Helen Gemmell, Schueco UK
It always amazes me when you hear marketers complaining about an agency’s response to a ‘brief’. I use the term ‘brief’ loosely. How can you expect an agency to respond to a brief if you do not provide them with a thorough brief in the first place. Without doubt any response will only be as good as the information you provide.
Whilst there is basic information that you should provide every time – campaign dates, budget, brand, target audience, product, you must include clear information with as much detail as possible. Providing context about the business and background about the specific product / service is very important for the agency. Be clear of the journey so far to this point e.g. you have identified a gap in the market through customer / market research.
You should define clear objectives for the activity, be precise about these and how you are going to measure them, I don’t think I need to explain SMART but too many times there are vague objectives. For example saying ‘Increase brand awareness’ is a favourite, but you need to be more specific than this. If this is going to be an objective, then state increase marketing share from 11% to 13% within 6 months – this is specific. You should also explain how you measure brand awareness. This is then a very clear objective, with a target and details of how it will be measured.
Define who your main competitors are so the agency can research what the competition are doing and can develop a solution that differentiates your offering. You’re brand / product needs to stand out from the crowd, not be generic or vanilla to your targets.
Provide details and insights about who your target audience is, what you know about them and their habits and behaviours. This will help the agency develop a campaign that will resonate with your audience.
Be explicit about mandatory elements, e.g. branding, terminology, tone of voice etc. and whilst you will provide brand guidelines you should highlight key essentials. If you want to achieve stand out then let your agency generate the ideas, discuss how much flexibility and creative freedom they have. Be prepared for some different ideas and perspectives. Whilst your agency will become an extension of your team, they have a very different skill set and are exposed to different clients, brands, sectors and will therefore be able to offer solutions based on their knowledge and experience.
When your audience receive this communication what do you want them to do with it, the CTA (call to action) is so important. Your brand may not be an iconic, international institution like Nike or Rolex so never assume your audience know the action you want them to take based on what you have communicated. The action is likely to be one of your measures – number of leads generated, orders placed, sign-ups etc.
I mentioned above about basic information such as budget – whilst you may not be sure how much something will cost you need to at least provide a budget range, as this will direct types of activity. A good agency may offer ideas within that range but then also provide additional ideas with indicative costs to demonstrate what else is possible with a different budget. It is frustrating for agencies if you give no indication of budget and then dismiss the ideas as they are simply beyond your budget capacity.
Timings, don’t put ‘asap’ ensure you include any key dates for example if you are launching a new product, date of launch and events around this. Remember, the agency will not be sitting waiting on your work, they will be working for other clients and as with your business, they need to capacity plan and schedule.
Be clear about what your expectations are in terms of response to the brief. A good agency will often take the brief and then play it back to you to ensure they have understood what you have requested, by doing this, it allows you to discuss it and confirm what you have requested is understood by both parties. You should also be clear of any specific requirements, but you should also let them come up with the solution. Too many times I hear I want a leaflet or brochure and my response every time is ‘tell me what you are trying to achieve?’. A brochure may be part of the solution, but too many times we are trying to come up with a solution before fully understanding what it is we are trying to accomplish.
My final words about briefing agencies is how you respond to their ideas and concepts. It should not be ‘I don’t like it’, as often you are not the target audience. You should review it with the mindset of does it meet the brief, will this appeal to the target audience, will it be understood? And if you don’t think it meets the brief then be clear why it isn’t working for you e.g. you don’t believe the terminology is right for this audience, or it’s not clear enough etc. etc.
Critically, the brief is the start of the campaign process, as a marketeer, clear two way communication throughout the process will optimise the output from your agency partner and ultimately the success of the campaign.