In today’s episode, Alan sits down with BetterBriefs co-founders Matt Davies and Pieter-Paul von Weiler to discuss why they think marketing briefs are the most important document in the agency-marketer relationship, how approaching briefs as contracts may influence results, and the effect that clarity in briefs has on creativity. Matt and Pieter-Paul also share insights from the BetterBriefs Project, the first-ever global study on marketing briefs, revealing a widespread disconnect between marketers and agencies that can lead to billions in wasted budgets. In addition, they share findings from the follow-on BetterIdeas Project, showing that many brands lack criteria, tools and training to evaluate ideas properly, fueling the trust gap between agencies and marketers.
Matt and Pieter-Paul have won more than 20 marketing effectiveness awards, including two Grand Effies. With decades of experience managing thousands of briefs across global markets, they bring deep expertise and practical insights on how to improve briefs and evaluate ideas more productively.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:07):
Are you ready to go beyond the basics of marketing?
I'm Alan Hart and this is Marketing Beyond, where we talk about the questions that sparkchange and share ideas that challenge the status quo.
Join us as we explore the future of marketing and its endless potential.
(00:32):
Today on the show, got Matt Davies and Peter Paul von Weiler, two experienced formercreative agency strategists with decades of experience managing thousands of briefs and
ideas.
And in 2021, they co-founded Better Briefs after conducting the largest and only globalstudy into marketing briefs called the Better Briefs Project, which we talk about on the
(00:52):
show.
The findings exposed a large
lack of alignment between marketers and agencies when it comes to briefs and billions ofdollars going to waste as a result.
Today, they help marketers all over the world through training, advice, knowledge sharing,and with their free reports, which we talk about, and you can get through the links in the
show notes, they want to help marketers and agencies engage in more objective discussionsabout briefs, brief writing, and how ideas are assessed.
(01:22):
Besides the Better Briefs project, their latest study, the Better Ideas project, isanother one that we also discussed on the show today.
Now, Peter Paul von Weiler is a former creative agency strategist having worked forcreative agencies like Publis's Amsterdam, Publis's London, Saatchi & Saatchi London, and
later serving as the chief strategy officer at AGF Partnership.
(01:43):
Matt Davies is a former creative agency strategist working in agencies in Melbourne,Amsterdam, and Shanghai.
Before co-founding Better Briefs, he worked with creative and design agencies likeClemenger, BBDO, Arnold Worldwide, and DesignBridge before running his own agency.
Combined, they have won over 20 FE awards, including two Grand FEs and one IPAeffectiveness award.
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I think that says it all.
Those are about effectiveness of your ideas and your work, and I hope you enjoy.
this conversation with Matt Davies and Peter Paul von Weiler.
oh
(02:28):
Welcome to the show.
I've got Matt and Peter Paul.
It's not every day I interview two people, but I know you guys are business partners andyou insisted on coming to the show together.
I want to know why.
Why are you so inseparable?
So there's two reasons for that, Alan, and thanks for having us on the show.
Reason number one is that when we were leading strategy departments in agencies, wequickly discovered that when you get multiple minds, when you get multiple strategies
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working on bricks, you get to richer, deeper thinking quicker.
And I think that's something we just naturally continued in our business.
And the second reason is everything is kind of the same-ish nowadays in the world ofmarketing.
And when it comes down to events and podcasts and interviews, everybody shows up alone.
So if we want to drive a bit of standout, we show up together and be a bit different.
(03:19):
I love it.
I love it.
Well, what was the path for both of you to found Better Breeze?
What sparked it, if you will?
Yes.
Peter Paul mentioned we're both former agency strategists.
We applied our trade in agency land, creative agency land, brand agency land, shopperagency land for roughly two decades each.
And as strategists do, we often bemoan the quality of briefs on our desk.
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Peter Paul and I were sitting in a pub actually one day and I had a brief on my desk for astock exchange listed company here in Australia.
And it was wanting to say the least.
There was a one line brief.
There was no template associated with it.
this particular company was wanting to put a lot of money and investment behind thisparticular activity.
And it was not, uh not atypical really.
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We, we would often see briefs from our clients that were asking a lot of us and theagency.
So for us as former agency strategists, we would often take it upon ourselves to trainclients in areas of how to write a brief, how to communicate that brief into their agency,
how to get the most out of their agency, what creative response looks like, how to assesscreativity.
(04:27):
So,
For us, was a really rich, some say niche spot, but a really impactful spot in thecommunication process where we think we can impact what happens and how we design the
work.
I love it.
From the idea of why create this, you did this together and going from kind of like otheragencies to now saying, wait, we want to do something together.
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It's a little bit like getting married.
I don't know if you think about it that way, but like I've had partnerships in the pastand just curious, like, how do you guys make it work?
Yes, I guess one thing that helps is that I'm Dutch and that has worked in theNetherlands.
So we are bluntly honest.
(05:09):
So issues and feedback is unfiltered.
And I think that that is important.
It is important in a partnership and it is important in our line of business as well.
There's too much ambiguity, too much politeness, too much misunderstanding.
that we see go wrong, that I think in our relationship, everything is quite blunt.
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And some of the people that work for us sometimes are intimidated how we communicate witheach other.
It looks a little bit like fighting sometimes, but that's kind of just us being brutallyhonest with each other.
that's, Alan, something we need more of in the world of ideas and marketing.
We need more brutal honesty and that will help us.
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get to more effective ideas.
appreciate that.
And I've had a Dutch colleague and I learned through him the Dutch succinctness and maybelike brutal truth, but it works.
It works really well.
And especially if you can create that language together, it does sound a little likeyou're fighting at times, but you're just getting your thoughts out clearly, succinctly to
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the point.
Totally.
And it's always with the interest of the business at heart.
think we've been fortunate as a business where we've had people knocking in our door fromday one.
We started the business with a whole bunch of clients waiting to be trained on how towrite better briefs, how to assess creative ideas in a more proficient manner.
So leads and getting business through the door and the financial aspect of the business,which we all know is sometimes tricky, has never really been an issue for us.
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The issue for us has been how we plan for the business, how we plan for growth.
which is a luxurious position to be in too.
Well, seems like, I mean, beyond the spark of this idea, you guys have published a coupleof studies, the first of which was the Better Brief Project.
I would love to talk maybe a little bit about that, what the findings were, et cetera.
But maybe like, other than I'm guessing it came straight out of why create thisorganization to begin with, like what were you looking to understand in that first
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project, that first study?
It kind of came the other way around, Alan.
We were kind of complaining once again why there were so many poor briefs.
And I guess we wanted to know a little bit more about it.
And we quickly discovered that hardly any research had been done on this importantdocument.
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When you think about a brief, right, it is a really important document, probably the mostimportant document that exchanges hands between a brand and an agency.
And we looked up the types of research and the amount of research that had been done in atiny study in the UK was done more than 20 years ago.
It was included in some, uh, agents agency brand relationship studies, and that was it.
(08:02):
So it was a uh really important topic that was very lightly researched.
And then as a strategist, you kind of, you kind of get really interested.
Why is this?
Why is this thing that has been
been haunting me mind higher career so poorly researched.
And I guess we just wanted to fill that knowledge gap.
We wanted just to do something about it.
After almost 20 years of working in the industry, I guess we, we wanted to do somethingabout it in our own way.
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And we're not researchers as all we are trainers and we are strategists, but there was apassion to fill that knowledge gap.
And that actually started the business, not the other way around.
Gotcha.
Okay.
Well, one of the things that stuck out to me was, I think it's a stat around an estimatedone third of marketing budgets are wasted on these poor briefs and misdirected work.
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What are some of the strategies or thoughts that you help people think about now, both onthe marketing side as well as the agency side to improve those results?
Yeah, I guess that there's a couple of things to start off with there.
First of all, a brief is a summary of all the strategic thinking a brand has been doing.
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It's the end point of the strategy phase.
So if your marketing strategy isn't sound, isn't clear, you're not able to write a brief.
And that happens way too often that a brief writer has to put in
poor strategy into a brief and obviously that's not going to go anywhere.
