A good brief serves as a roadmap for creative thinking. It defines the desired outcome, guides the task at hand, and clearly establishes boundaries for creative, media and design thinking. In its simplest form, it explains succinctly the need for creativity.

Good briefs share several characteristics: they are laser-focused on the problem or opportunity to solve, they contain a strong backbone of objectives, target audience and budget that work together holistically, they feature a single-minded message supported by relevant proof points, and they use clear language that everybody understands. 

A good brief requires reductive thinking.  It should contain everything you need and nothing you don't. Most importantly, a good brief is underpinned by a well-defined marketing strategy. Without strategic clarity, you will struggle to write an effective brief. Learn more about writing clear briefs in our best practice guide, ‘The best way for a client to brief an agency’.

Briefing an agency is a two-part process: writing the brief and delivering the briefing itself. 

The written brief defines what you want the agency to do, summarising the need for advertising and the marketing strategy in place. However, a written brief is only half the job done.

The briefing is how you deliver this information. An email or lengthy slide deck is definitely not the best approach. A good briefing creates deeper understanding, sparks enthusiasm and creates space for questions.

Consider who should be in the room beyond just the brief writer. Bring in expertise that can illustrate and bring to life key elements of the brief. Think about where you hold the briefing, as immersion in your products or services is invaluable for agencies. The transfer of information isn't complete until the agency says "I get it." Always check in with them afterwards to confirm alignment.

Learn more about the difference between the brief and briefing in this article: ‘A brief is not a briefing’.

Clarity in brief writing comes from choosing the right words and being ruthless about what you include. Use words that bring clarity and avoid category jargon, flowery language, and terms open to interpretation. Only 7% of agencies feel the briefs they receive contain clear and concise language (source: BetterBriefs Project).

Keep your brief succinct. Most agencies believe the briefs they receive are not concise enough.   54% say briefs are too long (source: BetterBriefs Project). Practise the art of sacrifice and put supplementary information in an appendix. 

Write and rewrite; the first draft will never be your best work. Give it the overnight test, continue refining, and share it with others for review. Remember that a brief is not a box-ticking exercise,  being linear about filling out a template from top to bottom is often not the best approach to capturing and structuring information clearly.

Learn more about writing clear briefs in our best practice guide, ‘The best way for a client to brief an agency’. 

Objectives are the most critical, yet most poorly defined, element of every brief. To set direction effectively, build-in three types of objectives. They should be linked and logical.

Commercial objectives capture the ultimate effect on your organisation—sales, profit, or cost savings. These are what the CFO will deem important. Behavioural objectives specify the change needed in people's behaviour to realise commercial objectives, such as signing up, downloading, or adding items to a basket. Attitudinal objectives address the shift in how people think or feel that triggers behavioural change, because people don't suddenly change behaviour without a change in attitude first.

These three objective types should be logically connected. Don’t be wishful. Well-defined objectives paint a clear picture of success and how it will be measured.

Learn more about objective setting in this webinar, ‘How to set objectives for better marketing results‘, which BetterBriefs conducted in partnership with Lizi Hamer, global executive creative director at Octagon, and Rob Brittain, marketing strategy expert. 

There are several common issues that cause confusion. 

First, 60% of marketers use the creative process to clarify their strategies rather than being clear from the outset (source: BetterBriefs Project) — this is like changing ingredients while the dish is cooking . Without a well-defined marketing strategy, it’s impossible to deliver an effective brief.

Second, briefs often lack a single focus. Trying to address multiple objectives—acquiring new customers while also upselling to existing ones while also increasing purchase frequency—creates confusion. These require separate briefs.

Third, language matters enormously. Too many briefs use category jargon and flowery language that creative people don't understand. 

Fourth, briefs are often not succinct enough, burying the essential information in unnecessary detail. 

Finally, many marketers prescribe solutions rather than defining problems, which limits creative thinking from the start and leads to confusion about what is actually being asked for.

Learn more about common brief writing mistakes in this article, ‘How to write a better marketing brief: 6 mistakes to avoid’ and our compendium, ‘The issues with briefs and how to make them better’.’

Define the need for advertising clearly, articulate why this brief is necessary. What is the challenge this brief is looking to address?

Build a strong backbone where objectives, target audience and budget work together holistically. If one changes, the others must be modified. 

Target the right people with audience definitions that are meaningfully different from the general population and sufficient in size to satisfy your objectives.

A single-minded brief contains only one key message, which is not a tagline and does not try to be creative. Its sole focus is pinpointing where the creative and media solution should focus. And don’t forget to underpin your message with proof points. 

Keep the brief brief through reductive thinking. This will only happen when you write and rewrite—the first draft is never the best. 

Make the brief insightful rather than forcing an insight. Every element of your brief should be carefully considered.

Don't prescribe the solution, as this limits creativity from the start. Your job is to provide direction - you’re paying specialists to come up with the solution.

Treat the process as a scrum rather than a relay race,  involve your agencies before the brief is final where appropriate.

More practical tips on brief writing you’ll find in our best practice guide, ‘The best way for a client to brief an agency’. 

BetterBriefs provides specialist training designed to help marketing teams write better briefs underpinned by rock-solid strategic thinking. Our approach creates shared understanding between marketers and agencies about what constitutes a good brief and briefing process.

Our training focuses on the practical skills needed for brief writing: defining the need for advertising, building the backbone of objectives, audience and budget, targeting effectively, crafting single-minded messages with proof points, and delivering inspiring briefings. 

Nearly three-quarters of marketers believe their briefing process could benefit from more structure, our training addresses this gap with practical tools and frameworks that work across global organisations.

We help teams write better briefs through bespoke training solutions and the BetterBriefs Academy, offering training on brief writing and assessing creative ideas.