MARKETING FEATURE: AGENCY-CLIENT RELATIONSHIP
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“When it comes to such briefs, the best thing would be to forget pitching for it. If you participate, you are encouraging such behaviour.” Bernard Chan – CEO of 4As Singapore
and creating fair and reasonable circumstances for both parties,” he says. Stifling creativity? The situation also put the spotlight on local industry body 4As Singapore. Several industry players questioned: What is 4As doing about it? Addressing its stance on this, Bernard Chan, CEO of 4As, says the 4As mission remains to preserve the value of creativity. However, good creatives have their fair share of technical requirements – one of which is putting out a good brief. “The pressure should be on clients to create good briefs because it is a competitive market. Without a good brief, you will not get good work making you lose out to your competitors,” Chan says. He adds that clients need to fast realise the value of the creative process. Chan adds that 4As, through its shows, the Crowbar Awards, Singapore Media Awards and NexGen, tries to promote good briefs and pitch ethics. “When it comes to such briefs, the best thing would be to forget pitching for it. If you participate, you are encouraging such behaviour,” he adds. The situation also elicited a response from Singapore’s trades union congress, NTUC’s online creative community U Creative. The organisation initiated the first step by organising a learning session on producing good briefs to get a conversation rolling. On its Facebook page, NTUC’s U Creative said: “We believe most such cases arise from a lack of understanding and proper training on what constitutes a fair creative services procurement brief. “An effective and fair brief should be mindful of both the client expectations and the creative effort to meet such expectations. As part of the creative and media community, U Creative acknowledges that this is a gap that needs to be addressed.” Vivek Kumar, director, U Creative and U Future Leaders, NTUC, also told A+M that today many creative professionals face challenges of vague requirements and terms, and this is “an ill-informed practice” that seems to be pervasive in both the public and private sectors. NTUC also encouraged the creative community to recommend clients and other
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industry partners to attend this and other such sessions. Goh Shu Fen, president of the Institute of Advertising Singapore, which is one of U Creative’s partners, says the reality of the situation is that most clients have been
getting away with free iterations – government included. This is because the service level agreement signed by agencies does not stipulate parameters to that level, and agencies do not push hard enough to set boundaries. Goh added building in unlimited iterations is “really a cop out” as it almost always destroys creativity and passion for the work, and produces unnoticed mediocre campaigns. “The bigger issue is not about reasonableness, it’s about effectiveness. How will demanding unlimited changes create better ideas and deliver more impact?” she says.
SEVEN SIGNS OF A BAD BRIEF 1. No indication of budget It is troubling when there is no budget range provided. This usually signals that the prospect will be deciding the outcome on commoditised price more than on creative quality. 2. The ever evolving brief Multiple changes of the brief over a long period is another problem. This could mean the client is unsure of what he or she wants. Often the worst briefs change the rules of the game as the process progresses. The “bait and switch” method is also toxic to the prospect company’s reputation. 3. The “up to the agency” brief The worst things you could say to an agency? “Up to you”, “Agency to recommend”, and of course, “I am not sure what we want, but I will know it when I see it”. As a marketer you have to have a clear vision of what you want your brand to represent. While the agency is there to help those dreams come true or fine-tune your vision, by no means should the agency decide your vision for you. 4. The beauty parade Spamming out a brief to a dozen or more agencies is another bad sign and is disconcerting for a pitching agency. However, this is not uncommon. The local larger government tenders as well as the major brand assignments have been known to have as many as a dozen or more agencies. 5. The “top secret” brief A big frustration is when clients get too secretive with their company’s strategies, not wanting to give away confidential information. While this is understandable, don’t take this too far in a brief. If the agency does not have a client objective or some guidance either on the deliverables or budget, chances are the work presented will also be mediocre. 6. The internal client war If it isn’t difficult enough trying to understand what the client wants, it is worse when they don’t know what they want because of internal conflict. When dissonance between internal stakeholders comes, those are more ingredients for a brief, as often the brief is unclear and muddled with the agency trying to cope with the politics of it all. 7. The bloody boring brief Another ingredient for a bad brief is when the client only wants to play it safe, asking for repetitive work – resulting in a completely uninspiring brief. Sure the agency will do it, but you can expect zero enthusiasm and even less creativity. At the end of it, good agencies respond to good briefs.
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8/3/2016 5:48:37 PM