Briefs are made to be broken
Who decided being a rulebreaker is a bad thing? Rule-breaking doesn’t mean ripping everything up and starting again. When the rules set aren't the right ones, it's time to rethink. And not be constrained by the way things should be done. We apply this attitude to everything we do, so buckle up as we break down our process and overshare our ways of doing.
Our hot take:
“Never take a brief at face value.”
Turning briefs into brilliance
Some might argue that challenging the brief is about being bold and brash. We believe you can be disruptive without deafening, as long as you’re doing what’s right for the client. What’s right is delivering against the objectives, but how we do this is always going to be different - because that’s what gives us an original idea after all. Two briefs may appear the same, but it’s the challenges we raise and discuss that pulls them apart. It’s about delivering work that works, for the brand, for the client and for us.
A good brief doesn't give you a solution, it gives you a problem to solve. And every brief, no matter how big or small, presents an opportunity for greatness. We don't just robotically go through the motions. We take time to pause and ask ourselves how we can elevate the outcome to something truly exceptional.
We like to kick off every brief with a ‘grill and distil’ (which isn’t as intimidating as it sounds). It’s a necessary step to get to the bottom of the problem. It’s an opportunity for the client to give us their opinion, for us to raise questions they might have not yet asked and to offer a fresh perspective.
Pioneering plant-based
Probing the brief more often than not results in uncovering more depth, which is what happened when we worked with Co-op to bring their plant-based brand ‘Gro’ to life. The initial brief was simple: ‘Help us take a bite out of the £1bn vegan market with a new brand that caters to the growing appetite for plant-based food.’ In our grilling, we soon came to the realisation that to maximise appeal, we need to speak to reducers, not radicals. This allowed us to open the brand up and position it as a food-first, future-focused, progressive brand for all. One chat helped us to widen our focus from one restrictive demographic (vegans) to instead tune into the mindsets of those that want to do better.
It is all in the details
But not all briefs need scaling up to be woken up. You can make big differences in the small details. When Premier Foods asked us to help them bring joy back to Mini Rolls in a declining market, we saw an opportunity to leverage the existing brand love of Cadbury beyond the main pack design. The individual wrappers presented an untapped opportunity. Sure, we could have simply replicated the same logo on each pack, but that’s not our style. So we ramped up the design with a series of witty, tongue-in-cheek slogans that gave each flavour a literal shelf shout, which aligned with the big personality proposition. The result was a greater impact on shelf and online, brand ownability, and relevance across range refreshes and extensions.
“To crack a brief, you must embark on a journey - exploring uncharted corners of your brand and uncovering hidden potential. Stay agile, knowing when to adapt and evolve. Dare to think beyond the brief, or better yet, redefine it. Sometimes, the most disruptive move isn’t just answering the question, it’s challenging what was asked in the first place.”
Emma
Account Director
So, what?
Sticking to the brief is easy. But it’s restricting. It holds brands back from reaching their full potential because you don’t explore everything they could be. That’s why we ask questions, and challenge answers because our job is getting into the problems the client hasn’t seen yet. We break many rules in our approach to brands, but we’ve never broken a brand.