The best briefs make sure that ideas start coming before the briefing finishes.
If I ever leave a briefing without a single idea written down I start to worry.
The brief itself is obviously important. But on top of that I like to find ways to jump-start creative thinking in the session.
I’m not a big fan of showing other ads as ref or including ‘some ideas we’ve had’ (sorry strategists but they’re usually terrible). Both approaches can put blocks in place, getting creatives stuck in the familiar or caught up in the expected.
It’s much better to give them something that mirrors the creative process.
Most creatives ask questions then find ideas in the answers.
So I create a series of 6-10 starter questions to chat around at the end of briefings.
Some point in certain directions.
Some the audience.
Some are around the product
Some about the experience.
And some the world.
These should be as relevant to the brief as possible. It’s a little different to the classic creative workshop questions like ‘find an analogy’ or ‘dramatise the problem’.
Basically it’s about turbo-charging the first few hours of thinking. Finding angles the team might find something interesting in. To get them flowing.
Once that’s started they’ll naturally find ways to go even further.
As it works best when the questions are specific to the brief it’s more difficult to give some examples than I thought it would be when I started writing this. So in the carousel below I’ve imagined a hypothetical brief and related kick-off questions.
If you start having ideas while reading them it must work.
Maybe write those ideas down on the very slim chance you ever work on a similar brief.
