I few home truths about how best to brief and feed back to creatives - from the point of view of someone you could never fire... Premiered at the Truffle Talent Digital Summit 2015, aboard HMS President. I'm sorry to say that Slideshare doesn't play animated gifs or animations so it's not the same as seeing me deliver this live. Slideshare doesn't do notes very well either so I've embedded them in the relevant slides. I'm nice like that.

2. A brief introduction to Jonny Watson aka The London Egotist.

3. All of this work started with a brief and was arrived at through rounds of
feedback. There's no getting around it. It’s an essential part of the process
every time.

4. This is a digital summit, but these principals apply to online and offline.
That most of you are what an agency man would call clients.
I'm going to assume that most of you will have in house creative and some
of you will have external creative departments at your disposal.

6. Imagine I work for you.
But also imagine my mum is your boss.
I am golden. I am unfire-able. I can say what I like.
So speaking for all creatives for 15 minutes - and I don't often - here's what
I would tell you.

7. Creatives will assume you know most of this. Well, we shall see!

8. So first of all, please bear in mind, we are all scared.

9. Scared that we can't crack this one. Despite 20 years of doing this – with varying
results, that fear remains.
Deep down there is a fear that you only have a finite number of ideas left in you.
One day you might stick your hand in the magic bag and come up empty.

10. What’s the wider business problem we’re trying to solve.
What’s wrong with what we have now? What do we need to achieve? And why?
Get buy in. Make everyone a stakeholder.
Let the creatives into your world.

12. Then imagine when we really feel we've cracked it.
And then the client tells us the brief has changed. Everything has changed.
The work is holed below the waterline.

13. How will we feel next time you come to brief us?
Will I feel able to commit to it 100%?
Or is the brief just going to cheat on me again?

14. Creatives CAN handle the truth.

15. If you need to be prescriptive, be prescriptive in the briefing.
If it’s not an award-winning opportunity, be honest and say so.
Creatives understand, not every brief leads to that spotlit podium
with Dara O’Briain waiting to shake our hand.

16. Rule out the wrong up front.
Narrowing a brief down doesn’t restrict creatives, it actually helps because
it discounts the number of wrong turns and dead ends we can run into.
All that wasted energy. Wasted ideas we’ll never get back.

17. Examples are a great shorthand in a creative’s first language.
Inspire us with inspiring work.

18. There’s a lot of great work out there. Even more than I’m showing here.
Don't be afraid to give examples of what might be in the right area in terms of tone,
messaging or approach.
Show creatives that you appreciate and understand good work too.
Creatives won't think you're trying to do their job for them - that comes later.

19. If you see this face, nobody move.

20. You can save a lot of time and heartache if everyone’s on the same page
right from the off.
Have we asked the right questions? Have we asked any questions?
If necessary, get the creatives to repeat their interpretation of the brief
The work will only be as good as the brief.

21. So the creatives scurry away and a few days later we’re all back together
again. What fun!

22. aka the Triangle of Truth.
What is presented to you is a tiny fraction of the work that’s been done on
your brief. And it all started the moment we were born.
You are getting the sharp end. A lifetime of expertise.
The crème de la crème de la crème. De la crème. De la crème.

23. Creatives will always want to do the best they can on your brief.
1. It ensures continued employment. That's a strong motivation. Or the
agency, your account which is essentially the same thing.
2. Every creative’s portfolio has a blank space reserved for our next work of
noble note. “I want my next piece of work to be my best. Until the next piece.”

24. Ask your creatives how they got to these ideas. Go on their journey with them.
Because a creative will have lived that journey from the challenge to the solution
maybe they’ve glossed over something important.

25. Any creative worth their salt can explain even the biggest creative leaps
with a solid logical story from how they got from the brief to the idea.
If they can’t, maybe the idea’s not up to scratch or on brief.

26. Be honest.
Sometimes the most novel, surprising or scary ideas take a while
to get your head round.

27. No one ‘knows’ anything in this business.
There’s no absolute right or wrong. Except Comic Sans.
So there’s no shame is not knowing at that moment. Let’s talk about it and see
if we can find an answer together.

28. As a creative director, I have to make instant creative judgements so I can direct
creative teams and develop the work.
Sometimes it's easy because the work’s amazing or amazingly bad.
But with some ideas, you don’t know how to save them or if they can be saved.
Just be honest and say “I’ll come back to you on that one.”
As creatives, we know exactly how you feel.

30. For everything you don’t like, tell us something you do like.
If you want to keep creatives motivated, blanket-bombing all their ideas
is not the way to go.
Is there merit is an idea or layout that’s nearly all wrong?
Is it your fault it’s wrong?
Was it something you could have made clear in the brief?

31. This is an exchange between Mozart and the Emperor from the film ‘Amadeus’.

33. We don’t just need the WHAT, we need the WHY.
It can be really hard for creatives when we return to our desks/breakout
spaces/artisan coffee shops/Caffe Neros at House of Fraser to get a handle on
what needs to change. Where do we go from here?
Let’s get it clear. What stays, what goes, what changes and why?

34. Never mind what you think. What do we think? Ask us which idea we like and why.
You employ creatives for a reason - their expertise. Make the most of that resource.
We do this for a living, you know.