PART 3 IN A SERIES ABOUT THE PRACTICE OF CREATIVE BRIEFING

Let’s say you want a thing to occur in the world. The thing could be more people buying a product. Or fewer people believing a policy means something it doesn’t. Maybe you want specific employees to behave a specific way. Or you want loyal customers to remain loyal despite a potent allure to do otherwise. You want some change to happen, or not happen—and it begs the question, what’s the infrastructure behind [making things occur]?

If you’re a CEO or magically in full control of an organization then you can try and manifest whatever you want with edicts. But even then, a grade or two below you, are people tasked with operationalizing the occurring you seek. And part of that realm is what we call Strategy. Another part is what I’ll call Idea Making, so we can have two sides to a coin: Strategy and [The Outcome of Strategy; i.e. Idea Making].

Of course, there are operations and technology and HR and finance and all that lurking behind any organization making things occur, but let’s focus on strategy for now. 

Strategy is a role in a hierarchy, it’s also a collection of skills and outcomes; and it has all kinds of different meanings to differing industries and types of organizations. There can be pricing strategy, talent acquisition strategy, various forms of technology strategy, etc. 

Broadly speaking, strategy is about setting context, defining definitions, asserting rules, revealing insights, initiating way-finding and ultimately architecting How That Thing We Want to Occur Can Occur. Strategy is a kind of verb; it is a kind of do-ing. 

So when strategy occurs, there might be lots of meetings, and white boards and various types of research and articulations and revisions; and if this were set in Hollywood there would have to be passionate arguments and a “lightbulb” moment. But eventually there’s going to be a document. Toner on paper and/or pixels on a screen accompanied by a presenter’s voice over which organizes all of the above so the people who are meant to receive the strategy document and then Make Ideas have a better chance of success. 

In this sense a strategy document is a kind of infrastructure. It supports, it informs, it guides, it encourages, it eases, it simplifies, it clears the way, it sets expectations, it fuels consensus, and otherwise does all kinds of magic up to the point of Making The Idea. Sometimes we experience a series of strategies that build upon each other over time, because that’s the best way to unfold very complex scenarios and maintain enthusiasm and focus with busy people. Strategy 1 defines the business environment then Strategy 2 reveals a relevant audience within that business environment and Strategy 3 further reveals how media impacts specific audience behaviors, and on and on. And strategy could take days or months or years depending. 

But at some point there’s an end to strategy and we’re at a cliff, and we shift to the uncertain realm where ideas supposedly live (i.e what I call The Fog). And this is why infrastructure matters. Venturing into the unknown to uncover an idea is a gamble at best, so the more foundation you’ve got, the more of a tether you’ve got back to the mothership, the more likely you’ll succeed. Or more importantly, the more likely you are to know the ideas you’ve found will work. At least, that’s been the theory.

We build a comforting infrastructure out of words and visuals, and it extends into the foggy space where ideas muck about—and it provides confidence. The strategy is a sounding board, a supply of energy, a route back home for those tasked with Making Ideas… or making the next stage of strategy, I suppose. Strategy sets a reliable anchor upon which to build. Then, after we’ve foraged for ideas, after we’ve vetted the fruits of our labors, honed our scripts and storyboards, the strategy continues to provide useful support. It’s the case work, the proof points, the agreements, upon which the new and risky can thrive.

Before we jump into the specific type of strategy called a Creative Brief, we should note this transition from Strategy to Ideas is all kinds of murky and there really are no rules. I come to the table from a marketing, design and advertising perspective which has its various traditions (one of which is to occasionally deny there are traditions and rules). In my experience, the tipping point between Strategy and Making Ideas is not always clear. But that’s sort of a segue into politics and culture and worthy of an entirely separate post later. All this to say, there are no rules except to do whatever you can afford to, in the time you have, with the resources available, to [Make The Thing Occur] if at all possible. Please. So if this means strategy both architects the infrastructure that leads to an idea, and discovers and builds that idea, then so be it. 

Back to making things occur.

Here’s a diagram I cribbed and amended while working at BBDO. I suspect we all owe Julian Cole credit for figuring this out in the first place. It could also be titled How Design Occurs or How Policy Comes to Fruition and you’d tweak the particulars, but the general thesis remains the same. On the left side it’s a sequence of distillations, which in the best circumstances inevitably lead forward… to inspire an idea… and once we have an idea, then the right side is a way to think about operationalizing modern ideas, with increasing amplification.

Assuming the edict has been rendered: “Make X Occur,” (way over on the far left side, off the page) then the next few steps in strategy would be some version of the following:

Business Issue, i.e. Broadly speaking, is the issue one that marketing/design/policy/technology (whatever your realm) can address? This is a really useful crux because you might learn the thing you want to occur can’t occur via marketing or design or advertising. It’s better addressed via logistics. Or lobbying in Congress. Or pricing. The point here is to set terms for the strategic infrastructure you’re about to build. 

Audience Definition, i.e. The People Who Will Help Make X Occur (if we can persuade them to). There are entire courses and books and webinars on this salient point. What’s worth remembering is that humans and their mindsets are central to the infrastructure of making things occur. So we need to clarify motivations and behaviors as best we can. Which leads to…

Actionable Insight, i.e. For all intents and purposes, this is the unavoidable and very necessary Creative Brief. It is the summary of the two prior points, and the spark to help us discover an idea.

So a Creative Brief is this vital strategic document, often developed after other kinds of strategic documents have made their impact. It sets the stage for the discovery and honing of ideas. 

Who should author a Creative Brief? 

