It seems to me that, somewhere along the line, the importance of the creative brief has been lost. Within agencies, it’s often seen as a bit of a chore, a piece of admin, just a form to be filled out. In my view, there is a general lack of understanding as to its proper role and value.

Our latest ‘What Clients Think’ report reveals that 30% of clients wish their agency would ask more questions and dig deeper, so the first stage in the process is a thorough interrogation of the client’s brief. A typical client comment is, “They should be more challenging around my brief and push back” or “Is it the right thing to do?” and “Challenge what we give them rather than just heads down.” Another is, “I’m obviously not being clear and I accept some of the blame, but they’re the experts and they should be able to drag it out of me.” The last point is key.

Agencies can’t just blame the client for a poor brief. A major part of an agency’s skill set is the ability to ask the right questions and extract the right information before leaping to creative work. After all, an important distinction to remember is that the artist writes his own brief, the designer can’t start without one. Designers need parameters to work within, a problem to solve and an opportunity to seize.

The agency’s questions can usually be grouped into three broad areas. Firstly, there are questions about the problem – the strategic issues being addressed. Secondly, there are questions about the context – competitors and trends. Thirdly, there are questions about deliverables – what we want the target audience(s) to think, feel and do. At brief stage, never be afraid to ask the obvious questions. Now’s the time. As Peter Drucker, the father of modern management consultancy, said, “My greatest strength as a consultant is to be ignorant and ask a few questions.”

Once the questions have been asked and the information gathered, the creative brief can be addressed. Typical creative brief sections include identification of the problem, offer, USP, the audience, application, success factors and practical considerations. Back to my earlier point, though, it shouldn’t just be viewed as a form to be filled in. Instead, the creative brief should be treated as the vital bridge between the client’s world and the agency’s creative team. It acknowledges that both client and agency are united in their objectives, but their skills and ways of looking at the problem are different. In this sense, it should never just be a shorter format regurgitation of the client’s brief. An effective creative brief reduces the client’s brief to its core and turns it into plain English. Remember, designers tend not to speak ‘marketing’ and customers certainly don’t.

That’s not to say that you should be limited by words. Some of the best creative briefs I’ve seen have included images. Images can be more stimulating and more precise than words and, after all, the designer’s currency is visual. Most importantly, though, the creative brief should excite designers. It should spark their enthusiasm and make them feel it’s the best project they’ve ever had.

For those agencies that don’t write creative briefs or have got out of the habit, let’s summarise why all this is important. A good creative brief saves time and money because it should result in fewer amends and revisions. It’s a more efficient way of working. It ensures better decision making because it helps to reduce subjectivity and allows better rationalisation of creative work. It helps the client to recognise great work when they see it. It inspires and motivates the creative team and is more likely to result in high quality, effective and measurable creative work.

Of course, if the creative brief gives an unclear problem, is overloaded with information, mistakes facts for insights, focuses on product/service features not user benefits, relays information but doesn’t translate that or contain a driving thought, then it simply becomes that form to be filled in.

So, how do you know when you’ve written a good creative brief? Well, the clue is in the name. Is it brief? It shouldn’t turn into an essay or a job justification exercise. The skill is in making it concise. Does it focus on one key message? Are you telling a simple, inspiring story? Does it lead the team from the key message, through the insight, to the reason to believe, with each building on the other? Is it clear on immovables and mandatories? Is it jargon free? Will everyone understand it?

Most importantly, does it have designers excitedly heading for the studio?

Here’s a short summary of what we covered, prepared under Chatham House Rule — we explored much more during the session.

• Creativity is becoming more important to businesses who have fewer levers to pull to create competitive advantage.
• With significant economic pressures – high inflation, low consumer confidence and buying power, volatility and uncertainty from political changes – growth and returning a profit, and crucially cash, is becoming harder for businesses to achieve.
• There are therefore significant pressures on organisations to control costs, which puts pressure on creative fees.
• And businesses have less ability to find the growth they need from simply doing what they have always done.
• However, this creates an opportunity for creativity and innovation, with many design leaders understanding that companies that pursue doing something different and pursue breakthrough innovation in difficult economic times do really well.
• Design leaders are also trying to find ways to work more efficiently as they develop creative ideas – less iterations, less visualisations, more reliance on an experienced eye and being a bit more scrappy and dirty in the journey to the finished creative outcome.
• AI is seen as best used at the start and end of the creative process – for initial research, and then for final implementation to help remove some of the grunt work – but the middle part, the creativity, is best kept with humans. Both so that IP ownership is clear, and because market research shows that the human consumer wants something that is created by a human.
• There is of course a tension between driving technical innovation whilst balancing social and environmental responsibility, which is incredibly important to consumers, particularly Gen Z.
• But, consumers are not willing to pay more for sustainable solutions. Consumers feel that business created the problem, profited from the problem, and therefore they won’t pay more for a company to fix the problem.
• Therefore business is after solutions that take costs down whilst being sustainable.
• So innovation becomes important here too. Particularly if that innovation can change the paradigm – for example by changing the face of luxury from heavyweight to light.
• Design leaders are looking for design agencies who can work with their inhouse teams to challenge what they are doing and bring in disruptive thinking.

The next DBA Members’ Forum is on Monday 3 November, from 4-5pm GMT, when we’ll be joined by Esther Carder, Partner at Moore Kingston Smith. Following the launch of this year’s In Focus Report, Esther will provide expert commentary and analysis, breaking down the data and delving into the key trends.

The Design Business Association (DBA) is the design industry’s trade association. The Directors of the DBA are a mix of DBA members and other design industry experts with extensive experience of integrating design into business strategy at executive level. They collaborate closely with the DBA’s management team to elevate the role of design in business and government and build confidence in design investment. 

Says DBA CEO Deborah Dawton: “The DBA’s membership is ever growing in its diversity of design discipline expertise, and its reach into UK and global organisations helps them to capitalise on the value that design can add. Our members and our Board Directors sit at the vanguard of that movement, and I’m delighted to welcome our new Board Directors. They help us to see what lies ahead for the industry, which ensures that what the DBA delivers is relevant and appropriate to the needs of members.” 

John Gleason, Founder & CEO of A Better View Strategic Consulting and Jos Harrison, Global Head of Brand Experience and Design at Reckitt have stepped down from the Board at the end of their three-year terms, along with ELSE’s Founder and Chief Experience Officer, Warren Hutchinson who has served as Chair of the DBA Board since 2022 and will step down following the AGM. A new Chair will be elected by the Board from within the current Directors and announced in December following the next Board meeting. 

Says DBA CEO Deborah Dawton: “It’s been terrific to work alongside Warren Hutchinson, John Gleason and Jos Harrison on the Board. Their insight and perspectives on pivotal factors shaping design, from sustainability to AI to emerging global issues, have been invaluable in our work helping ready the sector for the future. My thanks to them all for the commitment and support they’ve given to the DBA.”