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The most important section to nail is the objective section.
Agencies are screaming out for a clear picture of success.
What do we need to shift in people's brain?
And how will that shift in people's brain or people's heart influence behavior?
And how will that behavior change deliver a commercial result?
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We see that go wrong way too often.
And both the marketeer and the agency need to be clear on the picture of success becauseotherwise you can't ideate because a brief is a springboard for an agency to ideate off,
to start thinking from it guides and informs their behavior.
The other thing we notice um is that multiple strategies often make their way into briefs.
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They're not as singular in their focus as they should be.
So are we trying to acquire new customers?
Are we trying to retain existing ones?
What we have to say to those audiences who are fundamentally different will be different.
So I think often we think that it's easier to do a lot.
and it's more efficient for our money to try and do as much as we can with a brief whenactually it's the opposite.
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The more focused we are with our brief, the more dedicated we are in defining that targetaudience in our brief and designing communications for that specific problem or
opportunity we define, the better the return on the investment potential.
Maybe the last one is treat it as a contract.
Treat it as a contract as any other industry would treat contracts.
(11:02):
Unfortunately, we're not seeing that happen.
We're seeing that not enough time and attention goes into briefs.
We're seeing that they're not precise enough and there's maybe more on the market to yourside.
And on the agency side, we're seeing agencies saying yes to briefs that they don'tunderstand.
So both sides have a responsibility there to take that document way more seriously.
(11:28):
Well, and I think something else that stood out to me was this other stat around 90 % ofmarketers admit that they changed their brief once they briefed the agency.
It feels like the notion of you just mentioned of making this a contract.
I've never thought about a brief as a contract, but you're right.
What do you want to achieve?
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And then looking back to see, did the work achieve that outcome?
It really is simple, it's a bit of a contractual obligation that you're setting up at theoutset, but I never thought about it like that.
Well, continue to think about it like that.
Continue to think how other industries treat briefs.
Think about how architects are briefed.
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Doesn't matter if it's an interior architect or, or, or somebody who builds a building.
Think about how, how your gardener is briefed, how you brief your hairdresser right?
Those are very serious, serious documents that are, that are of huge importance and
If you change them halfway, then there's going to be massive consequences.
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And we should treat the brief the same in our industry.
I'm glad you brought that up, Alan, around how briefs change.
And some of it is the nature of our industry.
We work in a dynamic industry and sometimes things change, right?
And if it's small things like we're updating the channel mix, we want a new format, wewant a slightly new specification on the creative that we're designing, all the media that
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we're putting that creative in, then that's usually something that agencies can handle.
When it's fundamental change, when strategy is not clear,
When a brief becomes more of an internal stakeholder alignment tool versus a tool designedto brief an agency who can start work from it, then that change is really difficult to
deal with.
It becomes a really expensive process.
We know that a poor brief kicks off a really negative chain reaction.
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And if that brief changes, it just resets that negative chain reaction as well, becauseagencies spend far too long trying to interpret either the first direction or be the
second direction that you're setting in your brief.
we get a whole bunch of mediocre ideas back because we're uncertain in the project, whatthe, what the project's end goal looks like.
So we spend lots of time, money, energy, additional rounds of concepting approvals onaverage, I think every round of concepting that agency is between 40 and 50 grand.
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So we're wasting money.
If our strategy is ill-defined, we're not setting our agencies up for success.
And yeah, it's, it's staggering.
Nine out of 10 marketers admit the briefs change.
We need to get better at.
putting final briefs into agencies and buying ourselves a bit more time upfront to ensurethat we're putting our best foot forward as well.
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Back to that example.
So you brief your interior architect on the mid century design and they come back withtheir first interpretations of how they're going to redecorate your house in mid century
design.
And all of a sudden you're saying, nah, sorry, I changed my mind.
I want to go classical.
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You're going to pay for those hours that are wasted for sure.
And this exact same is happening in our industry, but we're not taking it seriously.
seriously enough.
One more question about briefs before we switch gears.
I've heard marketers over the course of my career say something to the effect of, I don'twant to stifle the creativity.
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And so they, I think, stop themselves short of providing maybe either that criticaldirection or sharper point of view in terms of the strategy or the findings that they're
trying to look for.
What I'm hearing from you guys is you need that absolute clear direction because itactually fosters creativity.
It doesn't stifle it.
And so like how do you balance those two things, if you will?
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I think it's one of the most misunderstood things around creativity in the creative agencyland, if you will.
A lot of our clients these days, we find don't know the inner workings of an agency.
They haven't been behind the curtain.
They don't know how agencies work.
Creativity works well with processes and structure around it.
We need that iterative process to allow the best ideas to see the light of day.
And there's specific skill sets within agencies that allow that to happen.
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For the idea that we just need to let creativity loose, that we need to be very free inthe way that we brief.
Creativity works best if we focus it.
If we focus it around a specific challenge that the brand is facing.
If we focus it on what success looks like, what does the end game look like forcreativity?
We are in the business of commercial creativity.
We are not in the business of art and creating stuff for creation's sake.
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So what we design has to have a purpose.
And it's up to the marketer to make the choices.
and set the direction for where the creative agency needs to find the answers.
So what is the message?
What is the one thing they want to say about their product or brand?
What are the proof points?
The reasons to believe?
How is that target audience defined?
So the more that we leave it open for interpretation for the agency, the more we're goingto go off course.
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Yeah, and that's what you do with artists.
You commission an artist and let them roam free so they can do their best work.
Agencies need to be guided.
They need to be guided and they need to be informed on what they need to do and how theyapply their commercial credit.
Of the distinction there.
I really do
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And maybe one more thing on that.
So businesses invest in marketing to drive better business results.
And the way that works is you make a plan, you capture it in a strategy that is translatedinto a brief.
You give that brief to an agency to come up with ideas.
It doesn't matter what type of ideas, but it's the ideas that go into the marketplace thatneed to deliver a positive return on investment.
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that the business has made.
So it's all connected.
But in order to get to the positive return on investment, we need to set up creativity forsuccess.
And we need a better process there to brief it in and manage the ideas as well.
Sorry, I just wanted to...
was that out?
No, I love the point.
(17:30):
And thanks for closing it.
I want to talk about so we go from brief to ideas and your latest project is the betterideas project.
How does this I mean, other than switching from briefs to ideas, what were you trying toaccomplish here?
Yeah, just to reinforce Peter Paul's point, the idea is what has the impact in the world.
So a brief is an important step and an important first step in ensuring that we're gettingthe right response from the agency.
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But we also had the hunch that practices around idea assessment weren't as good or assharp as they could be.
We've experienced lots of poor practice within the clients that we work with.
Unfortunately, it's just an area that we just don't get trained in.
We think it's something that we can all have an opinion on creativity.
So we wanted to
put some objectivity around it, some findings, some stats around it so we can have morerobust conversations, much like the Better Briefs project.
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It's irrefutable data.
There's over a thousand people in both the samples of these reports and heavy onexperience levels for marketers.
it's something that we can't refute.
And for us, it was an indication of where things are going wrong in that process.
Because if we get that right, if we get our idea assessment right, if we manage for ourbiases, if we manage for organizational uncertainty during that phase, because creative
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ideas
can be tricky things to nurture and um deal with.
It's something that we wanted to really get a better understanding of.
Well, something critical, I guess, to getting the right ideas is something you highlight,which is like 70 % of creative agencies don't trust the creative judgment of the marketers
that they're working with.
And like, how do we think about overcoming that gap in trust?
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are the tools or trades, if you will, that we can do?
There's a lot there, Alan, that we need to work on.
First, trust is built on relationship.
And a relationship is a mutual give and take and relationships grow over time.
So the first thing to do is to invest in a relationship, a mutual relationship that getsto these tricky things that are ideas and effective ideas that deliver a positive return
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on investment.
So it's about understanding each other.
Ask yourself as a marketer, do you really understand how an idea is generated?
And if you don't ask your agency, take us through what Matt was talking about before.
us, take us through how your agency comes up with ideas, showing the inner workings ofyour agency.
