2015 taught us that the brief could be shorter. Briefs developed in a day can be as effective as documents developed after months of study. I’ll explain.

For the last 12 years pretty much everything we have developed has been built after securing approval of a brief that fits on one page.

Every Mortar brief has seven sections: i. our objectives; ii. what we know to be true about the target audience—and why they will care; iii. several key insights about the project; iv. the story we want to tell; v. a single big idea (the Big) designed to point the team in the right direction; vi. important decisions about style (personality and voice); and vii. details about anticipated deliverables.

This year we added a new section: viii. what is the strategic decision? i.e. What are we willing to give up in order to gain an advantage.

The point is to fit it all onto one page. So if you find yourself in a conference room about to work on a Mortar Big, everything you need to contribute will be right there in black and white on one side of a single page.

Mortar is not alone in our fanaticism about short briefs. Still, this piece would hardly be worthy of “What if” if we didn’t pick a fight with our own process. So here’s what 2015 revealed:

Yes, you can get to a Big in a day.  And the brief shortly after. That’s can, not should. To get to a decent Big quickly, you will need four things: 1. a client who is willing to bring a team to the table and will turn up in their best pair of participation pants. 2. An ability and desire to whiteboard like a crazy person. 3. A purposeful agenda. And 4. Bags of energy. Most good clients can tell their agency what they need to know in a few hours. And they will be even more effective if they bring a verbal, passionate colleague or two along for the ride. Plus, if the agency arrives with some experience of the market or the target audience, all the better. It’s easier for consumer-facing assignments too. Deeply technical stuff can require significant study before the team is ready to boil facts into the insights we need for a good Big.

It’s not a good idea until it’s a good idea in the morning. Most ideas change a little after a good night of sleep. The Big is no different. Attempts to wrestle complex marketing problems into one all-defining simple phrase benefit from swimming around the subconscious and being thrown into the ring with the lions a few times before they are ready for serious exploitation. So give the Big some room to spread out and grow.

The Big is rarely THE idea that will make it to market. Bigs are very rarely headlines. Few make it into print. Bigs are directional. Sure, a product might be 12x faster, 3x cheaper and 2x easier to use, but what will people do with it? What need does it meet? How will prospects feel about it? What will they tell their friends? All of these questions need to be answered in the brief. They all need to roll up to a Big. In the ideal world, the Big is the sweet center of a delicious cake of analytic goodness. Settling on the right Big marks the beginning of the rest of the process. No one should be surprised when the work ends up focusing on another part of the brief—and coming back with a previously unconsidered approach to the Big. Some of the best concepts are born from phrases dwelling somewhere else in the brief. 

Briefing can be faster. We used to take several weeks or even months to get to a solid brief: and in some cases we still do. But clients willing to sit and wait for the agency to complete the investigative steps so essential to developing a clear, objective viewpoint… well, they were harder to find this year. The 2015 crew generally greeted a lengthy development cycle with dread. So we changed it up, stripped down what we needed to the bare essentials, and figured out how to get to get the heavy lifting done inside a couple of days..

Let’s not kid ourselves, abbreviating the input stage has an awkward tendency to actually lengthen development. Smart teams of people fueled by coffee and donuts will find the gap you plastered over, in no time. Like it or not those gaps have the potential to send you back to research. And that’s ok. Often, an abbreviated process is driven by a need to be in market fast. That doesn’t mean we might not find an equally compelling, more on-point way further down the line. As our relationships get deeper, so do our Bigs.

Briefier briefs are not always weaker. The key to developing a good brief quickly is the quality and “in it together” energy of client input. Look, no one needs to teach an agency to be hyper critical and dismissive of new ideas. We do that as a matter of course. But all that negative energy can be put to good use if it is aimed at a particularly galling issue by an enthusiastic advocate who knows their customer. To make progress quickly clients need to be willing and able to roll up their sleeves and describe what customers actually care about and how they can be expected to greet the solution. Here’s a tip: focus on the target audience in as much depth as possible. Speed and enthusiasm do little for an assignment if they are not tethered to deep insight into the customer. If you don’t have it, be wary of attempts to fake it.

