Why everything good (and bad) starts with the brief

A great brief is the starting point for insight gathering and objective setting but a badly written brief causes a cascade of problems

Wavemaker North's Ailish McVeigh was awarded a distinction for this Advanced Certificate in Communications Planning essay explaining why a great brief is the starting point for insight gathering and objective setting but a badly written brief begins a cascade of problems.

The process of briefing sets the expectation and direction for the whole campaign life cycle, all the way through to evaluation so it is imperative that a brief accurately captures the right information for agencies to develop communications strategies. A great brief goes further, allowing agencies to develop impactful and effective communications strategies, which in turn create effective work. However, it is important to consider other factors that come into play when developing a communications strategy. Other elements such as objectives can be influential, as well as contextual elements which will vary from strategy to strategy. Insights are also key to developing a strategy, focusing on the ‘why rather than what’ as R. Campbell puts it.

Whilst there are many influential factors when creating a communications strategy, they all start with the brief. This is the starting point for insight gathering, objective setting and discovering contexts.

Ailish McVeigh, Planning Director, Wavemaker North.

The pitfalls of poor briefing

A brief is the starting point of all campaigns, and therefore the basis of developing a communications strategy. However, a brief needs to be good to have the opportunity to develop a great communications campaign. When clients write briefs they need to give ‘the right information so that it can come back with the best possible solution’ (Ritson et.al, 2022, p.3). Without the correct information, agencies can still write communications strategies but there is more risk of things not aligning to the client’s wishes, as well as the work not being effective. A poor brief slows down the process of campaign development, can confuse easily and ultimately affect the agency output, both the communications strategy but also activation. Agencies are partly responsible for a brief being deemed as ‘great’ by working with clients to help them understand what they need out of a brief. It is important for both sides to remember that the role of the brief is ‘not about writing, it’s about thinking’ (Ritson et.al, 2022, p.3), which can be forgotten in the process. A well-thought-through and developed brief provides clear direction for the agency and helps them produce their best work.

Objectives

There are other factors which could be considered as most influential in developing communications strategies, one of which is objectives. Marketing is unlikely to be effective if objectives are not clearly spelled out. (Binet P., Field L., 2007, p19) To develop an effective strategy, objectives need to be clear, concise and agreed by all parties otherwise the strategy could develop in a tangent and not answer the clients needs. Establishing these objectives upfront, gives a clear path forward, including the problem to be solved and what a communications strategy can do to answer this. This was shown in Heinz’s Seriously Good Mayonnaise campaign, where the objectives laddered together to address the problems the brand was facing such as an affinity gap and lack of mental availability. The objectives here weaved together both brand and sales, as closing the gaps would drive trial and increase sales.

Insight

Perhaps the biggest factor in developing a communications strategy is insight. A strategy cannot be built without insights, as these feed into the direction of the strategy. In the AA paper, insights come from multiple sources such as Brand Index, internal forecasting as well as their own data. These insights helped to build the picture which would form the inspiration of the communications strategy, redefining both the audience and media approach as well as the messaging focus. The insights gathered not only developed an effective communications strategy in advertising, they also fed into a new e-commerce journey, and user experience journeys as well.
There are many ways to gather insight, and one of the most influential things to look at are contexts. These vary from brand to brand, even strategy to strategy as contexts can be ever-changing. Behavioural economics puts context first, as the most important factor, as it requires us to think about the behaviour that the strategy will influence. Whilst not all contexts come from the brief e.g. cultural and category, a good brief that clearly defines an audience can develop an effective communications strategy.

Context

Audience context is perhaps the most important type of context, as a robustly built audience base helps to construct an effective communications strategy. Knowing who is buying, who isn’t buying and what the consumer journey looks like are all important factors to consider when developing the strategy. Without all of these, the strategy doesn’t have a clear focus on who it is for. The AA addressed this in their paper, showing how they needed to switch focus on audiences, from existing members to masses to achieve long-term growth. It is also important to consider who the audience are and remember that they are real people when working up a communications strategy. It is crucial to think about how audiences are going to perceive the strategy in the real world, and good communications strategies should consider the context of diversity and inclusion. In the UK, 25% of the population have a disability, but this is not reflected in advertising. This context was something important when developing the Remington ONE communications strategy, making sure that the strategy allowed for diversity and inclusion in the work and would be representative of the UK population as a whole.

Other contexts are also important when developing a great communications strategy. Knowing what is happening in the world at the time in the cultural landscape is key to a strategy. This can also help to develop insights that play into the communications strategy. Thinking about culture is essential when creating a strategy as brands that play into culture can have more effective and memorable campaigns.

Category

Category is also important to consider, what competitors are doing, and how they’re doing it as well as category conventions can all play into deciding what a communications strategy looks like. For example, when launching a new Small Domestic Appliance brand with a small budget, we looked at what our key competitors were doing and how to ensure we could generate as much cut-through as possible by playing in the white spaces they weren’t using. This insight gathering helped to develop the communications strategy to ensure we achieved this. Finally, company context also has a part to play. Strategies are written for brands and advise on how to show up, but the key thing is that the company context can be linked to the audience that will be seeing it.

In conclusion, whilst there are many influential factors when creating a communications strategy, they all start with the brief. This is the starting point for insight gathering, objective setting and discovering contexts as laid out above. However, a badly written brief begins a cascade of problems which results in incorrect objectives being set, the wrong insights gathered, and contexts being applied incorrectly.

Ailish McVeigh is Planning Director at Wavemaker North. This essay was awarded a Distinction as part of the Advanced Certificate in Communications Planning. The 2025 cohort begins on Monday 14 April.

 

Discover the full Advanced Certificate in Communications Planning syllabus and secure your place

 


The opinions expressed here are those of the authors and were submitted in accordance with the IPA terms and conditions regarding the uploading and contribution of content to the IPA newsletters, IPA website, or other IPA media, and should not be interpreted as representing the opinion of the IPA.

Last updated 05 February 2025