Assignment Briefing (HALF DAY, ONE DAY)
An assignment brief is the document marketers use to give directions for the projects they want their agencies' and other partners to accomplish. The brief should identify your project needs, objectives, target audiences, budget, and timetable and provide relevant background information. The quality of your brief is the key to getting quality work done. Too often, however, the assignment brief is incomplete or simply not done. The goal of this course is to help those giving assignments gain an appreciation for the importance for why and how to draft complete briefing documents.
Today, depending on the company, one-to-many hundreds of individual marketers can interact with separate teams at different agencies on dozens of different assignment types. Regardless whether you are briefing your agencies for traditional advertising, digital direct response, social media, events, etc., the agency requires both the critical brand information, which may stay constant from one brief to another, as well as the tactical information specific to the project being managed.
The challenge is that the complexity of managing the information your agency ecosystem needs to operate efficiently has outstripped the capability of current processes to effectively deliver that information. The result, the costs stemming from the poor briefing processes is staggering.
In fact, research indicates that on average, 30% of an agencies effort is wasted due to poor briefing. While the loss may be considered marginal when compared to the revenue lost by off-brand, off-market, or off-message assignments, it is none the less significant. More importantly, the friction caused by having to frequently send the agency back to "do the assignment over" keeps agencies and clients from becoming strong partners.
Therefore, regardless of the revenue that could be gained by faster deliveries, higher quality creative, and more effective campaigns, marketers can pick up a quick 5% to 20% savings by directing agencies' efforts more precisely.
Participants in this course will develop a clear understanding of good briefing skills and processes, as well as an understanding of why initiatives like Integrated Marketing, Agency Consolidation, Lead Agency models, and Pay for Performance must start with good briefing if they are to be successful.
Who This Course Is For:
Marketers at all levels but especially those that will have specific interest including managers engaged in agency management or project briefing, brand managers responsible for agency financial management, marketing sourcing and procurement professionals as well as CMOs, Vice Presidents of Marketing and others responsible for strategic initiatives
Key Takeaways
- Learn how to gain rapid and lasting improvement in ROI from your agency spend.
- Understand how to brief your agencies so they can be as effective as possible.
- Learn the different information requirements for different agency assignment types.
- Learn how to make each piece of information complete, clear, and actionable by the agency.
- Learn how to capture insights, brilliance, and strategies alongside product and tactical information.
- Learn best practices for information flow through your company, partners, and agencies.
Suggested Half-day Workshop Options
- Modules 3, 4, 5, 7
| Training Module* | Takeaway* |
| 1. Introduction |
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| 2. Giving Your Agency the Best Possible Opportunity to Succeed |
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| 3. Defining the Brief |
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| 4. Getting the brief right |
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5. Elevating Your Briefing Process
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| 6. Tactical Assignment Briefs |
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| 7. Building Your Brief Process |
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