This time, ‘Marketing made simple’ is focusing on making a marketing task more efficient and cost effective rather than unravelling marketing terminology.
Two parts of the creative process, that we frequently need to clear up for our clients are:

  1. How the creative process works, and
  2. Why a comprehensive brief is needed before starting any creative work or even proposals.

Having said that, the creative process relies on a good brief. I’ll touch on the link but here I’ll focus on the importance of THE BRIEF.

Creative work: part strategy, part magic

Let me say now that the creative process needs a communications strategy first as that will inform the creative brief. Only then can you sprinkle the creative magic dust. Designers/creators do not create something out of nothing. Like most good design, be that for any other industry i.e. industrial design, architectural etc, there is a purpose or rationale.

Design needs to answer questions…

Every business has aims and values, every product has key benefits or a feel-good factor that consumers ‘take home’, and design must convey that. So, for who? where? for what? and how? are starting points for the creative brief. Without that, design can just end up being a pretty picture instead of a hard-working part of your marketing materials.

..then add some imagination

The second part is the magic. Once you know the criteria for the above and your rationale is strong, you can start applying your design skills as well as your imagination. Your design fulfils a purpose, and is eye catching, memorable and helps to convey just the right message.

6 good reasons why you need a creative brief?


Your designer needs to understand what you are trying to achieve. For bigger projects they often need a bit of background, the reasons that led up to the creative brief in the first place. What are the problems or parameters that need to be worked around?

Setting it in writing forces you to really focus on what you really need. It makes you think about things like ‘what do I want people to feel when they look at my website, brochure, video?’. It also stops you from going off on multiple tangent ideas. It also sets the bar against which you and your designer/s judge the result.

It gives the designer/agency some specific requirements production parameters, deadlines, budget, what is the message etc. A brief must be complete and finite.

It defines very important information such as key audiences, strategy, and creative direction to name just a few.

Focusing on the right direction saves time and money. Instead of trying 20 ideas just in case the client meant A, B or C, we can just focus on C. That means we can spend less time trying ideas that would never be bought. Time is better spent concentrating on one or two good ideas than wasting it on lots of mediocre ones.

And it saves on costly revisions. Time is money and if a brief is vague i.e. ‘I’ll know what I like when I see it’, experience tells us that there will be multiple revisions. More often than not, the thinking just wasn’t completed before starting the project.

Where do I start to formulate a brief?

There are a lot of good templates online if you know what you need, but for something more bespoke, that answers all the questions, we can help. We’ll either work with you through a series of questions and write it for you to approve or provide you with a template specially designed for your sector and marketing collateral.

Call Karen or Richard on 01283 533196.