Campaign Crash Course: How to brief a creative agency

Welcome back to Campaign Asia-Pacific's Crash Course learning series, in which you will learn valuable lessons and practical business tips on trending and essential topics from industry experts in just five minutes. Think of it as a mini mini MBA, if you will.

Lessons will cover the breadth of the marcomms industry, including technology, creative, media, strategy, leadership, diversity and inclusion and more. We'll start off by introducing you to larger topics and delve deeper into specific elements in the future. This series is designed to be useful to C-suite executives as well as those just starting out in their careers.

This seventh lesson in the Crash Course series looks at the art of briefing a creative agency about an upcoming campaign. 

In this lesson you will learn:

• The 11 key elements of a good brief.
• Why you should take time to provide background and a description of your competitive situation.
• What your agency needs to know to formulate a winning proposition.
• Why you should take time to provide evidence and backup for the above elements.
• How to specify deliverables. 
• Why it's important to put some parameters on budget. 

Your teacher

Today's lesson will be taught by Chris Kyme, co-founder and creative director at Kymechow, an independent agency in Hong Kong. A stalwart in Asia's advertising scene, Kyme's CV includes stints at Leo Burnett, Grey, FCB and Eight Partnership before founding Kymechow 10 years ago. 

In a recent LinkedIn post, Kyme opined about how briefing is something of a lost art in the industry. That post, and this Crash Course, were prompted by a brief he received that read as follows: “Here is a link to our previous commercial, please revert with your concept and quotation”.

The quiz

After you watch the above video, you'll know why that's not an acceptable brief. But how well did you absorb Kyme's advice? Test your knowledge with this quiz:

Campaign Crash Course is an ongoing series with new courses to be released on Fridays. We are always looking for feedback and ideas. Have a suggestion or want to take part? Complete our feedback form or email our editors.