Dear marketers, is your content brief effective enough to fetch results?

Great content begins with a great creative brief but many struggle to manage that. Here is a checklist for brands to follow while working on a creative brief for content

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Akansha Srivastava
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Whenever a marketer is frustrated or annoyed with a content idea that is not up to the mark, or the final content product itself, he should first go for self-introspection. Was his brief to the content creators and platforms crisp, to the point and explanatory enough to make them understand what was actually desired from them?

Structuring a content brief in the right way is an essential part of any brand’s content strategy as it is a product of tons of meetings, research, data analysis and finding the gaps where it can work.

The content agency on board also has an important role in helping brands create a good content brief. It acts as a mediator between the platforms, creators and the brands.

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Karthik Nagarajan

Karthik Nagarajan, Chief Content Officer, Wavemaker, believes that the content ecosystem has never been more fluid and fragmented. It is extremely critical for an agency to help a client navigate the waters between creators, platforms and rights owners. So agency-partner relationships have never been critical.

He said, “‘If content is the answer, what is the question?’ is something we ask ourselves multiple times, with regard to the client. We do this multiple times because the rules of the game are changing in this industry rapidly. So it is not uncommon for a client to not have a clear brief. In fact, as the subject matter expert, the onus is on the agency to help clients gain clarity in those situations.”

Content briefs give liberty to push creative boundaries

More or less the brand objective of any advertising and content initiative is to serve the same brand and business problem, but when it comes to a content brief, the marketers have more liberty of pushing the envelope further and give more power to the creators to experiment with the creativity, longevity of the content piece and storytelling. 

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Khushboo Benani

Explaining in detail, Khushboo Benani, Content, Influencer Marketing and Brand Advocacy Head at Diageo India, said, “Content gives a larger and more flexible landscape for storytelling compared to 20-30 second ads. Hence it allows brands to push boundaries at a creative level. Also, the audience that is viewing your content is in most cases opting to do so and hence is willing to engage better with the brand. This means the brief needs to make creative room to account for a differentiated audience behaviour which is a willingness to spend time and be engaged compared to advertising.”

Seconding Benani’s thoughts, Nagarajan said, “We are living in an age of performance, where the business and brand goals are the goalposts – whether content or advertising. Having said that, we define content as ‘communication beyond advertising’ and in that sense, I feel the role for content begins, where the road for advertising ends.”

Content briefs should align with the category drivers and platforms

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Siddarth Menon

Siddarth Menon, CMO, Epigamia, believes that while creating an advertising brief, one has to keep brand idea and positioning as the focal point. While working on a content brief, one also has to consider what is driving the category and the role of the platform it is associating with.

The content briefs should particularly mention that the content piece should align with the platform for which it is created. Giving an example, Menon explained, “Content on Instagram needs to inspire visually, whereas those on Facebook should engage through stories. Amid all this, one must ensure that the content does not deviate from the brand and content strategy elements.”

Content briefs should be highly targeted

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Sapna Arora

According to Sapna Arora, Chief Marketing Officer at OLX, advertising-led briefs are larger in scope since it’s a mass marketing campaign while content-led marketing efforts are more niche and targeted at a specific set of audiences. She said, “The brief for a brand’s content requirement is much more concise and seeks to address a particular segment and hence the requirements around the demographics, mediums of communication and intended message will be different from that of advertising.”

At a time when the consumer attention span is decreasing, one must be really particular what the brand intends to show in the messaging. Spillage is not allowed, Arora said. “The brands must first narrow down their intended messaging while working on a creative brief. Brands must keep in mind that consumers today have low attention spans and can easily avoid brand communication if they find it too jarring.”

Be specific about tonality and visibility of brand in the content

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Aman Dhall

Because content marketing is explored more to drive engagement versus instant brand discoverability that the ads fetch well, one needs to make sure of the kind of tonality and visibility it expects from the content creators and platforms. If it’s an ad, the brief should be the elements of direct brand messaging. Whereas for a content brief, one has to be subtle in the messaging. “A branded content gives you an opportunity to develop a deeper connection with your target audience unlike an advertisement where the objective is to get instant response/results on your brand spend. It's typically long format and has a subtle tonality, unlike advertisements which are short format and are more direct in their messaging,” added Aman Dhall, Head of Corporate Communications, Policybazaar.com.

Benani pointed out that while being subtle, one should not completely forgo the brand’s purpose in the content. She said, “Don’t under dial the brand and hence ensure the brand and its purpose forms the core of a content brief and it clearly comes through in the first 30 seconds of the narrative.”

Keeping the above factor in mind, one should be balanced between the content storyline and the brand and create a brief accordingly. “Content needs to drive shareability and talkability and hence one should also not go overboard and make the content too branded,” she said.

Avoid creating tactical content briefs

One should definitely tell the creators and platforms in their briefs to create long-term plans and strategies. It shouldn’t be one of the activities. Benani said, “Content should not be a tactical one-time intervention as it won't create impact. If a brand decides to do content, then it should be a strategic long-term investment choice and the brief needs to capture that.”

Seconding Benani’s thoughts, Nagarajan said that it is highly important for an agency to help brands create long-term content initiatives. The role of the agency is also to ensure that all of the client’s initiatives are rationalised into a longer-term journey and not just done as a one-off exercise, which is not sustainable.

Create briefs considering budgets in mind

Another and one of the most important things a marketer should keep in mind while creating a brief is the budget. In times of the economic slowdown, it’s wise to avoid any kind of spillage. One has to keep in mind the kind of ROI a brand wants to drive from any kind of content initiative and accordingly mention the practical budget in the content brief. The right brief will let the creator know the monetary limits it can reach up to. Arora added that the brands should be conscious about the budgets and be pragmatic about the ROIs they can drive through it. 

Creating a content brief is a group effort

Creating a content brief is not one man show. The brand teams should anchor the brief development in partnership with content specialists within the organisation and with content specialist agencies and partnerships.

Arora said, “A marketing team for any brand comprises individuals who have their own skill sets across domains such as digital, content, media planning and the likes. Hence, it’s a combination of the varied skillsets which bring a brief together. The briefs are ultimately vetted by the CMO. Hence in order for the CMO to have confidence in the brief, it must cover all aspects in a crisp manner that the brand intends to communicate.”

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