Successful Creative Briefs should link business objectives and creative strategies together.
In-house creative teams should be looked upon as trusted, value added problem solvers. A creative brief when properly developed and adhered to will promote internal power partnerships and eliminate power struggle.
Call them what you will – “creative briefs,” “design briefs,” “marketing briefs,” “communications briefs,” or even “objectives and strategies statements” – the actual name is less important than helping creative and marketing professionals to fully understand and appreciate their potential value to any design initiative within your organization. The reality is, however, that many designers and their clients have yet to completely embrace the creative brief as a vital part of the design process to share valuable information, build consensus, align expectations, and set clear objectives. The creative brief – when properly developed and adhered to – is one of the most valuable tools in the design process, providing a vital connection between business objectives and creative strategies. For clients, account managers, and creatives, a clear and well-prepared design brief can help make a project, just as a long-winded and unfocused brief can lead to its ultimate demise. While briefs should be customized to each individual discipline, company, and project, there are some common techniques that you can use to help ensure that your organization is not only creating impactful briefs, but also getting the most out of them.
The Creative Brief: What is it and Who Decides Whether to Use One?
The creative brief is a written document that summarizes – comprehensively and concisely – both the business and creative requirements for a specific project or relationship. It is not a proposal, RFP or initiation form, but instead the brief details the overriding business objectives. A brief digs deep into a project and identifies the main factors that drive the entire creative strategy.
When developed by clients or designers working independently of each another, cut and pasted from pre-existing irrelevant documents, or written on the fly without any significant customer, market or competitive research, a creative brief can become more a hindrance than a driving force in the overall design process. If half-heartedly put together without the input of key stakeholders, it can actually confuse a project’s overarching goals while sabotaging any real chance for success.
But if properly developed, a brief can mean stronger business results and a more cohesive and efficient creative process. “A well-written design brief is a written agreement, or contract, between the parties involved with the project,” writes Peter L. Phillips in his book Creating the Perfect Design Brief: How to Manage Design for Strategic Advantage. “A design brief is also a road map, if you will, that defines the various steps that will be followed from the inception of the project to its completion. Design briefs must include a considerable amount of both business strategy and design strategy.” As Phillips himself admits in his book, he is “quite taken” with the title “innovation brief,” a term commonly used in Europe, because he likes what it implies about design being an innovative or strategic business process.
The One-Size-Fits-All Brief Often Fails to Fit Anyone
The individual tasked with writing a brief must understand that the document cannot cover everything, from high-level strategy to print specs. The most effective brief begins with a templated format that can be automated, easily completed, and customized to meet specific client needs.
Demonstrating the Brief’s Value – and Your Own – to the Client
Tell the client in every communication that the brief is an integral part of your process. If they know about the brief in advance, they can allow time in their budget and schedule for it. Include a description of what the brief is and its purpose as a deliverable during the planning phase and you’ll likely get more clients to sign on for this step of the process.
When the designer is not directly involved in developing the creative brief, miscommunication and misunderstandings can arise. On the other hand, when designers participate and lead in the process of creating a design brief, they express and reinforce the value of their insight and contribution. They also reiterate their role as the client’s partner, rather than a vendor, an artist or someone who simply executes ideas, and ensure buy-in to the entire process. Clients who include designers in the research and development process gain from the designers' insight and industry expertise. Both benefit from a mutually agreed upon set of expectations, objectives, and success criteria.
If you are a designer handed an already finished creative brief, you must decide how to best interject yourself into the brief’s development process without disregarding – or alienating – the client. Instead of discounting work already done, simply rename the document (for instance, as an objective and strategy document) and build upon what’s there, adding your own thoughts to make it even more useful. This way, you demonstrate that you appreciate your client’s efforts, and you prove your own value and willingness to collaborate. Many designers fail to be seen as total partners because they work on a “one-off” project basis without selling more integrated, bigger-picture strategic thinking. Whether based on your client’s initial information or created jointly with them, the creative brief is one way to incorporate strategy into the relationship and be seen as valuable, long-term asset.
Writing Your Brief: Who to Include and When to Begin?
Anyone with a true stake in the project should play an active role in the brief’s development, including the entire creative team and the client’s key stakeholders. Identify those responsible for writing the brief, and most importantly guiding/managing the project both internally and externally. Also include those individuals who contribute both internally and externally, as well as those who have the necessary insight into the project and the clout and expertise to make all critical decisions during the process – the approvers.
Briefs are best written at the start of any relationship, prior to the development of a specific design solution, but after the research and discovery phase. The process of developing a creative brief generally includes the following steps: identifying key stakeholders, decision makers and those individuals on your team who will be part of the process; reviewing any relevant background material provided by the client (including existing market research, business plans, audience profiles, branding guidelines, etc.); conducting a planning meeting with the client and stakeholders; conducting research to dig deep into individual issues and preferences before arriving at a collective decision; discussing conclusions and key information gathered from the research; discussing creative strategies; obtaining stakeholder buy-in to conclusions; and finally, drafting and issuing the brief for feedback and final approval.
The brief should provide a clear set of expectations and summarize everything you’re learned during this process, including findings and related recommendations. It’s your opportunity to align the client’s business objectives with your creative strategy. Depending on how extensive the research is, and how long any feedback and approval takes, the entire creative brief process can take anywhere between 1 week to 3 months.
Typically the account person crafts the brief since they are closest to the client. “Ideally it’s a working session with the account person and the entire creative team to reach consensus on the brief’s content. Afterwards, one person on the team writes the actual brief based on the meeting’s results, and this document then goes to the client for input and buy-in.”
Content Guidelines for a Compelling Brief
Although there is no one “right” way to develop a creative brief, there are certain guidelines you should consider following when beginning the crafting process (keeping in mind that to be most constructive, any content should be customized for each specific project or relationship).
A Good Brief Cuts to the Chase…
Economy of words is key, you are defining the space within which the creative team should design and then you need to let them do their job. The objective is to set goal posts for them without infringing on their territory.
Mark Twain’s quotes, “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead,” to illustrate his point that it’s more challenging to write a short brief because more time is needed to polish the content – and that means more time up front defining and refining objectives and strategies to make them specific and targeted.
There’s a direct correlation between design and strategy. If the creative is off that means the initial strategy – and the creative brief – missed the mark.
Conclusion
Because the creative brief is intended to be a comprehensive strategic map for the entire design project, it’s essential that all key team members be involved from the outset. For the designer, the brief can reinforce you as a strategic partner in the process. For the client, failing to include the creative team likely means they won’t be fully immersed in the project or your objectives. By collaborating with the designer from the beginning of a project, you will ensure their buy-in and understanding, gain from their creative expertise, and have a clear, mutually agreed upon outline of goals and success criteria.
Make sure your brief is a user-friendly, visually-appealing document that people will actually make time to read. Each design organization must create its own specific set of standards, processes, and guidelines when developing a brief. As the first tangible results of any collaboration between client and designer, the creative brief can be a meaningful barometer of the interest – and ability – of both groups to forge a working relationship that encourages teamwork, honest discussion, and clear, open lines of communication. In the end, I think what matters most is that creative and marketing professionals understand the potential value of this important business tool to any design initiative and toward building a solid, mutually rewarding partnership.
