Library

Why signing briefs should become the new norm

In Short:

This article looks at the importance of singing briefs: - When a brief is approved by everyone, it’s owned by no one. Adding a “Signed by” line creates accountability and sharper strategic...

What football can teach you about writing better briefs

In Short:

This article looks at what marketers can learn about writing better briefs from the management style of legendary football manager, Sir Alex Ferguson: - Strategy must be settled before...

The Brief Behind Three Super Bowl LX ads

In Short:

• - Great ads don't start with ideas — they start with the brief. The Super Bowl shows what a sharp brief can produce.

• - Anthropic's "A Time and a Place" brief was about trust: Claude...

How to Use AI When Writing Briefs Without Looking Like You Used AI

In Short:

This article explores the multifaceted relationship between AI and brief writing.- AI can be both helpful and unhelpful depending on how it is used in brief writing.- Human input is an...

How to Write a Marketing Brief Your Agency will Love

In Short:

• - How you write a brief directly affects how energised agencies feel working on it and the quality of ideas they produce.- Briefs that lack a clearly defined problem force creative teams...

Stop Using the Creative Process to Define Your Strategy

In Short:

• - Creative ideas often miss the mark because the marketing strategy that's driving the brief is unclear.- Briefing agencies before the strategy is set leaves all the decisions to those...

Why You Shouldn’t Forget the Brief When Evaluating Ideas

In Short:

• - Most marketers say that briefs matter, but very few actually use them when judging creative ideas.- When the brief is ignored, feedback becomes subjective, driven by opinion and...

How to Write a Better Marketing Brief: 6 Mistakes to Avoid

In Short:

• - Great advertising starts with a clear, focused brief, yet most briefs fail to set agencies up for success.- Briefing too early and changing direction mid-process creates confusion,...

Why AI can't write the brief for you

In Short:

• - AI can support brief writing, but it cannot replace the strategic thinking a marketer must do.

• - A strong brief requires intimate knowledge of a brand and the situation it faces in...

Why Brief Confusion Is Costing You Better Work

In Short:

• - Confusion over which brief to use to evaluate creativity is costing marketers and agencies time, money and better work.- Marketing teams create the client-to-agency brief to convey...

Why words are killing your briefs

In Short:

• - Briefs often fail not because of strategy, but because the language used is unclear or misinterpreted.- Marketers and agencies frequently speak different “brief languages,” creating...

A brief is not a briefing

In Short:

• - The brief is the document; the briefing is the experience that brings the brief to life.- Emailing a brief ticks a box but doesn't inspire deeper creative thinking or agency immersion.-...

BetterBriefs to Better Results | Alan Hart Podcast

In this podcast, we sit down with Alan Hart, the host of Deloitte Digital's Marketing Beyond podcast. We discuss why marketing briefs are the most important document in the agency-marketer...

Why writing briefs doesn’t get easier with experience

In Short:

• - Writing a good brief doesn’t automatically get easier with experience; senior marketers often face more complexity and pressure.- More stakeholders, bigger budgets and higher stakes can...

The cost of poor feedback

In Short:

• - Excessive rounds of feedback drain time, budgets and creative energy, with the norm now five rounds compared to three in 2007.- Weak or unclear briefs amplify this problem, leaving...

Ask Us Anything webinar

BetterBriefs hosted a webinar where marketers and agencies could literally ask us anything as long as it was related to briefs. Below you’ll find a selection of our favourite questions and how we...

Gains, losses, watchouts from AI

Mi3 interviewed us for an article on whether AI can, and should, replace humans throughout the creative supply chain. Below is a short excerpt from that article originally published on 3 September...

Inspiring Futures Podcast

Edward Cotton is a seasoned strategist working in New York and runs an excellent podcast called 'Inspiring Futures'. For our second appearance on the show - listen to the first one here - we wanted...

Never ask a friend to evaluate an idea

In Short:

• - Personal opinions have no place in evaluating creative ideas, they undermine objective decision-making.- Emotional reactions are important but subjective; what one person likes may not...

Why most ads fail to get noticed (and how to fix it)

In Short:

• - Most creative work gets ignored, yet we still persist with the same formula.- Marketers and agencies often forget that people aren’t just waiting for their ads to show up in their lives.

Marketing Week research

Great to see other research out there validating the issues around the lack of training in marketing. 

Sleeping Barber podcast

Founders Pieter-Paul von Weiler and Matt Davies joined Sleeping Barber hosts Marc Binkley and Vassilis Douros to discuss the critical role of creative briefs in marketing. 

Sleeping Barber hosts Marc...

What's stopping great ideas from flourishing?

In a webinar we did for the WFA we unpacked what's stopping great ideas from flourishing.  

Define your enemy

Marketing Strategies From Top CMOs: Five Marketing Strategies From Matt Davies and Pieter-Paul von Weiler Of BetterBriefs

‘Suboptimal process’: only 1/3 of agencies receive constructive feedback

As the BetterIdeas Project revealed, only 30% of creative agencies receive clear and constructive feedback from their clients. Whilst it's sometimes difficult to align teams and stakeholders, those...

New IPA president Karen Martin delivers rousing call to creative action

Our friends at the UK's Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) have a new President, Karen Martin. She put forward a passionate plea about the importance of creativity and claimed that the...

Poor evaluation practices hold great ideas back.

The fastest way to kill an idea

The fastest way to kill an idea is to add another one.

Strong ideas aren’t rejected outright.

They’re killed by a thousand cuts.

Watered down, overcomplicated, and revised to death.

Our friend Tom...

How to set objectives in briefs for better marketing results

Most marketing briefs fail at the first step because of unclear objectives. Without them, campaigns lose focus, ideas miss the mark and results go unmeasured.

Best Practice Guide & UK results launch

In 2022, at IPA’s Business Growth Conference, we launched a new best-practice guide titled 'The best way for a client to brief an agency'. Co-authored by Mark Ritson and published in partnership with...