You don't have time to rush the brief

In Short:

Rushing a marketing brief doesn't save time; it just delays it to the most expensive stage of the process.
* BetterBriefs Project research found that nine out of ten marketers admit to changing their brief after it has been sent; proof that the thinking wasn't finished before it went out the door.
* A rushed brief doesn't remove the work of getting it right. It pushes that work into rounds of feedback and rebriefs later, once the agency is already underway.
* Spend the time upfront instead: align the right people before the brief goes out, and edit it down until it's short and single-minded.  

Rushing a brief might feel like the fastest way to get the creative development process moving, but it’s usually the moment everything starts slowing down.

You’re in back-to-backs all day, you’ve got 37 unread emails – and you’ve got a brief to write. The sooner you write it, the sooner the agency can get started on it, so you bang it out quickly and send it out. The more time the agency has, the better, right? 

Not exactly.

The moment when you feel most under pressure to “just get something out” is also when slowing down would, ironically, save you the most time. That’s because time invested upfront isn’t extra time. It’s borrowed back from the rounds of feedback that inevitably follow a poor brief.

Thinking at the start saves time at the end

Marketers often treat the brief as a box to tick so the “real work” can start. But the brief is the real work. When it’s rushed, everything afterwards slows to a painful crawl.

The pattern is all too familiar: the agency receives the brief, tries to decode it, produces work that doesn’t quite land, and suddenly everyone is in a cycle of rounds, revisions, clarifications and internal alignment meetings. The time that felt “saved” at the start gets spent several times over later on.

Nine out of ten marketers admit their brief changes after it’s been sent, according to the BetterBriefs Project. Not just tweaked or tidied up. Changed! Which means that many briefs go out before the thinking is done.

A rebrief is just the original brief being written again, only now it’s happening at the most expensive, time-sensitive stage of the process, when creative teams are already well underway.

“No time” is the most expensive myth in marketing

Daryl Fielding, former VP Marketing at Mondelez and Director of Brand Marketing at Vodafone, has little patience for the “no time” argument:

“People say, ‘Oh, there’s no time for proper conversations on briefs these days – we just get them by email.’ Well, you do have the time to do the work twice, it seems. Shift that time to the beginning of the process. Ironically, finding time for the right things at the right stages saves time.”

Nobody’s suggesting there’s time to spare. There isn’t. But the time is being spent either way. The question is just where in the process it goes.

The BetterBriefs Project found 78% of marketers believe their briefs provide clear strategic direction but only 5% of agencies agree. Obviously, “clear to me” is not the same as “clear to the people who have to make something from it.”

And half the time, the right people haven’t even signed off the brief before it goes out. A quick internal alignment conversation could save a three-week rebrief. 

Slow down to speed up

Next time you’re against a deadline to get a brief out, fight the instinct to rush and remember the mantra used by special operations forces: “Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.” Because it’s true. When you rush, you get sloppy and make mistakes. When you slow down enough to stay calm, deliberate and precise, you make fewer mistakes and avoid having to redo work.

Slowing down to speed up means doing three things:

1. 1. Do the thinking before the brief goes out, not hoping the creative process will magically solve and clarify the strategy.

2. 2. Get the right people aligned before the agency is involved, not after the first round comes back.

3. 3. Spend more time crafting the brief to make it shorter and more single-minded.

The payoff for doing it properly

Our research found that when agencies receive a brief with clear strategic direction, they’re twice as energised. The work is sharper. The rounds are fewer. And marketers who inspire their agencies are three times more likely to feel proud of the work they produce (source: The BetterBriefs Project and The BetterIdeas Project). 

None of that comes from the brief that was rushed out the door on a Thursday afternoon. It comes from taking the time to get the brief right from the start. 

The brief isn’t where time gets spent; it’s where time gets saved.

FAQs: 

How often do marketing briefs change after they've been sent?

Nine out of ten marketers admit their brief changes after it's gone out, according to our BetterBriefs Project. This implies that the strategic thinking that went into the brief wasn't finalised and is still happening after the agency has already started. If the strategy isn't finalised and the brief is still moving, don't brief it. 

Why do rushed marketing briefs cause more revisions?

Rushed briefs often leave the problem, audience, objectives or strategic decisions unresolved. The agency then has to interpret or clarify those issues during creative development, leading to misaligned work, additional feedback rounds and possible rebriefs.

How much time should you actually spend writing a brief?

How much time should you actually spend writing a brief? Enough to do three things properly: think the strategy through before it goes out, get the right people aligned before the agency is involved, and edit it down to something short and single-minded. None of that is extra time. It's time borrowed back from the feedback rounds a rushed brief would otherwise cost you.

Pieter-Paul von Weiler is the co-founder of BetterBriefs, an advisory and training business that helps marketers write better briefs and deliver more impactful ideas.  A highly awarded former agency strategist, having worked at Publicis Amsterdam, Publicis London, Saatchi & Saatchi and AJF Partnership. Pieter-Paul has served as an Effie judge across Australia and APAC for over a decade. Together with co-founder Matt Davies, he wrote the BetterBriefs Project and The Best Way for a Client to Brief an Agency, a practical guide for marketers to improve the quality of briefs, co-authored by Mark Ritson and published in partnership with the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA). Pieter-Paul (together with Matt) also led the BetterIdeas Project, a global study exposing the poor state of the creative evaluation process. The study aims to improve the creative decision-making and evaluation practices and was launched in partnership with the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and the IPA.