Dave Trott lectured at our school back in the day and revealed how he deals with making better briefs;



Every award won by his agency is picked up by the AE who wrote the brief. Dave claimed this was very succesful carrot, the AE*s loved the recognition, the creatives didn*t mind giving up that stage moment of glory, and briefs got better because everyone knew the good briefs made the good ads = got the awards.



Not a bad idea.

Thats a very good idea, there should even awardsshow for briefs!? Books to inspire the all the poor AE´s that around.



I sometimes just get what the client wrote for the de-brief in a very loooong mail printed with some small unreadable notes on it.... Arrrgghh!!! but when it happens that you get a short, presize well written brief, you can start making good work, instead of using your time doing what the AE should have done in the first place. mad

Thts not a bad idea!



I worked with this AE that was the undisputed KING of writing clear consice briefs, and had a knack for picking great propositions. He made it so easy, the campaigns he was working on always came out good regardless of which creative team scoreed the job. Alas, this was back in my placement days, and since then I*ve seen many a terrible brief (some up to TWENTY PAGES!!) and I missed that AE*s briefs sooo much.

That*s cool. Sometimes I wonder if AE*s should have a portfolio of sorts, containing well written briefs. wink

bar ramblings! We like to prop comps up on the bar for analysis. So much easier to dissect after a few beers. Drinking is also my preferred way to present idears to Tony, he*s much less likely to say no... goes like this



Tony "why didn*t you bring this up while we were still working?"

Me "I wanted to wait *til you had a few drinks first."



But, looks like the folks over in the UK have a solution to the brief problem



A new item has been posted on to the IPA site.



The item is as follows



Industry publishes its eagerly awaited best practice guide to briefing communication agencies



Date & time29/07/2003 0940



The four main agency and client trade bodies, the IPA, MCCA, PRCA and ISBA have today (29th July 2003) published new best practice guidelines for clients on the briefing process.



With a title of The Client Brief, these new guidelines come as a result of research undertaken by the industry in March this year which showed that the current briefing process is far from satisfactory with clients sometimes using the creative process to clarify their strategy or relying on their agency to write it. This wastes time and resource on all sides of the industry and results in less effective and measurable communications.



The Client Brief covers three main areas

1. Why write a brief.

2. The principles behind a good brief.

3. What a good brief should contain.



Each of the organisations will be distributing free copies of the guidelines to their members this week. Two versions will also be available online on each of the associations websites ˆ a management summary version and a more comprehensive 50 page version. There will also be a morning seminar at 44 Belgrave Square, London SW1 in the autumn.

>> drifting off to sleep is concept prime time



absolutely! Quite annoying when you actually do have to sleep though and new ideas keep popping into your head and you stumble out of bed to write it down somewhere with a burnt out match on your paperback literature... hahaha.



Hmm. I must try that washing dishes thing, I know the BF would certainly appreciate it.



You must get a Dictaphone for your driving ideas, m*friend, so you don*t run something over one of these days. razz



I have one, and have often used it for those late-night bar ideas that are OH so fabulous..... Until the next morning when you have a really hard time trying to figure out what those incoherent drunken ramblings mean. Bar-ideas are no good unless you actually remember them the next day. grin

yeah, drifting off to sleep is concept prime time! I also like mowing the lawn, washing the dishes (favorite) and driving for idea generation-- although I*ve been repeatedly asked to use a tape recorder as opposed to pen and paper when driving... the police do not seem to accept concepting and scribbling as excuses for erratic driving. It goes without saying that the driving thing is one to do alone as it tends to freak passengers out no end.



I*ve also taken to keeping a mat of ledger-size sheets underneath my keyboard so I can write and draw on my desk. It*s the deciphering the stuff later that*s hard.

I got a good trick when I*m stuck for an idea, try this once it might work for ya.



Read the brief three times out loud (it should be a proper brief, as in a *brief*, as in

one page of info only, with proposition, target, etc

and not one of those five-page "briefs" with too much info. Shorten the real brief if ya have to.. )

Right, now, have you read it three times out loud?



Good, now take i catnap under your desk, 20 minutes tops.



I swear I*ve dreamt up the weirdest campaigns that way. One of the car-ads came out quite good. lol



_________________

everything is so random there must be a pattern

Hey adeeze guys! Well done,however you have a few knockers on here.(see young dogs section)

Oh well, like they say, don*t knock what you haven*t tried. It*s a fun resource( remember when fun used to be allowed in agencies?)- now were are all too serious!!!Our groups go through the concept kit and it is like an enema for the mind, opening up discussion that leads to some pretty damm good development stuff.

Sometimes the ideas flow and at other times you just seem stuck. The more you try for a breakthrough the harder the task at hand seems to become. This is the time most of us need some inspiration. A transit lane for the brain. A reference source that helps to break through writers block and lead to a creative solution.Check out The Concept Kit at

www.adeeze.com