Client Brief questions

Why do clients write briefs?

Clients write briefs for agencies to make sure the agencies employees are making the most out of their expertise. This means they produce more efficient and more high quality work. The brief needs a lot of preparation because everything else flows following it. The most high quality solutions that agencies come up with are all due to the precise and thoughtful brief given to them. This helps the agency members to use their specialist skills, inspiration and imagination to produce the best work possible.

Clients also write briefs because they save time and money. Without a direction for the agency members, they do not come up with solutions, leading to a waste of both parties time and the clients money. If the agencies get the work done to a high enough standard the first time, it is much for efficient for both sides, leading to money and time well spent. When nothing is clear, it leads to a lack of discipline and motivation for the agencies and a huge amount of wastefullness. Even though writing the brief can be timely, it pays off in the long term and actually saves a lot of time in the future.

The third reason is because it makes remuneration a lot fairer. The employees lack responsibility for the huge amounts of money that they spend. However, they agree that they can't get paid by results without agreed business objectives which means a brief has to be written in order to achieve this. A written brief that includes objectives and a success criteria is the answer to any piece of work, and helps members to get the remuneration they deserve.

3 principals behind a good brief:

Although a balance between a written and a verbal brief is ideal, written briefs are more important. It forces agencies to meet your requests, and have no excuses for not doing so. Verbal briefs allow the members to negotiate and cover up for not being able to complete these tasks which is not what the clients want to hear from them. If there are many parties involved, they should all come together to write a written brief to cover it all formally. Writing the brief sets a focus and expectation of the workers with clarity to maximise efficiency. Businesses may have over three or four agencies that they use on projects and have to brief all of them in what they want them to do. They can do this by holding meetings where they can all contribute into what the brief should include.

A brief doesn't have to be too long to be effective or what is needed of an agency. In fact, briefs are meant to be summaries of what is expected of them. Too much information could confuse the members and lead to a lack of motivation due to not having a clear idea of what they have to accomplish. A good brief should contain good bits of information to guide the agencies to the right direction with key objectives. If it is uplifting and inspiring, it could lead the employees enthusiastic about the project, gaining a sufficient amount of motivation in the process.

Overall, the main aim of a brief is to get the agencies to do the aims set, which is whether need clear and defined objectives. If these objectives are clear and detailed, you will receive the exact work you asked for. The business should make sure to state exactly what the business problem is; the more information told, the easier it is to solve. Since the agencies are paid upfront on an agreed price, businesses should include loads of steps the agencies have to do to get their moneys worth.

Elements a good brief contains  (1-2 sentences on each)

Project management - You should include the basic bits of information are provided in the brief. For example, the date, project name, brand, company, agency ETC.

Describing the current position of the brand, its background, and key issues - The brief should contain the product/service description, manufacturing delivery, distribution channels, market size, customer usage data, and the competitive brands this one faces.

Where the brand wants to be - A goal should be set that is achievable, and destination in the long term that may be hard to reach.  However, a measurable aim for the brand usually leads to the best rate of success. For example, improving sales, brand image or reputation.

What they are doing with the agency - Marketing and communications strategy are essential to the project therefore the agency has to have a full understanding of everything about them. The strategy  has to also be part of your long term business plan. You may be working with more than one agency, however, they all need to know the whole campaign strategy. This is by describing the campaign plan and including briefs within it for the whole project.

Who they will need to talk to - All communications need responses, however the business needs to prioritise some due to their product usage or attitudes. If the agency goes above and beyond, the brand is more likely to want to give them the best platform to work on.

Knowing success or failure - The agency and the brand both need to know if they have succeeded or failed. They can do this by seeing if the objectives that the brand set the agency are accurate and done to a high enough level of quality.

Practicalities - budgets will reduce your costs and improve integration within the business. The budget may vary depending on the brief, meaning the agency may have to try to save as much money as possible. On the other hand, it is possible the brand ask the agency what the suitable amount of money would be to spend on the brief. Timings are also important for deliveries, payments, and deadlines, to make the brief as efficient as possible. 

Approvals - The highest member of the agency has to sign the work off that the agency produces, as they are of the highest authority.