mithila Saraf, Chief Executive Officer, Famous Innovations, also stated that an excellent creative brief does two things- it clarifies and it inspires. Typically, when the brief comes from clients, the agency looks for things like background, business context, marketing context, desired consumer group, the desired outcome and their core product truths, but then what they do is take it to the next level by decoding the right consumer insight that they need to tap into to connect with the consumers on the client has defined and evoke the desired outcome.

With all of these materials, a creative brief starts to form shape and becomes clear, even though a good creative brief takes things to the next level by inspiring the reader- with some references, examples of great work in the category or outside the category as that could be a thought starter, she opined.

“Our creative briefs have two sections that go beyond the usual. One is a section called ‘What’s the act’ in which we ask our teams to take whatever idea they have and try to bring it live in a tangible way through an act, an experience, or a product innovation. Second, is a section called ‘What If’ which says if we were to dissolve all constraints of the brief, if you could do anything in this world to solve this problem, what would it be? We’ve often found that these two questions get us the best ideas. But they cannot exist without complete clarity on the seemingly boring stuff I mentioned earlier. A creative brief delivers clarity and inspiration, and it must do both because neither can live without the other,” she said.

Info@BestMediaInfo.com