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So I can, I'm better set up, I'm better equipped to set you up for success.
And the same goes for agencies.
I think agencies need to
understand better how difficult it is to get ideas signed off in organizations.
uh It's not an easy thing, especially when you're dealing with big, bold, impactful ideas.
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And then a couple of things need to happen.
We need to work on tools, skills, and process.
And we can see from our findings that many organizations
don't have any tools in place.
They don't have any criteria in place how they will assess ideas.
Right.
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They haven't defined what their creative ambition is, or they haven't defined what type ofideas they're looking for, which is kind of nuts because almost every professional
competition in any profession has criteria defined.
But for some reason, brands haven't defined criteria for the type of ideas they're lookingfor.
What about the sign off process?
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Is it in order?
Is it very clear who is signing off on the idea?
Everybody might have an opinion on an idea.
Everybody might be providing feedback on an idea, but that doesn't mean that theirfeedback is professional or informed.
We like to say that the person who signs off on the brief is the person that signs off onthe idea.
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And then lastly, we know that hardly anybody has trained in how to deal with ideas.
Nobody's been trained in how to write briefs and nobody's been trained how to evaluateideas.
So why do it's easy to have an opinion on them, but nobody has been trained on them.
And I would ask you, Alan, when's the last time you, you boarded the plane with anuntrained pilot or if you needed an operation, would you allow someone who hasn't gone to
(21:57):
medical school to operate on you?
No, of course not.
But in marketing we
We've got this problem that we're doing all these things that we've never been trained in.
It's fascinating you bring this up.
One of the things that's come into mind is I used to talk to a very prominent CMO and heused to talk about this notion of an iceberg as he's going to shop these ideas around the
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organization.
Everyone loves to comment on what marketing is and what they think marketing is, which isthe tip of the iceberg.
It's the ad that we see, the latest creative idea that's going to go into market.
He was like, but no one understands how much of the iceberg is below the water, theprocess, the people, the skills, the criteria, the strategy that underlies what everyone
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sees.
And it sounds like what you're saying is like to get better ideas and to understand theappreciation for like how an organization has to sell an idea into the organization.
We need to codify some rules.
and maybe bring some of the stuff that's below the surface of the water to above thesurface of the water so we can make better decisions.
(23:06):
Is that fair to say?
Yeah, I think, um, think you've hit a nail on the head there, Alan.
think some of the poor practice we see is that the people who sign off the brief and notthe ones necessarily signing off the idea.
And it's also unfortunate that we are in a profession where everyone can share an opinion.
Everyone has an opinion on creativity because we're exposed to ads every day.
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I've seen this.
I like this.
I know what's going to be right for our brand or not, but it shouldn't be the case justbecause you have an opinion doesn't mean that that opinion is informed is, is, justified.
It's very hard for us to have an opinion on something more complex like the cyber securitypolicy of a company.
And we would never, we would never offer our opinion in that area of the business as well,because it would be ill informed.
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So I think people come at idea assessment with a really ill informed perspective thattheir opinion is valid.
We should be defining everything that we do and every piece of work that we're assessingfrom our target audiences perspective.
If someone hasn't seen the brief.
doesn't know who the target audience is from that brief, not broadly who you think theaudience is for your business.
Then we're not doing it justice, right?
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Too many personal opinions are going to rain, subjectivity is going to rain, and we'regoing to get to watered down, diluted, gray, bland ideas that don't have the impact that
we're looking for.
We know that most creativity doesn't stand out.
How many ads are we exposed to every day?
How many of them do we notice?
That is the group think mentality that happens when the bottom of that iceberg
(24:31):
rears its ugly head and derails, you know, derails project.
And when you start to look into the backstory of some of the most famous campaigns we'veseen in the last 50 years, you look back into what actually happened from a
decision-making perspective, most of the time there is a very limited amount or only onedecision-maker that buys the idea on the spot or has to fight a whole bunch of other
(25:04):
people and say, no,
I'm the decision maker, this is what we're gonna do.
That's the story behind Apple 1984.
That's the story behind Sony Bulls.
That's the story behind Guinness Surfer.
And there's so many more of those stories where there was a very brave leading marketeerwho said, this is what we're doing and that's it.
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And they had to fight, they had to fight very hard to get it through.
But now we're looking back at those.
those types of ads, think, that's absolutely awesome.
So it's a very tricky thing, but the more people we get to decide on which idea is rightfor our business, the more we end up being a child in kindergarten, mixing all the paint
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together, and we all know what kind of color we end up with.
Well, I really enjoyed this conversation.
mean, like you were going from like better briefs to better ideas to better impact.
This is a marketer's dream.
And I've, I've sat on both sides of the table.
Like I've been on the agency side, I've been on the marketer side evaluating, and I'vebeen in those situations where the brief was ill-defined.
(26:10):
I might have had some hand in that and you get through those pitches and you know,agencies, because I've been on the agency side, they are brilliant storytellers.
And you can sit through a pitch of a new creative concept and you can just be completelyenamored with it.
And then the conversation ensues.
Was this what we set out to achieve?
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And we forget to go back and look at like, what were we trying to achieve?
And, and sometimes we never really wrote it down, which is on us, right?
As marketers and, and, and probably on our agency partners for not holding us accountableto the contract that, that we should have set up between each other.
The great story also needs to be summarized in an idea and an execution of that idea thatthe marketeer can understand.
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It's all well and good to tell beautiful stories and put on a great show, but at the endof the creative presentation, the marketeer needs to be super, super clear on what the
idea is and what the execution is.
And there's many issues around that.
Many people and agencies don't understand the difference between the two because
(27:19):
It is relatively easy to change an execution.
It is very, very expensive to change an idea.
Unfortunately, the industry is hungry for more and more and more ideas and they don'tstand out and they're not effective.
So that's why we're burning up to a third of our marketing budget.
yeah, no, agree, agree.
Well, I want to switch gears and ask you guys a couple questions.
(27:41):
I ask everybody that comes on the show.
Also, that gives me an opportunity to learn a little bit more about each of you as peopleand as humans.
My favorite question to ask everyone, so I'm just going to pose it to each of youindividually.
Maybe Matt, I'll start with you.
Has there been an experience of your past that defines or makes up who you are?
(28:02):
Getting very deep, Helen.
It's good.
I'm going to keep it on a professional level, I think it's, I think looking back at, Ithink my experience in my career as a strategist, I think it's the diversity of
experience.
And what I mean by that is, strategists are fortunate enough to work on lots of businessesin lots of industries.
(28:24):
And I've also been fortunate enough to work in that format across multiple countries andcontinents.
So it's amazing how
how sharp you can keep your actions and your mind when every problem you face isdifferent.
And I think that's the beauty of being in that strategic role that you can work in B2B oneday, can work on automotive the next day, you can be working on consumer packaged goods
(28:47):
the day after that.
So it's always kind of getting to the heart of our clients business problems that wasalways the driving force as a strategist.
And I think that's put us in good stead and being good stead anyway for my career as a.
as an entrepreneur and as a business owner.
So yeah, it's an interesting question.
It got me thinking.
Peter Paul, what about you?
(29:07):
Yeah, for me it was getting fired.
that can be very impactful.
Yes, I was, I was in between jobs working in London as a strategist.
So this was job I took between working for publicists and work for such and such is, and Iwas there for about four months and from one day to another I got fired.
(29:31):
And it was my own fault.
And it learned me a lot about listening.
So I was working on a brief and I shared my first draft.
with my boss and he was like a true British gentleman.
And after reading my brief for the first time, he said, uh interesting.
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So I thought, oh, cool.
That's a good sign.
If he thinks it's very interesting.
So I continued to, to refine the brief along the same strategic direction.
I had set out and only made a couple of tweaks to it.
So the next day I shared the updated version with him and
After reading it, he said, I only have a few minor comments.
(30:17):
So me as a Dutchman, I think, okay, cool.
So he's just got a couple of things and we're almost there and we're good.
And this continued like three or four more days like that.
