Change is easy to talk about, harder to actually do.
If part of your job includes writing creative briefs, and you’re not satisfied with how you’ve been trained to write them. Or you just think it’s time to step up the overall quality of the way briefs are written where you work, it’s natural to ask the question, “So, how do I change the process around here?”
I think we both know the answer.
With apologies to Nike, just do it.
If you’ve been reading any of the posts on this blog, you know enough to start writing better, clearer, more inspiring briefs. I’d like to believe you’re doing that already.
But the way to start is to just start. I also think it will pay huge dividends to enlist your creative team as collaborators. That alone will make your job easier and give it more credibility.
In other words, I’m suggesting that you simply take the initiative. Don’t wait.
Ask forgiveness, not permission.
Advertising and communications professionals tend to be self-starters, people who don’t wait around for orders. Whether you’re a creative or an account management person, the field of communications attracts problem solvers.
Let the quality of your work speak for the need to write better briefs. There’s no guarantee that what you do will automatically filter into another brief writer’s efforts. But it might. One thing is certain: it can’t filter into your colleagues briefs if you don’t step up and make your briefs better yourself. It has to start somewhere. Why not with you?
Writing a better brief offers many benefits, not least that it gives you, the brief writer, a bigger role in the direction of the creative you’re asking your team to develop. That’s a heady thing.
You can lead your team to the buried treasure. Or you can lead them astray. You have the power to do both.
Use that power wisely. Grasshopper.