How can I tell if a briefier brief is right for me? Briefs can be shorter. Briefings can be quicker. You can cut weeks out of development with briefier briefs. But only do so if you can meet these three conditions:

1. Time is truly the enemy. We are accelerating. Speed, velocity, momentum, call it what you will, solutions and products race down the track barely steps ahead of a pack of howling competitors. It doesn’t help when marketing decisions occur at the tail end of a major decision. Or that they arrive at the agency with outsized expectations. But then few things would happen if we didn’t all have a deadline to hit. If time truly is against you, then good enough has to be enough. Get over it and move on. There’s always time to go back in the future. But do learn the difference between need and want. And let that guide you.
2. You know the audience… It bears repeating. There is no replacement for understanding who your customer is and why they will care. None. If you don’t have it, your Big will be wrong. If you do, you can move forward. Now any effective discussion will quickly reveal gaps in what you think you know about your customer. In fact, gap discovery is probably assurance you have the right team on the job. Eliminating information gaps at the beginning of the process will enable you to move forward more quickly and with greater confidence. Thankfully, research too can be abbreviated if you have the will and the right team. (We favor engagement sessions for exactly this reason — when members of the client team sit in the same room as respondents and actively participate in the discussion, next morning’s water cooler conversation changes for good). My point here is pay attention to the gaps. Knowing the difference between something you can think your way through and something that requires more data is a critical judgement issue.
3. You have a good idea of what internal stakeholders feel is important, exciting, and wise. Ah, this old chestnut. We sometimes tell ourselves that our main job at Mortar is to save clients from themselves. There is no shortage of genius ideas and breakthrough strategies. Even a mediocre agency can provide awesome ideas given the time and energy. So why does so much of what makes it to market suck? Our happy emphasis on momentum and decisiveness creates unanticipated anxiety and doubt. The faster we push our colleagues ahead the more we spark concern and doubt. Knowing what clients and their key stakeholders consider important to communicate, exciting to highlight and most of all, wise to say, is the part only you can judge. There’s a fair amount of gumption and gut-trusting needed here. You have to know when to dive deeper. And when to let go. But either way, make sure you believe it before you agree to your agency’s Big and proudly pack them off on its maiden voyage. You need to own it, love it and be one with it.

Just as much as your agency.

That’s how we see it. Let us know your thoughts. Join the conversation #whatifmortar.

So you want to sweat less in creative presentations in 2016? Here are four things you and your agency could be doing now to make creative development easier and more fun:

1.  Switch the dynamic from vendor to partner

The first thing to consider is how you think about each other.

The big reveal thrives in a client-vendor relationship.

It feeds off a competing power dynamic which sets you up as the benevolent dictator, ready to punish the imagination of your agency if they get something wrong.

Leading your agency to second-guess their position as your favored supplier.

In truth, the vendor dynamic sucks creativity out of the process and the soul out of participants. 

The best people never work for you. They work with you.

Partnership not bondage, cooperation not domination, love not war: ambitious, passionate and ongoing collaboration is the best way to unlock creative freedom and achieve a common goal.

Thinking of your agency as a partner is the best way to avoid the pain of missed big reveals.

2. Throw open the doors to new ideas

How many times have we heard it said: great ideas can come from anywhere. But does your agency actually mean it? If your agency’s idea of agency-client collaboration stops at Google Docs, read on.

Effective creative groups are built from members with an ability to think broadly together, confident that lunacy will be greeted with warmth and enthusiasm. Agencies build creative teams just like this all the time. But most Creatives remain walled-off behind the account team, separated from you by “the need to push-back” and coddled by a culture deeply suspicious of contributions from outside the creative department.

That is how the Mad Men did it. Sadly, it is still how most of our colleagues run their shops.

Given the right conditions, awesome ideas can come from anyone—yes, even the client.

Advertising is the “most fun you can have at work with your clothes on.” And while it’s the reason many of us work in agencies, there’s no reason you shouldn’t share in the fun too.

3. Your agency should fit like a glove, but not all gloves are comfy

If you have made the choice to partner with your agency, evaluating fit is essential.

At Mortar, we focus on clients that can thrive in constant and urgent collaboration. We have found that our best clients often have substantial experience with creative development—some of it gained on the agency side. Your agency may be different.

Either way, success hinges on being honest about who you can partner with, and who you can’t.

Over the last 18 months, our new focus has helped cut our client roster by almost half. Giving us the chance to focus on the clients most willing and able to collaborate.

When we work with them we can confidently throw our hearts into sharing ideas early and often.

4. Break the ice (preferably over cocktails)

Lastly, it’s up to you and your agency to break the ice.

This means being upfront about what honesty really means, about what you’re trying to achieve together and why it is so hard.

The place to start may very well be over your favorite cocktails—because partners prefer to kick things around in person, not on conference calls.

Breaking-the-ice means being clear and frank with one another, and holding one another accountable. Good partners make room for feelings (gasp) and don’t point fingers when things go awry.

Good partners are kind to one another because they share the same goals and aspirations.

And effective partnership also means instead of schmoozing you during fancy dinners, you work together in impromptu whiteboard sessions designed to squeeze your brief for hidden value and insight.

It is a simple idea: Great ideas thrive through open, honest and regular collaboration.

They shouldn’t be jammed into a box and expected to shine in the dark while they wait for their big reveal.