And on the fifth day I was asked to not come in anymore.
You
So that was my fault.
It was my fault that I wasn't listening well enough.
(30:40):
And you listen not only with your ears, you listen with your eyes as well.
And I should have listened better and understood the culture that I was working in betterbecause when he said very interesting, the English actually mean that's utter nonsense.
When he said, only have a few
minor comments he meant just rewrite that brief completely.
(31:04):
And it was my fault.
It took me a while to actually figure out what had happened because mid level, you'reyou're 10 years into your career, you're think shit hot.
I had to go deep to actually really, really reset myself and think, okay, I need to listeneven better.
I've got the skills.
(31:25):
That was just an incident and yeah, that was transforming for me that experience.
Yeah.
Well, and you know, the cultural differences to your point, like, I mean, we I faced thateven in the US, right?
The East Coast, Northeast is very different than the Midwest and is very different thanCalifornia or the South, right?
(31:47):
You know, in the South, where I grew up, we might say, oh, that's that's fantastic.
And it's the equivalent of that's interesting.
Hahaha
And so, you know, the nuances are real and, uh you know, anyway, it's good for you forowning it, but I also think there are circumstances around it probably not in your favor
(32:12):
too, so.
So we need a lexicon, Alan.
We need a lexicon.
Also in America, it seems, for when we're dealing with ideas.
Because when you're dealing with ideas, they're really fragile things, right?
They're really hard to decide on.
When they first show up, they're very rough and ugly because they're never as refined asin their final polished state.
(32:35):
And there's no room to say it's fantastic or that's interesting.
We have to be clear with each other.
What we think and what we mean.
Well, and I think that gets back to the lexicon to your point gets back to that likebridge of trust that needs to be built.
Like, so like we understand each other.
Like it's hard to have trust if we don't understand each other.
(32:55):
So yeah, no, I agree.
I agree.
Well, I want to ask you guys, each of you, like what advice would you give to your youngerself as you're starting this journey all over?
Maybe besides write better briefs, but.
I think for me, it's be a better student of the industry earlier.
I think I went through my early career kind of trying to find my way in agency land and inthis communication field.
(33:19):
And um I was fortunate enough to work at some great agencies, but there is so muchavailable around how marketing works, how communications work that a lot of people are not
aware of.
And I would have, I would have pushed myself to be a better student earlier.
because it's easy to have your head in the sand.
It's easy to be indoctrinated into a particular organization's way of working, but there'sstuff out there.
(33:41):
For some reason, we continue to make bland work or work that doesn't stand out or workthat we're not proud of, which is another finding from our research, when we shouldn't
have to settle for that.
again, I learn what works.
There's lots of people doing some really amazing things in the field of marketing science.
And so how do you apply that?
(34:01):
So I would have got across those principles earlier on, but
having known them now, would have probably tackled early days of my career a bitdifferently as well.
Yeah.
Peter Paul, how about you?
I would say to my younger self, my younger professional self, stop trying to outsmarteveryone.
Yeah, I think I made a change from trying, always trying to solve everything by myself,trying to be the smartest one and always have the solution into partnership and guidance
(34:35):
and setting other ones up for success.
doesn't really matter who comes up with the solution, even if you ask the right question.
that evokes somebody else to come up with a solution.
If you provide that kind of guidance, that is helpful and that's useful.
And you get to better stuff quicker.
So stop trying to outsmart everyone.
One more question, I might have one more topic if it's okay if I inject the cockpit beforewe get to the last question.
(34:58):
Matt, you piqued my interest a minute ago when you said marketing science.
And I should state for the record that you guys are up really early to have thisconversation because you're on the other side of the world right now from where I am.
So thank you for doing that.
But as you think about like briefing, building strategies within briefs or on the brandside and how it.
(35:20):
relates to the creative process and getting better ideas as outcomes that drive business.
Like where does, curious just to get your couple of thoughts on where marketing sciencefits in and you're in the realm of the world where there's a huge marketing science
institute in Australia pumping out knowledge about like what they believe they've seenfrom the data and what the new rules, if you will, for marketing.
(35:46):
You save rules, right?
I think for us, the only work, the only creative work that's worth investing is, is workthat delivers a positive return on investment, that work that's effective.
So the only thing that we really care about are the FVs and the IPA effectiveness awards.
(36:09):
for us, marketing science is the simple act of listen,
listening and applying the rules of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, listening and applyingthe rules of Byron Sharp, of Nelson Field with her attention studies, of Peter Field and
Les Bernay on how to balance building the brand with uh driving activation.
(36:35):
It's listening to the studies of Adam Morgan in System One on that most of the work we'reputting out there is absolutely boring as bad shit.
So
There is so much knowledge out there on what not to do, on what type of work and how towrite a good brief, but we're not applying it.
(36:56):
There's so much creative work that's being pumped out that's utterly ignorable.
So why are we not applying those basic rules?
We need to stand out, right?
Show up somewhere with the pair, not as an individual.
Do something else, then you're a competitor.
It's so easy, but because of so many reasons, there's so much mediocre work and it's nothelping our industry.
(37:23):
No, I would agree with you and I'll give you a Dutch name that I Think does and has beenworking on this marketing science as well So Jan Benedict Steenkamp or JB as he goes by
UNC professor but I think some of his work is in line with what we see from Ehrenberg bassbut I also thinks he he Has done a lot of work putting it into practice more so than I've
(37:48):
seen in other other places.
So as a one
As one Dutch person to another, me, but JB to you, Peter Paul, I'll give you somebody thatyou can reference in the future.
I'll ask you my last question to both of you.
As you look forward, you're on a show, lots of marketing listeners.
What do you think are the largest opportunity or threat facing marketers as they approachtomorrow?
(38:16):
For me, I think purse strings are going to get tightened.
I think that we might have less money to play with as a business and a brand.
And as a marketer, your job is to fight for that money.
But you can only fight for that money if you have an understanding of the commercialimpact that your marketing is going to have.
if we're just spending what we did last year, because that's all we know what to do withour budgets, versus...
(38:40):
understanding and designing for what is the return that we're going to get off thatmarketing investment and putting together an argument for the business that suggests that
we still need to be investing in brand.
still need to be investing in communications because we know that budgets are the firstthing slashed from the marketing teams when things get tight.
Paul, what would you add to that?
Or maybe counter?
(39:01):
What?
No, think it's, it's two things for me.
would say make less ideas that work harder, take more time to write less briefs that leadto more effective ideas.
The vast majority of what we put into the marketplace completely ignored.
(39:21):
So stop doing that and just make ideas that work.
And the other one is.
Many people who write briefs have never been trained in how to write briefs.
Many people who approve ideas have never been trained in how to approve ideas.
I just think about that.
(39:42):
That is such a big issue.
it's, yeah, the lack of skills in marketing is very concerning.
So if you as a brand invest more in understanding and training and getting that right, youwill win.
I just want to say thank you guys for both coming on the show.
I've learned a few things.
(40:03):
uh Maybe reinforce this notion of a contract is my biggest takeaway.
I've never thought of the briefing process as such, but I've learned a lot throughout thisand I would encourage anybody to check out your studies.
They're pretty fascinating and eye opening to be honest.
If somebody was set in kind of both chairs, the agency and the brand marketer chair.
So thank you for coming on.
(40:24):
Appreciate it.
Thank you for having us.
oh
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speaker's own and do not represent theviews, thoughts, and opinions of Deloitte.
Material and information presented here is for general information purposes only and doesnot imply endorsement or opposition to any specific company, product, or service.
(40:44):
Hi, it's Alan again.
Marketing Beyond is a Deloitte digital podcast.
It's created and produced by me with post-production support from Sam Robertson.
If you're new to Marketing Beyond, please feel free to write us a review and subscribe onyour favorite listening platform.
also invite you to explore the other Deloitte digital podcast at deloitte digital dot comslash us slash podcast and share the show with your friends and colleagues.
(41:12):
I love hearing from listeners.
can contact me at marketing beyond at Deloitte dot com.
