“Why are we even doing this?”
Have you ever been asked that question by your boss about some communications initiative you’re working on? It’s a lousy feeling because it means the merit of your project is not self-evident.
Creative briefs help eliminate this situation because they ask the tough questions right off the top and get everybody on the same page.
One of the misconceptions about creative briefs is that they’re some sort of whimsy of advertising types, a preliminary step or extra hoop to jump through before the real work begins. Not so! Think of the creative brief as an integral part of the creative process.
The rigour of filling out a creative brief is designed to help uncover any weaknesses or flaws in your assumptions about the project and provide answers to these sorts of questions (you know, the kind your boss might ask):
• Is this piece aligned with your communications strategies?
• Do you have a really strong fix on the audience you want to target?
• What’s your tone and personality with this crowd?
• Do you have any insights with this group that indicate this is the right approach (maybe an online video would work better instead of a booklet)?
• What do you want them to believe and what proof points do you have to make them believe it?
• What action are you trying to inspire and how will you know if you’ve succeeded?
These are the sorts of unblinking inquiries a brief forces you to address. Nothing focuses the mind quite like having goals and objectives written down in black and white with signatures affixed! But the good news is going through this process leaves you well equipped to defend your strategies within your organization.
Yes, a creative brief can seem like a lot of work and with busy days and mounting deadlines, it can be tempting to give the process short shrift. But do resist that temptation. Taking the time to generate solid information for the brief is far more efficient and cheaper than going through multiple rounds of creative that needlessly miss the target.
Equally damaging is the drain on the collective intellectual and creative energies of everyone concerned. We all want to produce a terrific piece that achieves its objectives and that we can be proud of. The first step is a thorough creative brief.
Then the question you’ll be dealing with is, “Why didn’t we do this sooner?”

Posted by: Emmanuel