What do you think? Do you have the courage to change the dynamic and revel in a pool of collaborative goodness with your agency? Does your agency?

Follow our “What If” series here. Join the #WhatIfMortar conversation.

Other industries are doing it. Why not creative agencies?

Our post about the perils of the big reveal in creative development has generated some heat.

Most of it positive. But some of it not. Which is cool with us. As long as the discourse is honest we’re all in.

Our position is simple: agencies rely on the big reveal way too much. But it’s about as useful as playing pin the tail on the donkey.

We should (and do) know better. So why aren’t creatives adopting better methods?

Everyone else is.

In software, engineers have turned to agile processes: more uncomfortable human contact, less reputation-shredding big reveals.

How about NIKEiD, bringing co-creation right to the production line.

Or Starbucks, minimizing customer disappointment by tapping right into their grey matter with My Starbucks Idea.

Open innovation, SCRUM, customerization, heck, democracy–they are all different flavors of more open, agile and collaborative ways of working together.

Here are 50 examples of business collaboration published by Co-society—almost 3 years ago. My favorite is how Reebok sought inspiration from Cirque du Soleil for a line of exercise accessories.

We don’t need to be stuck in the dark ages. Let’s steer this conversation towards how agencies and clients can collaborate—like the rest of the world.

Read our original post “The Sucker for Punishment Dilemma” here. Join the #WhatIfMortar conversation.

Your agency works for you, but why do you feel so anxious during the creative presentation?

When you’re excluded from the development of your agency’s big creative presentation, there’s little wonder they will miss the mark most of the time. And often spectacularly.

Yet, for some inexplicable reason the industry not only accepts this sad fact, but glorifies the process too.

The agency business is addicted to the big reveal—the final, much anticipated unveiling of a creative solution after weeks of frenzied (and secret) hibernation. A presentation that is supposed to leave you, the client, in awe and the agency bursting with pride.

Only it fails more than it succeeds.

The big reveal is a terrible way to work.

You’re paying to suffer

Remember six weeks ago, when you sat down with your creative agency and poured your heart out? You spoke of your dreams, of where you are and where you’re going; you shared the very essence of your brand and your business.

Then you left the meeting, feeling confident that your briefing would translate into work that would knock your socks off. After all, an advertising agency takes the reins of your business in a very significant way—they help determine how the world will see you. Socks had better damned well be knocked off.

Today, after several nights of lost sleep and an expectant boss breathing down your neck, you’re back in the conference room about to see the fruits of your agency’s labor—the big reveal.

Boom. The curtains rise and your heart sinks.

It’s not that they have missed the point. Far worse. It’s that they’ve done a spectacular job of missing the point.

Agencies and clients often mix like oil and water

Herein lies the fundamental flaw in our beloved big reveal—the process sends both parties off on their separate ways, without ongoing communication, and attempts to reconcile the inevitable differences at the end.

We all love a good ta-da, but we have yet to meet anyone who would prefer to be surprised when the bottom line is on the line.

So what is the true cost of a creative anticlimax?

Time, money and emotional stress

A failed big reveal often costs money. It always costs time. And it saps confidence.

Probably the heaviest cost of the big reveal is collateral damage to the agency-client relationship, as it occurs on both sides of the equation. On the agency side, significant energy is spent creating impactful work in short periods of time. Each time an agency falls short, enthusiasm and passion die a little death. Similarly clients, and their colleagues, become increasingly anxious as the luxury of time begins to dwindle. As deadlines draw nearer, the opportunity costs of delay start to pile up.

Business changes a lot

Business is in constant flux, yet the big reveal demands that business conditions can be frozen, rendered “static”, while the agency is away developing their ideas. Several weeks of small changes—none of which on their own are significant, but taken together represent a significant alteration in course—threaten to put client and agency in very different places on the big day.

And even if business changes don’t throw you off, nobody knows your business as well as you do.  So why do you allow yourself to be kept on to the sidelines while you wait to be dazzled?

After over 30 years in this business I have learned that often the most important time to hear a clients’ voice is during the process. Not after.

The big reveal fails because it puts freezes clients out of the development cycle.

So partner, people

We have grown to believe that the excitement, drama and intrigue of the big reveal is essential to a healthy agency-client relationship. Its almost as if we are saying the agency’s job is to entertain first: and solve problems second.

Clearly it’s not.

My point is simple. Clients turn to agencies like us because we are creative. We see the world in a different way. And the best way to get the most out of us is to work closely with us through every step of the creative process. An open working style that emphasizes partnership and collaboration is the most effective way to land the big idea on the big day.

The traditional agency-client model is broken, but what if it were different? Contribute to the conversation #whatifmortar