You'll also find complete show notes and links to what's discussed in the podcast today.
and you can search our archives.
I'm Alan Hart and this is Marketing Beyond.
Are you ready to go beyond the basics of marketing?
I'm Alan Hart and this is Marketing Beyond, where we talk about the questions that sparkchange and share ideas that challenge the status quo.
Join us as we explore the future of marketing and its endless potential.
(00:32):
Today on the show, got Matt Davies and Peter Paul von Weiler, two experienced formercreative agency strategists with decades of experience managing thousands of briefs and
ideas.
And in 2021, they co-founded Better Briefs after conducting the largest and only globalstudy into marketing briefs called the Better Briefs Project, which we talk about on the
(00:52):
show.
The findings exposed a large
lack of alignment between marketers and agencies when it comes to briefs and billions ofdollars going to waste as a result.
Today, they help marketers all over the world through training, advice, knowledge sharing,and with their free reports, which we talk about, and you can get through the links in the
show notes, they want to help marketers and agencies engage in more objective discussionsabout briefs, brief writing, and how ideas are assessed.
(01:22):
Besides the Better Briefs project, their latest study, the Better Ideas project, isanother one that we also discussed on the show today.
Now, Peter Paul von Weiler is a former creative agency strategist having worked forcreative agencies like Publis's Amsterdam, Publis's London, Saatchi & Saatchi London, and
later serving as the chief strategy officer at AGF Partnership.
(01:43):
Matt Davies is a former creative agency strategist working in agencies in Melbourne,Amsterdam, and Shanghai.
Before co-founding Better Briefs, he worked with creative and design agencies likeClemenger, BBDO, Arnold Worldwide, and DesignBridge before running his own agency.
Combined, they have won over 20 FE awards, including two Grand FEs and one IPAeffectiveness award.
(02:06):
I think that says it all.
Those are about effectiveness of your ideas and your work, and I hope you enjoy.
this conversation with Matt Davies and Peter Paul von Weiler.
oh
(02:28):
Welcome to the show.
I've got Matt and Peter Paul.
It's not every day I interview two people, but I know you guys are business partners andyou insisted on coming to the show together.
I want to know why.
Why are you so inseparable?
So there's two reasons for that, Alan, and thanks for having us on the show.
Reason number one is that when we were leading strategy departments in agencies, wequickly discovered that when you get multiple minds, when you get multiple strategies
(02:56):
working on bricks, you get to richer, deeper thinking quicker.
And I think that's something we just naturally continued in our business.
And the second reason is everything is kind of the same-ish nowadays in the world ofmarketing.
And when it comes down to events and podcasts and interviews, everybody shows up alone.
So if we want to drive a bit of standout, we show up together and be a bit different.
(03:19):
I love it.
I love it.
Well, what was the path for both of you to found Better Breeze?
What sparked it, if you will?
Yes.
Peter Paul mentioned we're both former agency strategists.
We applied our trade in agency land, creative agency land, brand agency land, shopperagency land for roughly two decades each.
And as strategists do, we often bemoan the quality of briefs on our desk.
(03:43):
Peter Paul and I were sitting in a pub actually one day and I had a brief on my desk for astock exchange listed company here in Australia.
And it was wanting to say the least.
There was a one line brief.
There was no template associated with it.
this particular company was wanting to put a lot of money and investment behind thisparticular activity.
And it was not, uh not atypical really.
(04:07):
We, we would often see briefs from our clients that were asking a lot of us and theagency.
So for us as former agency strategists, we would often take it upon ourselves to trainclients in areas of how to write a brief, how to communicate that brief into their agency,
how to get the most out of their agency, what creative response looks like, how to assesscreativity.
(04:27):
So,
For us, was a really rich, some say niche spot, but a really impactful spot in thecommunication process where we think we can impact what happens and how we design the
work.
I love it.
From the idea of why create this, you did this together and going from kind of like otheragencies to now saying, wait, we want to do something together.
(04:48):
It's a little bit like getting married.
I don't know if you think about it that way, but like I've had partnerships in the pastand just curious, like, how do you guys make it work?
Yes, I guess one thing that helps is that I'm Dutch and that has worked in theNetherlands.
So we are bluntly honest.
(05:09):
So issues and feedback is unfiltered.
And I think that that is important.
It is important in a partnership and it is important in our line of business as well.
There's too much ambiguity, too much politeness, too much misunderstanding.
that we see go wrong, that I think in our relationship, everything is quite blunt.
(05:33):
And some of the people that work for us sometimes are intimidated how we communicate witheach other.
It looks a little bit like fighting sometimes, but that's kind of just us being brutallyhonest with each other.
that's, Alan, something we need more of in the world of ideas and marketing.
We need more brutal honesty and that will help us.
(05:55):
get to more effective ideas.
appreciate that.
And I've had a Dutch colleague and I learned through him the Dutch succinctness and maybelike brutal truth, but it works.
It works really well.
And especially if you can create that language together, it does sound a little likeyou're fighting at times, but you're just getting your thoughts out clearly, succinctly to
(06:20):
the point.
Totally.
And it's always with the interest of the business at heart.
think we've been fortunate as a business where we've had people knocking in our door fromday one.
We started the business with a whole bunch of clients waiting to be trained on how towrite better briefs, how to assess creative ideas in a more proficient manner.
So leads and getting business through the door and the financial aspect of the business,which we all know is sometimes tricky, has never really been an issue for us.
(06:46):
The issue for us has been how we plan for the business, how we plan for growth.
which is a luxurious position to be in too.
Well, seems like, I mean, beyond the spark of this idea, you guys have published a coupleof studies, the first of which was the Better Brief Project.
I would love to talk maybe a little bit about that, what the findings were, et cetera.
But maybe like, other than I'm guessing it came straight out of why create thisorganization to begin with, like what were you looking to understand in that first
(07:15):
project, that first study?
It kind of came the other way around, Alan.
We were kind of complaining once again why there were so many poor briefs.
And I guess we wanted to know a little bit more about it.
And we quickly discovered that hardly any research had been done on this importantdocument.
(07:37):
When you think about a brief, right, it is a really important document, probably the mostimportant document that exchanges hands between a brand and an agency.
And we looked up the types of research and the amount of research that had been done in atiny study in the UK was done more than 20 years ago.
It was included in some, uh, agents agency brand relationship studies, and that was it.
(08:02):
So it was a uh really important topic that was very lightly researched.
And then as a strategist, you kind of, you kind of get really interested.
Why is this?
Why is this thing that has been
been haunting me mind higher career so poorly researched.
And I guess we just wanted to fill that knowledge gap.
We wanted just to do something about it.
After almost 20 years of working in the industry, I guess we, we wanted to do somethingabout it in our own way.
(08:29):
And we're not researchers as all we are trainers and we are strategists, but there was apassion to fill that knowledge gap.
And that actually started the business, not the other way around.
Gotcha.
Okay.
Well, one of the things that stuck out to me was, I think it's a stat around an estimatedone third of marketing budgets are wasted on these poor briefs and misdirected work.
(08:52):
What are some of the strategies or thoughts that you help people think about now, both onthe marketing side as well as the agency side to improve those results?
Yeah, I guess that there's a couple of things to start off with there.
First of all, a brief is a summary of all the strategic thinking a brand has been doing.
(09:14):
It's the end point of the strategy phase.
So if your marketing strategy isn't sound, isn't clear, you're not able to write a brief.
And that happens way too often that a brief writer has to put in
poor strategy into a brief and obviously that's not going to go anywhere.
(09:35):
The most important section to nail is the objective section.
Agencies are screaming out for a clear picture of success.
What do we need to shift in people's brain?
And how will that shift in people's brain or people's heart influence behavior?
And how will that behavior change deliver a commercial result?
(09:56):
We see that go wrong way too often.
And both the marketeer and the agency need to be clear on the picture of success becauseotherwise you can't ideate because a brief is a springboard for an agency to ideate off,
to start thinking from it guides and informs their behavior.
The other thing we notice um is that multiple strategies often make their way into briefs.
(10:19):
They're not as singular in their focus as they should be.
