Dear Marketers, A Brief Word About Your Briefs

More marketing research science and data about our brands and campaigns sit on our servers than ever before.?Yet the marketing discipline struggles for credibility in its own organizations.?

In many companies, where marketing might have once been able to control the 4Ps–Product, Pricing, Promotion, Place (where it's bought), it is now just holding on to Promotion.

Why "just holding on to"?

Well, in several companies, Promotion now sits under A Chief Revenue Officer (ie in Sales). Or perhaps it sits under a founder. And often Product is a massive team and marketers aren't allowed to look them in the eyes.

Instead, the marketer?focuses on a skinny version of Promotion–what can get a few social media metrics to shift this week, not how to build a brand over the long-term (read Tom Roach's summary of how to do this here).?

And so marketing has become bulgogi to its once muscular and ribbed kalbi self.

The Frenzy That Marketers and Agencies Have In Common

It's not dramatic to say this: many people who work in marketing and advertising are feeling nudged out of important decisions, made to feel their work doesn't matter like they thought it once did–or once could, and that the work they're allowed to get away with isn't as meaningful as they hoped for at the start of their careers.

If you and your colleagues don't relate to this sentiment, you deserve credit and congratulations. Because I believe you're rare cases.

This nudging out creates a frenzy in which we probably lash out at each other more than support each other. It's sad because–let's face it–the only reason for an agency to exist is to help clients achieve what client's need to achieve.

The frenzy starts in the marketing department:

• The product team doesn't share its plans when the marketers need them to,
• The marketers have to?guess?what's going to happen,
• The marketers have to?manage big team–in-house creatives, researchers, and many agencies,
• The agencies?see their margins squeezed and payments delayed for months,
• The marketers shift their agencies from retainers to project scopes,
• Tens of people leap on the new marketing brief, vomiting tens of comments onto a short document,
• The short document becomes ten pages,
• The agencies?have?to guess which part of the brief to focus on,
• They're playing "jump ball" against other agencies and the in-house team to see which ideas win,
• A new social media platform launches and everybody is on it,
• Existing platforms change their algorithms and interfaces–nothing works now!,
• A new CMO comes in–all plans are delayed,
• The agency's?client changes jobs,
• The agency has?to re-pitch the business and there's a new pitch consultant managing the pitch,
• The agency gets fired by the new CMO,
• The agency's client re-emerges at a new company,
• Rinse and repeat.

Again, not dramatic. I've seen this tens of times. So have you if you've been around long enough.

Frenzy. Total forking frenzy. (You don't eat kalbi with forks, by the way. It's like pizza–hands only).

Real Talk Is The Only Way To De-Frenzy

So lots of frenzy. Frenzy here. Frenzy there. Frenzy everywhere.?Everybody is spinning and frothing at the mouth.

And then this beautiful, quiet voice squeaks–"What does our agency actually need from us–especially from our creative briefs?"

Oh what a voice. That question is like that first love letter you received, the one doused in teenage deodorant. "Somebody loves me?" you whisper to yourself. "Somebody loves me."

Well, this part is simple. But it's so simple few people will trust it.

A brief from a marketer to an agency has one audience–the agency.?

And, as so many people have said, briefs are advertising campaigns for the possible advertising campaign you'll make together.?

So, all a marketer needs to do with an agency, like an advertising campaign, is to catch and direct their attention.?

1. Honesty will grab?their attention,
2. Plain language will keep?their attention, and?
3. Brevity will make?sure you ask for just enough of the agency's?attention.

You. Do. Not. Need. To. Inform. People. To Death.

Just speak like this–but with specifics:

A script for your next brief:

“We have this problem.?

If we solve this problem, here’s what will change.

It involves these people. This is what they think about us.?

This is our budget.

This is when we launch.

These are our brand assets.

Are you up for the challenge?”

Marketer Appreciation Paragraphs

I was just speaking with a client who's spent years trying to push their brand from stock photos and under-performing social media posts into something powerful. They now have a new brand coming to life with an exceptional agency. And my gut reaction was, "I couldn't do that." Because I couldn't. I'm not patient enough. Politics wear me down. I need independence.

So to all of you marketers who are trying to get back some of your Ps and who are pushing to make your brands worth people's attention, my hat–in fact, all of my hats, caps, beanies, and head-appropriate paraphernalia, including masks, goggles, glasses, and wigs–go off to you.

Now, let's get back to working together in simpler ways.

Mark

P.S. Yes, I know agencies can be difficult. I know. We'll talk about that another time.

P.P.S. Weekly newsletter available–link in comments.

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