The Brief Bros.

138: Our best look at a Best Buy brief from CPB.

Another shout-out to Baiba Matisone whose Creative Brief Bank provided the impetus for today's episode of #thebriefbros. It's a Crispen Porter Bogusky brief for Best Buy. Henry Gomez and I have always admired the agency's work, but do we love this brief? Watch and find out!

137: Gameboy brief

Henry Gomez and I do a deep-dive into a creative brief written by someone affiliated with the One Show. It's for a competition among "Young Gun" creative teams with a prize attached, a free Gameboy. Henry and I examine this brief and share with you our thoughts. It's another in a series we love to do where we look closely at a real brief. Thanks again to our friend Baiba Matisone, who posted this brief on her Creative Brief Bank.

136: Reviewing a creative brief by FCB for Dodge.

First, special thanks to Baiba Matisone, who appeared on The Brief Bros., for posting this creative brief on her Creative Brief Bank. Henry Gomez and I did a top to bottom examination of this brief and shared our thoughts in this episode. We agreed...mostly. But even where we disagreed, we aligned on one thing: It's a great example of a single-page, well-written and inspiring document. Watch and learn!

135: Do creative briefs need to include deliverables?

Henry Gomez and I debate a seemingly mundane question: should a creative brief include deliverables or is that the creatives' job to recommend? Some of the finest briefs do not even ask the question. Others ask simply for the "Big Idea" while still others require every tactic. Where do you stand?

134: The Brief Bros discuss the famous Kiwi creative brief

Last week, we heard from Sarah Walker-Hall and her take on the brief she wrote for Kiwi shoe polish. This week, Henry Gomez and I discuss and dissect the brief ourselves. I weighed in with my high praise when Sarah and I spoke, and today I continue my rave but this time with a chance to hear Henry share his thoughts as well. We love this brief and you have much to learn from it.

133: A conversation with Sarah Walker-Hall, Part 2: Examining the Kiwi creative brief

Last week, we met Sarah Walker-Hall, brand strategy group head at TRG in Dallas. She is a veteran strategist whose skills and dexterity as a thinker can teach all brief writers how to write better briefs. Today, she and I dive deep into her award-winning brief for Kiwi shoe polish, the resulting campaign for which also won awards. Sarah will pull back the curtain and share with us how she wrote this brief, what she did to make it unique, and together, we talk about what makes this brief, all 127 words, such an extraordinary teaching tool. Henry and I will be back next week.

132: A conversation with Sarah Walker-Hall, author of the famous Kiwi creative brief

You could say I waited 20 years to meet and talk to Sarah Walker-Hall. She authored a creative brief I have read, admired, written about and taught from almost since I began my latest career as a brief-writing instructor. In the first of a two-part series, we meet this remarkable woman who began her career in branding and found her way to strategy and planning. She has worked three times for TRG, formerly The Richards Group, in Dallas. Next time, Sarah and I will share with you the brief I love to rave about for Kiwi shoe polish, dissect its magic and show you an example of the award-winning work it inspired. If you ever doubted that a brilliant brief existed, believe. (Henry apologizes for being on the road.)

131: A conversation with Jess Saunders and Roh Kerr, recent SCA/London grads

We've had wonderful conversation with Marc Lewis, dean of London's famed School of Communication Arts. Today, Henry Gomez and I talk to two of his recent graduates: Jess Saunders and Roh Kerr, about their experiences at SCA, how they teamed up as writer/AD partners. And then Henry and I put them through a test: we reviewed a famous TV spot from the 1970s for Samsonite luggage, the one with the gorilla, and together we did a reverse engineering exercise to figure out the creative brief. We put them through their paces and they came out swimmingly! Watch and enjoy.

69. Writing a creative brief, Part 3.

The final episode of our Hulu summer re-broadcast:
Drum roll, please! Today we reveal our finished (draft) creative brief. Henry Gomez and Howard Ibach wrap up our exercise of writing a creative brief for Hulu. We’ll take you through every question on the brief and show you how Henry applied his thought-process to arrive at his final (draft) brief. We emphasize that it’s still a first draft because this is an exercise. We hope you have had as much fun watching our efforts unfold as we did brining our thinking to you. Happy brief writing!

68. Writing a creative brief, Part 2.

Part 2 of our Hulu brief writing summer re-broadcast:
Henry Gomez and Howard Ibach continue the thinking process around writing a creative brief for Hulu. Henry has unearthed some juicy intel on Hulu right on its own website. He found Hulu brand guidelines, a treasure trove of insider goodies. We dig deeper and start to add initial ideas on sticky notes we placed around each box that we created on our Mural. At the end of our episode, it’s clear we are zeroing in on final thinking. Next time, we’ll reveal our brief!

67. Writing a creative brief, Part 1.

Henry Gomez and I are taking a short break in August, so we're re-broadcasting three popular episodes: our series on writing a creative brief for Hulu, a spec assignment prompted by viewers on LinkedIn. We'll see you again in September with new guests and new topics:
Let the writing begin! Henry Gomez and Howard Ibach take the opening steps in the brief writing process, first with exploration and discussion. Henry shares the fruits of his research labor, and together we peel back the layers of the onion to learn more about Hulu. The work we do here pays huge dividends when we start to write our first draft. This is the heavy lifting all brief writers tackle, but if you love research and understanding people, this is fun.

130: George Tannenbaum inspires an episode.

Our friend George Tannenbaum wrote an essay on his Ad Aged blog recently that sparked our interest. It was called I'll Be Brief and it's a great read about, what else, the creative brief. And it got Henry Gomez and me thinking. And talking. Are our expectations of a brief overblown? George makes this claim, and Henry and I respond. We invite you to tune in.

129: Reverse engineering the brief for the classic BMW ”Ultimate Driving Machine” campaign.

If only we could see the actual brief. Henry Gomez and I give you the next best thing: our take in another reverse engineering exercise on this week's episode of The Brief Bros. for BMW's unforgettable print campaign. Watch as we take you through our thinking to arrive at what could be the brief.

128: Introducing the Creative Brief Archive.

The Brief Bros. co-host Howard Ibach proudly announces a new feature on his website, the Creative Brief Archive. It's a free repository of finished creative briefs written by ad agency strategists for real products. There's also a growing list of student-written creative briefs. The briefs are broken down by Agency and Brand. Simply register with your name and email address and you're in. There are no fees, no subscriptions. You can view briefs, download them, even comment. More goodies will be coming. If you have a completed brief you'd like to donate, please send them in!