So are we trying to acquire new customers?
Are we trying to retain existing ones?
What we have to say to those audiences who are fundamentally different will be different.
So I think often we think that it's easier to do a lot.
and it's more efficient for our money to try and do as much as we can with a brief whenactually it's the opposite.
(10:39):
The more focused we are with our brief, the more dedicated we are in defining that targetaudience in our brief and designing communications for that specific problem or
opportunity we define, the better the return on the investment potential.
Maybe the last one is treat it as a contract.
Treat it as a contract as any other industry would treat contracts.
(11:02):
Unfortunately, we're not seeing that happen.
We're seeing that not enough time and attention goes into briefs.
We're seeing that they're not precise enough and there's maybe more on the market to yourside.
And on the agency side, we're seeing agencies saying yes to briefs that they don'tunderstand.
So both sides have a responsibility there to take that document way more seriously.
(11:28):
Well, and I think something else that stood out to me was this other stat around 90 % ofmarketers admit that they changed their brief once they briefed the agency.
It feels like the notion of you just mentioned of making this a contract.
I've never thought about a brief as a contract, but you're right.
What do you want to achieve?
(11:49):
And then looking back to see, did the work achieve that outcome?
It really is simple, it's a bit of a contractual obligation that you're setting up at theoutset, but I never thought about it like that.
Well, continue to think about it like that.
Continue to think how other industries treat briefs.
Think about how architects are briefed.
(12:12):
Doesn't matter if it's an interior architect or, or, or somebody who builds a building.
Think about how, how your gardener is briefed, how you brief your hairdresser right?
Those are very serious, serious documents that are, that are of huge importance and
If you change them halfway, then there's going to be massive consequences.
(12:34):
And we should treat the brief the same in our industry.
I'm glad you brought that up, Alan, around how briefs change.
And some of it is the nature of our industry.
We work in a dynamic industry and sometimes things change, right?
And if it's small things like we're updating the channel mix, we want a new format, wewant a slightly new specification on the creative that we're designing, all the media that
(12:57):
we're putting that creative in, then that's usually something that agencies can handle.
When it's fundamental change, when strategy is not clear,
When a brief becomes more of an internal stakeholder alignment tool versus a tool designedto brief an agency who can start work from it, then that change is really difficult to
deal with.
It becomes a really expensive process.
We know that a poor brief kicks off a really negative chain reaction.
(13:19):
And if that brief changes, it just resets that negative chain reaction as well, becauseagencies spend far too long trying to interpret either the first direction or be the
second direction that you're setting in your brief.
we get a whole bunch of mediocre ideas back because we're uncertain in the project, whatthe, what the project's end goal looks like.
So we spend lots of time, money, energy, additional rounds of concepting approvals onaverage, I think every round of concepting that agency is between 40 and 50 grand.
(13:44):
So we're wasting money.
If our strategy is ill-defined, we're not setting our agencies up for success.
And yeah, it's, it's staggering.
Nine out of 10 marketers admit the briefs change.
We need to get better at.
putting final briefs into agencies and buying ourselves a bit more time upfront to ensurethat we're putting our best foot forward as well.
(14:04):
Back to that example.
So you brief your interior architect on the mid century design and they come back withtheir first interpretations of how they're going to redecorate your house in mid century
design.
And all of a sudden you're saying, nah, sorry, I changed my mind.
I want to go classical.
(14:25):
You're going to pay for those hours that are wasted for sure.
And this exact same is happening in our industry, but we're not taking it seriously.
seriously enough.
One more question about briefs before we switch gears.
I've heard marketers over the course of my career say something to the effect of, I don'twant to stifle the creativity.
(14:45):
And so they, I think, stop themselves short of providing maybe either that criticaldirection or sharper point of view in terms of the strategy or the findings that they're
trying to look for.
What I'm hearing from you guys is you need that absolute clear direction because itactually fosters creativity.
It doesn't stifle it.
And so like how do you balance those two things, if you will?
(15:08):
I think it's one of the most misunderstood things around creativity in the creative agencyland, if you will.
A lot of our clients these days, we find don't know the inner workings of an agency.
They haven't been behind the curtain.
They don't know how agencies work.
Creativity works well with processes and structure around it.
We need that iterative process to allow the best ideas to see the light of day.
And there's specific skill sets within agencies that allow that to happen.
(15:33):
For the idea that we just need to let creativity loose, that we need to be very free inthe way that we brief.
Creativity works best if we focus it.
If we focus it around a specific challenge that the brand is facing.
If we focus it on what success looks like, what does the end game look like forcreativity?
We are in the business of commercial creativity.
We are not in the business of art and creating stuff for creation's sake.
(15:57):
So what we design has to have a purpose.
And it's up to the marketer to make the choices.
and set the direction for where the creative agency needs to find the answers.
So what is the message?
What is the one thing they want to say about their product or brand?
What are the proof points?
The reasons to believe?
How is that target audience defined?
So the more that we leave it open for interpretation for the agency, the more we're goingto go off course.
(16:19):
Yeah, and that's what you do with artists.
You commission an artist and let them roam free so they can do their best work.
Agencies need to be guided.
They need to be guided and they need to be informed on what they need to do and how theyapply their commercial credit.
Of the distinction there.
I really do
(16:40):
And maybe one more thing on that.
So businesses invest in marketing to drive better business results.
And the way that works is you make a plan, you capture it in a strategy that is translatedinto a brief.
You give that brief to an agency to come up with ideas.
It doesn't matter what type of ideas, but it's the ideas that go into the marketplace thatneed to deliver a positive return on investment.
(17:09):
that the business has made.
So it's all connected.
But in order to get to the positive return on investment, we need to set up creativity forsuccess.
And we need a better process there to brief it in and manage the ideas as well.
Sorry, I just wanted to...
was that out?
No, I love the point.
(17:30):
And thanks for closing it.
I want to talk about so we go from brief to ideas and your latest project is the betterideas project.
How does this I mean, other than switching from briefs to ideas, what were you trying toaccomplish here?
Yeah, just to reinforce Peter Paul's point, the idea is what has the impact in the world.
So a brief is an important step and an important first step in ensuring that we're gettingthe right response from the agency.
(17:55):
But we also had the hunch that practices around idea assessment weren't as good or assharp as they could be.
We've experienced lots of poor practice within the clients that we work with.
Unfortunately, it's just an area that we just don't get trained in.
We think it's something that we can all have an opinion on creativity.
So we wanted to
put some objectivity around it, some findings, some stats around it so we can have morerobust conversations, much like the Better Briefs project.
(18:21):
It's irrefutable data.
There's over a thousand people in both the samples of these reports and heavy onexperience levels for marketers.
it's something that we can't refute.
And for us, it was an indication of where things are going wrong in that process.
Because if we get that right, if we get our idea assessment right, if we manage for ourbiases, if we manage for organizational uncertainty during that phase, because creative
(18:42):
ideas
can be tricky things to nurture and um deal with.
It's something that we wanted to really get a better understanding of.
Well, something critical, I guess, to getting the right ideas is something you highlight,which is like 70 % of creative agencies don't trust the creative judgment of the marketers
that they're working with.
And like, how do we think about overcoming that gap in trust?
(19:06):
are the tools or trades, if you will, that we can do?
There's a lot there, Alan, that we need to work on.
First, trust is built on relationship.
And a relationship is a mutual give and take and relationships grow over time.
So the first thing to do is to invest in a relationship, a mutual relationship that getsto these tricky things that are ideas and effective ideas that deliver a positive return
(19:36):
on investment.
So it's about understanding each other.
Ask yourself as a marketer, do you really understand how an idea is generated?
And if you don't ask your agency, take us through what Matt was talking about before.
us, take us through how your agency comes up with ideas, showing the inner workings ofyour agency.
(19:57):
So I can, I'm better set up, I'm better equipped to set you up for success.
And the same goes for agencies.
I think agencies need to
understand better how difficult it is to get ideas signed off in organizations.
uh It's not an easy thing, especially when you're dealing with big, bold, impactful ideas.
