Tuesday 10 April 2018

Has The 'Formal' Creative Brief Lost Its Purpose?

This week has been a busy one. Being my last week in Burnett, I have been busy preparing my handover. Being the procrastinator that I am, rather than getting my ducks in row, I have spent more time reading through the briefs and looking through the work  I have been a part of, over the last three and a half years at Burnett. That's when the question struck me... has the format driven  creative brief lost its purpose?  

The creative brief is written by the strategy team to inform the creative team about the bang on target audience, their attitude and behaviour towards the product / category/ cultural fuel and similar relevant pieces of data. The document also provides a direction that leads to work which gets the desired response. Typically, the strategy team takes about two weeks to log in a half way decent brief and the creative team is given a week to arrive at a world changing idea!

It is so wrong in so many ways. 

The brave world spins faster, is more collaborative and above all, is more human. 

An idea session in progress at Leo Burnett, Mumbai

Some of the best work I have been a part of at Burnett has been a result of pure and simple collaboration. We met over coffee in our friendly neighbourhood Starbucks or Cafe Coffee Day, sometimes in our office lawn or even a car ride back from a meeting. No one wrote a brief. No one asked for one. Everyone was very clear what their role was in the discussion. No one challenged the brief (as there was none to challenge). No one discounted what the other had to say as the people around the table were not warring factions from different departments but one cohesive team that owned the problem. Everyone came together with one purpose, to leave the discussion with a viable solution. And boy, did we arrive at some terrific solutions! 

Please note, not for a minute am I saying that creative briefs are not written in Burnett. Of course they are. We are just as bureaucratic as every other agency in the country. I am only talking about the times when we did not write a format led brief and let magic happen. 

Here are a few pieces of work which have been a result of discussions and brainstormings with no fuss over a format driven, formal creative brief. Judge for yourself, if this works better or not. 



Tata Capital - Salaam Loan #LoanKaHaq 

Gagan Diwali Campaign


Believe you me, there are many advantages of losing the format driven creative brief. 

Firstly, the world today needs more creative business solutions than kickass ads. I don't think the creative brief as we know it has the power to fuel ideas which lend itself to kickass business solutions.

Secondly, magic happens when everyone in the team owns the problem as well as the solution. Collaboration begins when the client is briefing the agency. Everyone attends the meeting. Everyone gets a go at stupid questions and intelligent suggestions.

Lastly, faster turnaround time. In a world where seconds are the new minutes, we managed to turn around work in days, not weeks. No one 'wasted' time. It is war from the word go.

To my mind, the formatted creative brief is logic and logic can never produce magic. To create work relevant to the world today,  we need to lose the creative brief once and see what your team comes up with.