229: ANA on creative briefs

Eight years after the publication of its white paper, Better Creative Briefs, the Association of National Advertisers released new research in June 2025.

And that’s our topic today on The Brief Bros. Henry Gomez and I do an overview of their findings. And let me be upfront: I was interviewed and credited in the 51-page PDF.

A handful of sampe briefs populate the research, including an example of how to fix a weak brief. Plus survey results and essays by industry leaders on the importance of clear, “brief” briefs.

Henry and I agree, except when we disagree. And that means there’s lots to unpack here so join us.

Bottom line: A big kudos to ANA for updating its conversation about briefs.

“Howard is a master at helping brief writers get to the point & learn how to inspire. After the course I realize it’s not as hard as I thought.”

“In the future, all creative briefs will be BS-proof and Jargon-free, and we’ll have this summit to thank.”

“Definitely recommend this workshop for anyone looking to enhance their creative brief process. Makes you want to actually write and review briefs!”

“I attended your morning Zoom prezo today on briefs and you did a great job. Just nailed it! Great stories. Great quotes. Great examples. Well done!”

“I would recommend this workshop to anyone who never has used creative briefs or even if you already do. The tools and exercises given will change your mind on how you create these briefs. It’s an easy and interactive workshop to get through and the instructor was engaging and on point.”

“Thank you for inspiring me to be more, well, inspiring! I got a lot out of your session today - both as a brief writer and as a training lead. I bought some of your books on Amazon to share with my team.”

“I loved that Howard came in hot and pushed us out of our comfort levels. He called marketers out on things we can do better. The existing…creative brief process has been painful for our creatives, but also for our marketing teams as well. But from this exercise, we have all learned that the creative brief process truly needs to be collaborative.”

“Great reminder of what the creative brief is supposed to do and how to get there! Thanks!”

“Valuable information about how others develop briefs. Big emphasis on what really matters and our own team’s input was very important/helpful.”

“He hits at the key points that really make a creative brief easy to tackle and execute.”

“As someone who doesn’t write briefs, I never knew how helpful this would be. This will help me ask better questions and push my teammates so we can create better work.”