When you watch a bad ad on TV, who do you instinctively blame? The brand? The ad agency? As one Singapore agency found out to its cost recently, perhaps the briefing process itself must take a share of the responsibility.
The shop — which disclosed details on condition of anonymity — was briefed for a simple print ad to launch a new cosmetics product, and took on the open-ended brief to create several concepts. But at the first round of presentations, the client wanted to change minutiae such as the model's hair length and the shade of her dress. At each meeting thereafter, the client wanted a new set of such changes. The "simple" job wound up taking months to complete.
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Even in a developed advertising market like Singapore, this story will probably ring true for many agencies and clients, prompting the conclusion that poor briefs are affecting the quality of communication. While tight, targeted briefs are relatively more commonplace in the more mature communications markets such as the UK, the briefing process continues to lag in Asia.
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Traditionally, a client briefs its agency verbally or non-verbally, and the agency then reinterprets the client brief to instruct its own team. In practice, however, the best solutions are often undermined as this vital first step is often poorly handled.
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Why? A combination of factors: younger suits, clients with non-marcomm experience, and lower consumer attention spans.
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Dennis Susay, head of marketing at Yahoo Southeast Asia, who formerly spent time at Nike where he worked extensively with Wieden & Kennedy, an agency often touted as setting the industry standard for client briefs, believes both sides are at fault.
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"Unlike more advanced markets, marketers in Asia tend to be generalists. This means they mostly lack advertising-related know-how. Furthermore, clients tend to be unsure of the direction and don't have the discipline to pen their thoughts."
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But Susay is quick to add that agencies are equally to blame, "Unfortunately, a lot of servicing folks these days are pretty inexperienced and lack the right expertise to lead the client. In my experience, most reasonable clients will defer to an ad agency suit who steps up as the brand steward. But this takes experience and strategic brand thinking."
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On the other hand, Richard Tunbridge, ECD of Rocket-x, a local creative shop in Singapore, singles out agencies for their lack of initiative. "At the end of the day, the onus is really on the agency to get the information they need to do the job properly. If the client can't provide it, then agencies have to go and get it. As strategic partners, we have a responsibility to understand the brand, and have an opinion of where they need to be in the future," says Tunbridge.
Sounds like a case of headless chickens, which, Susay agrees, is probably not too far off the mark. "I've noticed that some clients want to be creative and instructive, telling the agency exactly how creative should be executed. I see this often, as clients think it is easier to tell an agency exactly what to do."
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But for the most part, the client brief appears to be a shared responsibility, with the agency bearing the bulk of the grunt work for solidifying it.
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June Ong, brand manager at Saatchi & Saatchi Singapore, adds: "The brand management team must ensure that client briefs received are acceptable. If clients think ad campaigns are important in driving their brand and its future, then they must realise that they need to steer the creative campaign with their brief. And the marketing director should ensure that."
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"The client brief is the very first step to any creative campaign development. Wrong step, wrong work, wrong results.