(20:22):
And then a couple of things need to happen.
We need to work on tools, skills, and process.
And we can see from our findings that many organizations
don't have any tools in place.
They don't have any criteria in place how they will assess ideas.
Right.
(20:43):
They haven't defined what their creative ambition is, or they haven't defined what type ofideas they're looking for, which is kind of nuts because almost every professional
competition in any profession has criteria defined.
But for some reason, brands haven't defined criteria for the type of ideas they're lookingfor.
What about the sign off process?
(21:04):
Is it in order?
Is it very clear who is signing off on the idea?
Everybody might have an opinion on an idea.
Everybody might be providing feedback on an idea, but that doesn't mean that theirfeedback is professional or informed.
We like to say that the person who signs off on the brief is the person that signs off onthe idea.
(21:25):
And then lastly, we know that hardly anybody has trained in how to deal with ideas.
Nobody's been trained in how to write briefs and nobody's been trained how to evaluateideas.
So why do it's easy to have an opinion on them, but nobody has been trained on them.
And I would ask you, Alan, when's the last time you, you boarded the plane with anuntrained pilot or if you needed an operation, would you allow someone who hasn't gone to
(21:57):
medical school to operate on you?
No, of course not.
But in marketing we
We've got this problem that we're doing all these things that we've never been trained in.
It's fascinating you bring this up.
One of the things that's come into mind is I used to talk to a very prominent CMO and heused to talk about this notion of an iceberg as he's going to shop these ideas around the
(22:20):
organization.
Everyone loves to comment on what marketing is and what they think marketing is, which isthe tip of the iceberg.
It's the ad that we see, the latest creative idea that's going to go into market.
He was like, but no one understands how much of the iceberg is below the water, theprocess, the people, the skills, the criteria, the strategy that underlies what everyone
(22:44):
sees.
And it sounds like what you're saying is like to get better ideas and to understand theappreciation for like how an organization has to sell an idea into the organization.
We need to codify some rules.
and maybe bring some of the stuff that's below the surface of the water to above thesurface of the water so we can make better decisions.
(23:06):
Is that fair to say?
Yeah, I think, um, think you've hit a nail on the head there, Alan.
think some of the poor practice we see is that the people who sign off the brief and notthe ones necessarily signing off the idea.
And it's also unfortunate that we are in a profession where everyone can share an opinion.
Everyone has an opinion on creativity because we're exposed to ads every day.
(23:26):
I've seen this.
I like this.
I know what's going to be right for our brand or not, but it shouldn't be the case justbecause you have an opinion doesn't mean that that opinion is informed is, is, justified.
It's very hard for us to have an opinion on something more complex like the cyber securitypolicy of a company.
And we would never, we would never offer our opinion in that area of the business as well,because it would be ill informed.
(23:50):
So I think people come at idea assessment with a really ill informed perspective thattheir opinion is valid.
We should be defining everything that we do and every piece of work that we're assessingfrom our target audiences perspective.
If someone hasn't seen the brief.
doesn't know who the target audience is from that brief, not broadly who you think theaudience is for your business.
Then we're not doing it justice, right?
(24:11):
Too many personal opinions are going to rain, subjectivity is going to rain, and we'regoing to get to watered down, diluted, gray, bland ideas that don't have the impact that
we're looking for.
We know that most creativity doesn't stand out.
How many ads are we exposed to every day?
How many of them do we notice?
That is the group think mentality that happens when the bottom of that iceberg
(24:31):
rears its ugly head and derails, you know, derails project.
And when you start to look into the backstory of some of the most famous campaigns we'veseen in the last 50 years, you look back into what actually happened from a
decision-making perspective, most of the time there is a very limited amount or only onedecision-maker that buys the idea on the spot or has to fight a whole bunch of other
(25:04):
people and say, no,
I'm the decision maker, this is what we're gonna do.
That's the story behind Apple 1984.
That's the story behind Sony Bulls.
That's the story behind Guinness Surfer.
And there's so many more of those stories where there was a very brave leading marketeerwho said, this is what we're doing and that's it.
(25:26):
And they had to fight, they had to fight very hard to get it through.
But now we're looking back at those.
those types of ads, think, that's absolutely awesome.
So it's a very tricky thing, but the more people we get to decide on which idea is rightfor our business, the more we end up being a child in kindergarten, mixing all the paint
(25:47):
together, and we all know what kind of color we end up with.
Well, I really enjoyed this conversation.
mean, like you were going from like better briefs to better ideas to better impact.
This is a marketer's dream.
And I've, I've sat on both sides of the table.
Like I've been on the agency side, I've been on the marketer side evaluating, and I'vebeen in those situations where the brief was ill-defined.
(26:10):
I might have had some hand in that and you get through those pitches and you know,agencies, because I've been on the agency side, they are brilliant storytellers.
And you can sit through a pitch of a new creative concept and you can just be completelyenamored with it.
And then the conversation ensues.
Was this what we set out to achieve?
(26:32):
And we forget to go back and look at like, what were we trying to achieve?
And, and sometimes we never really wrote it down, which is on us, right?
As marketers and, and, and probably on our agency partners for not holding us accountableto the contract that, that we should have set up between each other.
The great story also needs to be summarized in an idea and an execution of that idea thatthe marketeer can understand.
(26:59):
It's all well and good to tell beautiful stories and put on a great show, but at the endof the creative presentation, the marketeer needs to be super, super clear on what the
idea is and what the execution is.
And there's many issues around that.
Many people and agencies don't understand the difference between the two because
(27:19):
It is relatively easy to change an execution.
It is very, very expensive to change an idea.
Unfortunately, the industry is hungry for more and more and more ideas and they don'tstand out and they're not effective.
So that's why we're burning up to a third of our marketing budget.
yeah, no, agree, agree.
Well, I want to switch gears and ask you guys a couple questions.
(27:41):
I ask everybody that comes on the show.
Also, that gives me an opportunity to learn a little bit more about each of you as peopleand as humans.
My favorite question to ask everyone, so I'm just going to pose it to each of youindividually.
Maybe Matt, I'll start with you.
Has there been an experience of your past that defines or makes up who you are?
(28:02):
Getting very deep, Helen.
It's good.
I'm going to keep it on a professional level, I think it's, I think looking back at, Ithink my experience in my career as a strategist, I think it's the diversity of
experience.
And what I mean by that is, strategists are fortunate enough to work on lots of businessesin lots of industries.
(28:24):
And I've also been fortunate enough to work in that format across multiple countries andcontinents.
So it's amazing how
how sharp you can keep your actions and your mind when every problem you face isdifferent.
And I think that's the beauty of being in that strategic role that you can work in B2B oneday, can work on automotive the next day, you can be working on consumer packaged goods
(28:47):
the day after that.
So it's always kind of getting to the heart of our clients business problems that wasalways the driving force as a strategist.
And I think that's put us in good stead and being good stead anyway for my career as a.
as an entrepreneur and as a business owner.
So yeah, it's an interesting question.
It got me thinking.
Peter Paul, what about you?
(29:07):
Yeah, for me it was getting fired.
that can be very impactful.
Yes, I was, I was in between jobs working in London as a strategist.
So this was job I took between working for publicists and work for such and such is, and Iwas there for about four months and from one day to another I got fired.
(29:31):
And it was my own fault.
And it learned me a lot about listening.
So I was working on a brief and I shared my first draft.
with my boss and he was like a true British gentleman.
And after reading my brief for the first time, he said, uh interesting.
(29:52):
So I thought, oh, cool.
That's a good sign.
If he thinks it's very interesting.
So I continued to, to refine the brief along the same strategic direction.
I had set out and only made a couple of tweaks to it.
So the next day I shared the updated version with him and
After reading it, he said, I only have a few minor comments.
(30:17):
So me as a Dutchman, I think, okay, cool.
So he's just got a couple of things and we're almost there and we're good.
And this continued like three or four more days like that.
And on the fifth day I was asked to not come in anymore.
You
So that was my fault.
It was my fault that I wasn't listening well enough.
