How to turn bland briefs into better business

NEWSFLASH: your brand isn’t boring - but maybe your brief needs a rethink.

Let’s talk about the space between strategy and creative. The part where good ideas can either get sharpened, or smoothed into sameness. Personally, I believe a brand rarely ends up looking or sounding “meh” because of a bad decision. Usually it's because the signal got fuzzy between intent and execution, which often comes down to the brief.

Good strategy needs a clear transition layer

Strategy is about insight, positioning, differentiation - all the big thinking. Conversely, creative is about expression, storytelling, execution, otherwise known as: the magic. But the bridge between them? That’s the brief.

And too often, that bridge is full of vague language. and placeholder words. Terms like “Bold”, “Modern”, and “Approachable but confident” (okay but dude… what does that even mean?) When briefs rely on generalities, creative teams have to fill in the gaps. And when everyone’s working from a slightly different interpretation of “authentic”, the work can lose focus fast.

A better brief starts with better convos

This isn’t about blaming the brief-writer, the designer or the strategist. It’s about naming the gap and fixing it together. I’ve seen teams butt heads for weeks on problems better solved by putting minds together - not against one another.

The strongest brand work happens when:

• Strategists clearly define the “why”.

• Creatives feel empowered to challenge, question, and co-create.

• Everyone gets specific about language, references, and audience insight.

• There’s room for friction, not just blind agreement.

We’re not aiming for consensus, but for clarity. That way, everyone gets in the room aligned on the real problem we’re solving and how the brand shows up to solve it.

From vibe to vision

For the love of God, let’s ditch the aesthetic therapy and build briefs that mean something! That move beyond moodboards and into actual messaging.

A great brand brief should include:

• A clear positioning truth

• The emotional problem we solve

• The enemy or tension in the market

• What we are not

• Language we’d never use (this one’s surprisingly helpful)

Because when the strategy's sharp and the language is honest, creative teams can stop guessing and start building something distinct.

Here’s the long and short of it: 

Most creative work isn’t “bland”, it’s just been briefed in a way that left too much room for interpretation. To build truly great brands, we don’t need better adjectives. We need better alignment between strategy and creative. Between insight and output. Between what we say we stand for and how that gets built into the brand from day one.

No shade here, just a shared goal: To build sharper briefs, and watch sharper brands follow.

-Sophie Randell, Writer