How

to

brief

your

creative

agency

for

wildly

effective

work.

Selecting one of the top advertising agencies or creative marketing agencies is the first step to a great campaign. The key to success is a strong creative brief. Here is a simple step-by-step guide to help you master briefing.

Step 1: Get clear about your goals and objectives.

Before you engage your creative ad agency, get clear on what you want to achieve. This way, you can do your best work. Whether you're working with an advertising agency or B2B advertising agency.

Here’s a few questions to ask yourself:

• What’s your main objective? Is it awareness, sales, etc.
• How will you measure this? Be concrete (and realistic).
• Who is your ideal buyer or decision-maker?

Pro Tip: Help get the creative ideation going by showing campaign examples you admire. Even if big advertising agencies with bigger budgets made them. Don't worry, we'll manage your expectations!

Step 2: Give them context.

Even top advertising agencies need brand context to do good work. Give the teams the right information upfront. This includes details like brand values and past campaigns. This will help them craft creative work that aligns with your goals and marketing strategy.

Helpful information could be:

• Your brand positioning, previous campaigns, and brand results.
• Competitor insights and campaign examples.
• Any important and relevant market trends.

Pro tip: Explain your brand’s values and traits clearly. This helps creative companies produce campaigns that are truly authentic to your brand.

Step 3: Sweat the numbers.

Nobody wants avoid unnecessary stress and headaches. Set clear budget and time expectations with your creative agency.

Make sure you’ve sorted out the following:

• The budget range for creative, media and production.
• The deadlines for creative reviews, final creative approval, and dispatch.
• Any specific constraints or implications.

Pro tip: If you have concerns about budgets or timelines, discuss them early and openly. As we have everything in-house, it means we can come up with ideas you can afford.

Learn more about working efficiently with Your ultimate guide to working with a creative agency.

Step 4: Clearly Outline Deliverables

No matter the kind of agency you're working with,you need to be clear about your deliverables. This applies to brand design agencies to full-service creative ad agencies.

These deliverables might include:

• Digital ads, print ads, experiential activations, social media content, videos, etc.
• Required sizes and specifications.

Pro Tip: It’s helpful to know what you will manage yourself and what the creative agency will handle. For example, we provided ROLLiN with the main art assets. This allowed their team to create the conversion assets. In contrast, we created every single asset for Australian Ethical.

Step 5: Set that briefing meeting.

You’ve written your brief. Now, you can share it with your creative ad agency and schedule a briefing meeting. So, you and your advertising ad agency can start the journey to great results.

The meeting agenda could look like:

• Quick team introductions and how everyone works together.
• A presentation of the brief – allowing time for a chat after.
• Sharing creative inspirations or ideas you like, you can find some good work we’ve done here.

Pro Tip: Now’s the time to foster open dialogue and understanding with your creative agency. Here’s a handy guide that we’ve written to help you foster a healthy relationship.

Step 6: Next step? Agree on next steps.

Make sure you leave with clearly defined next steps, responsibilities, and tasks. Usually the creative agency provides a contact report, so keep a lookout for it in your inbox. We love weekly wips to keep everything organised and moving in the right direction.

Conclusion: Great briefs mean great work.

The best CMOs and marketing leaders know that clear briefs save time and money. We hope this guide has helped. If you're ready to make a wild piece of work, contact us.