(30:40):
And you listen not only with your ears, you listen with your eyes as well.
And I should have listened better and understood the culture that I was working in betterbecause when he said very interesting, the English actually mean that's utter nonsense.
When he said, only have a few
minor comments he meant just rewrite that brief completely.
(31:04):
And it was my fault.
It took me a while to actually figure out what had happened because mid level, you'reyou're 10 years into your career, you're think shit hot.
I had to go deep to actually really, really reset myself and think, okay, I need to listeneven better.
I've got the skills.
(31:25):
That was just an incident and yeah, that was transforming for me that experience.
Yeah.
Well, and you know, the cultural differences to your point, like, I mean, we I faced thateven in the US, right?
The East Coast, Northeast is very different than the Midwest and is very different thanCalifornia or the South, right?
(31:47):
You know, in the South, where I grew up, we might say, oh, that's that's fantastic.
And it's the equivalent of that's interesting.
Hahaha
And so, you know, the nuances are real and, uh you know, anyway, it's good for you forowning it, but I also think there are circumstances around it probably not in your favor
(32:12):
too, so.
So we need a lexicon, Alan.
We need a lexicon.
Also in America, it seems, for when we're dealing with ideas.
Because when you're dealing with ideas, they're really fragile things, right?
They're really hard to decide on.
When they first show up, they're very rough and ugly because they're never as refined asin their final polished state.
(32:35):
And there's no room to say it's fantastic or that's interesting.
We have to be clear with each other.
What we think and what we mean.
Well, and I think that gets back to the lexicon to your point gets back to that likebridge of trust that needs to be built.
Like, so like we understand each other.
Like it's hard to have trust if we don't understand each other.
(32:55):
So yeah, no, I agree.
I agree.
Well, I want to ask you guys, each of you, like what advice would you give to your youngerself as you're starting this journey all over?
Maybe besides write better briefs, but.
I think for me, it's be a better student of the industry earlier.
I think I went through my early career kind of trying to find my way in agency land and inthis communication field.
(33:19):
And um I was fortunate enough to work at some great agencies, but there is so muchavailable around how marketing works, how communications work that a lot of people are not
aware of.
And I would have, I would have pushed myself to be a better student earlier.
because it's easy to have your head in the sand.
It's easy to be indoctrinated into a particular organization's way of working, but there'sstuff out there.
(33:41):
For some reason, we continue to make bland work or work that doesn't stand out or workthat we're not proud of, which is another finding from our research, when we shouldn't
have to settle for that.
again, I learn what works.
There's lots of people doing some really amazing things in the field of marketing science.
And so how do you apply that?
(34:01):
So I would have got across those principles earlier on, but
having known them now, would have probably tackled early days of my career a bitdifferently as well.
Yeah.
Peter Paul, how about you?
I would say to my younger self, my younger professional self, stop trying to outsmarteveryone.
Yeah, I think I made a change from trying, always trying to solve everything by myself,trying to be the smartest one and always have the solution into partnership and guidance
(34:35):
and setting other ones up for success.
doesn't really matter who comes up with the solution, even if you ask the right question.
that evokes somebody else to come up with a solution.
If you provide that kind of guidance, that is helpful and that's useful.
And you get to better stuff quicker.
So stop trying to outsmart everyone.
One more question, I might have one more topic if it's okay if I inject the cockpit beforewe get to the last question.
(34:58):
Matt, you piqued my interest a minute ago when you said marketing science.
And I should state for the record that you guys are up really early to have thisconversation because you're on the other side of the world right now from where I am.
So thank you for doing that.
But as you think about like briefing, building strategies within briefs or on the brandside and how it.
(35:20):
relates to the creative process and getting better ideas as outcomes that drive business.
Like where does, curious just to get your couple of thoughts on where marketing sciencefits in and you're in the realm of the world where there's a huge marketing science
institute in Australia pumping out knowledge about like what they believe they've seenfrom the data and what the new rules, if you will, for marketing.
(35:46):
You save rules, right?
I think for us, the only work, the only creative work that's worth investing is, is workthat delivers a positive return on investment, that work that's effective.
So the only thing that we really care about are the FVs and the IPA effectiveness awards.
(36:09):
for us, marketing science is the simple act of listen,
listening and applying the rules of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, listening and applyingthe rules of Byron Sharp, of Nelson Field with her attention studies, of Peter Field and
Les Bernay on how to balance building the brand with uh driving activation.
(36:35):
It's listening to the studies of Adam Morgan in System One on that most of the work we'reputting out there is absolutely boring as bad shit.
So
There is so much knowledge out there on what not to do, on what type of work and how towrite a good brief, but we're not applying it.
(36:56):
There's so much creative work that's being pumped out that's utterly ignorable.
So why are we not applying those basic rules?
We need to stand out, right?
Show up somewhere with the pair, not as an individual.
Do something else, then you're a competitor.
It's so easy, but because of so many reasons, there's so much mediocre work and it's nothelping our industry.
(37:23):
No, I would agree with you and I'll give you a Dutch name that I Think does and has beenworking on this marketing science as well So Jan Benedict Steenkamp or JB as he goes by
UNC professor but I think some of his work is in line with what we see from Ehrenberg bassbut I also thinks he he Has done a lot of work putting it into practice more so than I've
(37:48):
seen in other other places.
So as a one
As one Dutch person to another, me, but JB to you, Peter Paul, I'll give you somebody thatyou can reference in the future.
I'll ask you my last question to both of you.
As you look forward, you're on a show, lots of marketing listeners.
What do you think are the largest opportunity or threat facing marketers as they approachtomorrow?
(38:16):
For me, I think purse strings are going to get tightened.
I think that we might have less money to play with as a business and a brand.
And as a marketer, your job is to fight for that money.
But you can only fight for that money if you have an understanding of the commercialimpact that your marketing is going to have.
if we're just spending what we did last year, because that's all we know what to do withour budgets, versus...
(38:40):
understanding and designing for what is the return that we're going to get off thatmarketing investment and putting together an argument for the business that suggests that
we still need to be investing in brand.
still need to be investing in communications because we know that budgets are the firstthing slashed from the marketing teams when things get tight.
Paul, what would you add to that?
Or maybe counter?
(39:01):
What?
No, think it's, it's two things for me.
would say make less ideas that work harder, take more time to write less briefs that leadto more effective ideas.
The vast majority of what we put into the marketplace completely ignored.
(39:21):
So stop doing that and just make ideas that work.
And the other one is.
Many people who write briefs have never been trained in how to write briefs.
Many people who approve ideas have never been trained in how to approve ideas.
I just think about that.
(39:42):
That is such a big issue.
it's, yeah, the lack of skills in marketing is very concerning.
So if you as a brand invest more in understanding and training and getting that right, youwill win.
I just want to say thank you guys for both coming on the show.
I've learned a few things.
(40:03):
uh Maybe reinforce this notion of a contract is my biggest takeaway.
I've never thought of the briefing process as such, but I've learned a lot throughout thisand I would encourage anybody to check out your studies.
They're pretty fascinating and eye opening to be honest.
If somebody was set in kind of both chairs, the agency and the brand marketer chair.
So thank you for coming on.
(40:24):
Appreciate it.
Thank you for having us.
oh
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speaker's own and do not represent theviews, thoughts, and opinions of Deloitte.
Material and information presented here is for general information purposes only and doesnot imply endorsement or opposition to any specific company, product, or service.
(40:44):
Hi, it's Alan again.
Marketing Beyond is a Deloitte digital podcast.
It's created and produced by me with post-production support from Sam Robertson.
If you're new to Marketing Beyond, please feel free to write us a review and subscribe onyour favorite listening platform.
also invite you to explore the other Deloitte digital podcast at deloitte digital dot comslash us slash podcast and share the show with your friends and colleagues.
(41:12):
I love hearing from listeners.
can contact me at marketing beyond at Deloitte dot com.
You'll also find complete show notes and links to what's discussed in the podcast today.
and you can search our archives.
I'm Alan Hart and this is Marketing Beyond.
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