A campaign brief, or an agency brief, tells the agency which decisions the business has already made, and which problem the work is being paid to solve. It is the document that turns a marketing strategy into instructions someone else can act on.

Most agency work that comes back wrong was briefed wrong. The creative misses the audience. The idea solves a different problem from the one you have. Three rounds later the work is closer, and nobody can say exactly what changed.

The agency usually takes the blame. The evidence points at the brief.

Most advice on how to brief an agency hands you a template. The research shows that a template is not enough.

What the Evidence Shows

The BetterBriefs Project, run by Matt Davies and Pieter-Paul von Weiler with Flood and Partners, surveyed more than 1,700 marketers and agency staff in more than 70 countries. The IPA published the findings in October 2021. BetterBriefs describe it as the largest global study of marketing briefs.

The same pattern appears on every measure:

• 80 per cent of marketers believe they write good briefs. 10 per cent of creative agencies agree.
• 78 per cent of marketers believe their briefs give clear strategic direction. 5 per cent of agencies agree.
• 83 per cent of marketers believe their briefs use clear language. 7 per cent of agencies agree.
• 69 per cent of marketers and 73 per cent of agencies say rebriefs happen too often.
• The study estimated that 33 per cent of marketing budget is wasted on poor briefs and the misdirected work that follows.

BetterBriefs, Mark Ritson and the IPA published a follow-up guide in 2022 covering the UK market. 73 per cent of UK agencies considered the briefs they received inadequate. 6 per cent understood the strategic direction. 38 per cent received clear information about the target audience. 26 per cent of UK marketing budget was estimated lost to poor briefing.

A gap that size is not evidence that marketers write badly. Both sides agree the brief matters, and 89 per cent of marketers and 86 per cent of agencies say good creative requires a good brief. The more likely explanation is that the brief felt complete to the marketer who wrote it, because that marketer already held the context in their head. It arrived incomplete to the agency that had to read it.

What a Campaign Brief Needs to Contain

A campaign brief needs to carry the decisions the agency cannot make for you.

The business objective, in numbers. What the work has to return, by when, and how that connects to the commercial goal above it. "Build awareness in the mid-market" gives an agency nothing to aim at. "Thirty new mid-market opportunities a quarter by June, up from twelve" lets them tell you when an idea will not get there.

The audience, in enough detail to buy media against. Only 38 per cent of UK agencies said they received clear audience information. Job titles are a start, not an answer. The agency needs to know who decides, who can block the purchase, what those people currently believe, and what you need them to believe instead. In B2B that is usually several people, so the brief should name the buying committee rather than collapsing it into one persona.

The one thing the work has to do. Choose one. A brief that asks for awareness, consideration, leads and a repositioning is four briefs in one document. The agency will either pick one, or attempt everything, spreading the budget too thin. Deciding what the campaign is not for is harder than listing everything you want, and it is the decision most briefs avoid making.

The proposition and the proof behind it. What you want the audience to take away, and the evidence: a customer result, a reference, a demonstration, a test. An agency can dramatise a claim. It cannot manufacture the evidence for one, and a proposition with no proof behind it ends up as a brand statement the sales team never uses.

The constraints, including the political ones. Budget, timing, mandatory elements, legal and brand restrictions, and anything already committed that the work has to sit alongside. If one executive will veto anything that does not feature the product, the agency is better off knowing that at the briefing than at the third round.

How the work will be judged, and by whom. The criteria and the approvers, written down before the work starts. This is the item most often missing.

Agree the Objectives and the Result Metrics Before the Work Exists

The IPA and BetterBriefs guide found that 30 per cent of marketers had no clear criteria for evaluating the work they briefed. A review with no criteria runs on opinion, and the most senior opinion in the room wins.

Criteria written in advance are short and specific. Does the work land the one proposition. Would the audience recognise themselves in it. Is it distinctive enough that someone would attribute it to us rather than to any competitor. Can the sales team use it. Three or four questions like these, agreed before anyone starts, turn the review into a check against what was asked for.

Name the approvers in the brief as well, and say what order they will see the work in. Late approvers are how a finished piece of work gets reopened, and can cause unnecessary delays.

A Weak Agency Brief Usually Starts Inside the Business

Every item on that list needs a decision marketing does not own alone. The commercial objective, the markets in scope, the positioning, the budget and what the work has to line up with all belong to the business.

Strategy comes before tactics, and an agency brief is a tactical document. Kotler and Armstrong put the design of the marketing strategy ahead of the building of the marketing programme. The business chooses which customers to serve and how it will be different for them. Only then does marketing build the campaigns, the content and the media that deliver it. An agency brief cannot be written properly when the strategy behind it was never decided.

When the business has not made those decisions, the agency is left to interpret what the business actually wants. It works to an objective and an audience that nobody in the business ever agreed to. The BetterBriefs research found three in five marketers relying on the creative process to work out their strategy.

So a brief that cannot state the objective is usually not a writing failure. It is a decision the business has not made, and one the owner of the brief has not asked for. Getting clarity on the business objective means going back up the chain, which is covered in why a strategic business brief matters.

Brief the Agency in Person, Not by Email

69 per cent of marketers and 73 per cent of agencies say rebriefs happen too often. Briefing the agency in person is the cheapest way to reduce that.

The IPA and BetterBriefs guide is direct about this. A brief is briefed, not sent. The written document carries the decisions. The conversation carries everything the document cannot: which constraints are real and which are habit, which numbers were negotiated hard, and what has already been tried and failed. An hour spent briefing in person usually saves a round of work.

Invite challenge in that meeting rather than tolerating it. An agency that pushes back on the brief before starting is doing its job. An agency that accepts every brief without question has usually learned that questions are unwelcome.

When a rebrief is genuinely needed, say what changed and why. A rebrief that arrives as a new version of the document, with no explanation of which decision moved, teaches the agency that the brief is provisional. After that they will wait for the third version before doing their best thinking.

Write down what is settled. Say plainly what is not. Agree the campaign objectives and the metrics the result will be measured against before anyone starts work. If you cannot state the objective, the business has not given you one, and that is the conversation to have before you brief the agency.

Sources

• The BetterBriefs Project (Matt Davies and Pieter-Paul von Weiler, with Flood and Partners), published by the IPA, October 2021. Survey of more than 1,700 marketers and agency staff across more than 70 countries. Source of the 80 against 10 per cent figure on brief quality, 78 against 5 per cent on strategic direction, 83 against 7 per cent on clear language, 89 and 86 per cent agreeing good creative requires a good brief, 90 and 92 per cent calling the brief most valuable and most neglected, 69 and 73 per cent on rebriefs, the three in five figure on using the creative process to define strategy, and the estimate that 33 per cent of marketing budget is wasted.
• BetterBriefs and Mark Ritson, in partnership with the IPA, "The best way for a client to brief an agency", 2022. Source of the UK figures: 73 per cent of agencies considering briefs inadequate, 6 per cent understanding the strategic direction, 38 per cent receiving clear target audience information, 30 per cent of marketers without clear evaluation criteria, and 26 per cent of UK marketing budget estimated as wasted.
• Philip Kotler and Gary Armstrong, Principles of Marketing. Source of the marketing process model, in which the marketing strategy is designed before the marketing programme that delivers it is built.