Briefing, this impermanent

(post sent by reader Helen Brüseke)

An open declaration of an ambition

There is a communication gap between client and agency that generates disbelief both in the market and in the profession and that can be overcome if only these elements exist: trust and sincerity.

Trust that needs to be established from the first contact so that sincerity is always the necessary counterargument in the event of disapproval from both the client with the suggested ideas and the agency with what the client wants for their brand or company.

In the Briefing, neither of these two elements actually exist.

“The Briefing is nothing more than an open statement of an ambition for a brand or client, and that is all it is, nothing more. (…) The briefing is probably irrelevant by the time you read it, because it has already changed, and continues to change”

John Boiler, CEO of 72ANDSUNNY

The briefing, this paper with the mission directions, arrives in the hands of the creative duo very crooked, most of the time. Crooked because the duo doesn't have open, clean and close contact with either the client or customer service, and in small and medium-sized agencies, the briefing sometimes goes far, far away from the creation table. The boss says that the client wants this, and doesn't allow for questions, and that the client also didn't give much space for questions. And every brilliant idea that could come out ends up being suppressed by the passivity of everyone involved in the creation, production and maintenance of ideas.

And what happens, as everyone who works in this area can testify, is that even the desire to have a bigger brand can turn out poorly, the client's objectives will not be met and the account may even go away, the blame falling on the creation and service, both cursing each other until the next generations. This is all because no one had the slightest concern to tell the client that increasing the brand does not necessarily mean anything and that a different approach could be much more interesting both for the agency (which can make real use of talented people) and for the company (which makes profit a consequence, not an objective).

BRIFLY (Basset & Partners)

In the documentary Briefly, directed by Bassett & Partners, the briefing is what all interviewees have reservations about and good and bad stories that derived from rejection or acceptance, moving on to strategies that involve the client in open dialogue about what can be done , and what is better not to do. The interviewees were directors of large communication agencies.

“So, first of all I want to say without beating around the bush that I don’t believe in briefings, I believe in relationships. The difference between a brief and a relationship is that the brief can be anonymous and I tend to actually work, over the last 15-20 years, with people who give me a deep sense of where they want to be, what they dream of and that has informed us far more than any briefing ever did. The discussions we have from the beginning have to be inspiring, they have to be about visions, not just about the next product, but about goals, aspirations of the company as a whole”

Yves Behar, CEO of FuseProject, a San Francisco-based design studio.

“O que arquitetos e designers fazem é não seguir adiante com regras, mas fazer as pessoas verem as coisas de um jeito totalmente diferente”, constata David Rockwell, CEO da Rockwell Group em Nova Iorque. Claro que se a gente for olhar para o contexto no qual todos esses comunicadores se encontram, não podemos comparar a abertura que a empresa deles têm para seu mercado, sobretudo um mercado muito mais preparado para as competências e valores de pessoas do que aqui no Brasil. Sem contar que tudo nos EUA é muito maior, as empresas, os clientes, os orçamentos, a liberdade e os prazos de entrega. Enquanto aqui temos projetos com duração de uma semana a enloquecer todos os componentes das agências e diminuir a qualidade de vida profissional, lá os projetos tem durações de meses.

But the big question is how they achieved this freedom and the possibility of rejecting clients who don't believe in their philosophy, remaining firm in their purpose of working only on projects that benefit both. A client rejected in Brazil by an agency is a client that will have a number of other agencies wanting it for them, offering a below-average budget. Where is the dignity of a work cycle when we allow ourselves to be influenced by someone who can buy us and whom we will passively obey?

This is the great lesson of the documentary, a real sample of opinions and market experience from those who have already gone through various types of difficulties, which were all overcome with the existence of two elements: trust and sincerity.