BetterBriefs reposted this
Actual conversation in 2022... Big Boss: Should we bring in an agency for this? Me: God no. We don’t even know what this product is, much less the problem it’s supposed to solve. I had flashbacks to my agency days — when a younger version of myself would’ve spun his wheels, trying to crack the brief while the goalposts kept moving. Clients tangled up in internal politics, unable to agree on anything, leaving the team and me thrashing, trying to make it all work. I thought I deserved a trophy for saving our agency partners from this chaos... Didn’t happen. We are working with BetterBriefs, founded by former agency strategists Pieter-Paul von Weiler and Matt Davies, whose 2021 global study found a ⅓ of marketing budgets are wasted because of bad briefs and misguided work. I believe it. I’ve lived it. Show of hands who else... Too many marketers think the creative process will magically straighten out their strategies, instead of having a clear strategy to start with. 60% admitted as much, according to the same study. Simple rule: If there isn’t a well-defined marketing strategy, there can be no creative brief. Yet, how many marketers are brave enough to admit when there’s no real strategy—and take a step back to define one? #betterbriefs #marketing #creativity #brand #innovation
Love this topic, and particularly in B2B - where the brief tends to either be 1) Loose, not focused with zero substantiation, customer insights or kpi's or 2) contains the kitchen sink. As an agency side marketer, I've found the more we can be involved in crafting the brief with the client, the stronger the output is from round 1.
This is very interesting for lots of reasons—agency as a solution to product probably happens a lot. These situations must lead to a lot of revenue for agencies—chaos welcome??
Big boss! Defining the problem is everything.
🏆
So well said my friend. And one of the many reasons I miss working with you! At the end, the question in my mind is always WHY not HOW. The former informs the latter.
Exactly! I was just talking with Julie Michelle Morris about this yesterday. So many companies want to skip right into “getting it done” without having figured out what “it” actually is. If the strategy doesn’t lead the creative, there’s a huge opportunity cost.
Preach 🙌🏼
Always the voice of reason Markus.
Head of Advertising at Virgin Media O2
1moIn my experience clients who have been agency-side are less prone to let this happen