Who’s the engineer behind this infrastructure?

I can’t recall if it was Wes Perrin in Advertising Realities or Jon Steel in Truth, Lies and Advertising, but one of these guys put it simply: The brief should be written by the smartest person available, the person with the most amount of experience and insight into the business issue and the audience’s mindset. This doesn’t mean the author has to be the CEO or a very senior person, but it’s absolutely not work meant for inexperienced labor. 

I’ve been on the receiving end of hundreds of Creative Briefs. This is not a complaint. In the vast majority of circumstances a brief is a welcome privilege and a trusted guide. As noted earlier in this series, when you’re tasked with Make X Occur and X has never occurred before, it certainly helps to have something, anything, to provide some sense X is even discoverable and maybe we’d know what it looks like when we find it. And if the brief can do more—for example, make the effort faster by clearing away uncertainty…or insure a keener understanding of what equals success, then all the better. It is no easy task. But the other, equally important point of a brief is the sense it gives Idea People that they’re not alone in their journey into The Fog.

If we consider a brief is infrastructure, then the integrity of its builder, and quality of its materials matter. If our author is inexperienced, if they treat the assignment as a fill-in-the-blanks exercise, then we’re all just wasting time. The infrastructure will fail. 

Who writes the brief is as important as what’s written. 

The case for affording the most senior, most experienced, most trained person to write the brief is essentially risk analysis. Consider our mandate to Make X Occur. It is unlikely we have unlimited resources to achieve X. A significant part of our task exists in the unknown. Do we:

A) Invest in having the smartest person write the brief—effectively de-risking the unknown as much as that’s possible; and empowering our Idea People

B) Phone in the brief and put all the risk and pressure on Idea People to deliver

I guess it all depends on how much you like risk. And there’s proof of both approaches delivering X, so long as we ignore externalities like sleep, marriage integrity, and joy. But more to the point, when the brief fails… it casts doubt on any resulting ideas. Yes, this fresh, exciting idea appears to be our solution, but until we re-build a strategy underneath, it’s validity and potency are in doubt. You can’t have only one side of the coin. 

Now it might seem obvious based on the chart above, but there’s a question of When Should the Brief Be Written?

Some might argue you begin writing the brief as soon as the Edict is rendered. The moment a strategist is unleashed, the brief begins. Fair enough. And we might be talking about a sequence of strategies, one following another; or a “living” brief that evolves as research and speculation do.

In my experience a creative brief begins to take form soon after the strategist(s) have defined the audience. It’s not enough to have distilled a business issue. As noted earlier, we might begin to research and comprehend business issues only to discover marketing is a less effective tool for addressing things; that a technology strategy or government relations strategy would produce better/faster results. Also, a business issue on its own isn’t particularly juicy. We need the drama, the tension, only humans can deliver. And so once we’ve clarified the demographics and psychographics and maybe even the moment-graphics, once we’ve got a poignant sense of a behavior… then we’re on enough fertile territory to begin crafting a document worth sharing. 

And all of that intelligence gathering can take time. That’s the world of audience journals and focus groups and desktop research. Following the same “smartest person” argument for casting a brief’s author, we can also assert the value in time spent confirming Who our Strategy (and Ideas) have to dance with. Plenty of seemingly brilliant ideas have failed for want of a clearly defined audience—half the coin didn’t exist, so the idea has no relevant grounding. It might seem clever, it might be crafted and beautiful, it might appear brilliant…and yet. We see this any time we react, “Who on earth is this ad for?” Half the recipe is missing. (I’m currently flummoxed by a billboard campaign where I live that proclaims, All Is Not Lost In Local Banking. Who cares about the vibrancy of local banking? It’s an idea untethered from an audience—who are also somehow best persuaded about the merits of local banking while driving 60 m.p.h.?) In the balance of all time spent on a task, I’d often trade more time confirming audience and behavior for less time to nurture ideas. A lesser idea on top of a firm foundation has a chance of growing and improving; but a great idea on top of an ill-conceived insight can get you fired.  

So it might be hours or days or months between “Make X Occur” and the early stages of formal creative brief writing. Your results may vary. I’m writing this from the perspective of the brief recipient. My experience suggests those of you writing a brief need to know enough, to have postulated and proven enough in the strategy trenches, to write something potent. Considering the infrastructure metaphor, the question of When is really a question of how much strategery is enough? Only you and your team in your moment will know the answer. 

What will be certain, what I’ve seen time and again, is that the moment for writing the brief is filled with delicious energy. You can feel the need, the possibility, the urgency. The piecing together of the strategy puzzle has its own allure, similar to that odd moment when ideas reveal themselves. There is a kind of magnetic sensation that the time is now. Your team will sense it. And I say this because there is a point where strategy can go on too long. It is entirely possible to grind in strategy mode until the engine seizes and the entire effort grinds to a halt. I’m reminded of a client who, after more than 12 months of audience research and strategy testing was asked when we would shift to creating (and testing!) ideas. “But then we’d be doing something,” he remarked. Those moments get etched in your soul.

We live in a world that celebrates and desires ideas, new ways of perceiving our surroundings. And sometimes the path to an idea is short and comes without effort. And then there is the real world. It’s in this place where craft and rigor and practice bear fruit—where we recognize ideas come from somewhere and it might be wise to outfit ourselves, to build tools and foundation to support that idea-finding effort. 

And so there is strategy. And so there is the creative brief, a microcosm of strategy. 

The next steps in this series will dive into the politics, theater, organizational psychology and process of using creative briefs.