Back in the day, clients used to give their agencies a brief for what they needed.

The agency would take the brief, ask a few questions, and then scuttle back to their designer offices. They would huddle together, brainstorm ideas and then sketch out a few creative start-points. Then they would go back to the client, and proudly present their ideas as “creative solutions”.

But that was back in the day.

When was the last time you saw a client brief?

Is this because briefs are hard to write, or because clients just don’t have the time anymore?

Or is it something else?

For us, the trouble with a “brief” is that it’s a one-way conversation – from “them” to “us”.

And because it’s not a dialogue, this makes it much harder to identify and get behind the real business challenge our client faces.

At Made By Giants we know that businesses face much more complex challenges than a simple brief could ever hope to encapsulate.

That’s why we see our role as working alongside our clients and their teams, having two-way conversations that carefully explore and unpick the problems or barriers to achieving growth.

This collaborative process reveals where brand growth will come from, and what we need to do to get them there.

It also reveals where growth might not come from.

For example, a rebrand might not be the solution – whereas a refocus on the product offer might be much more compelling in the marketplace than a new logo and look and feel.

We explore our clients’ challenges more holistically. Together we get there quicker, and it saves the client having to write that brief that they don’t have the time to write anyway.

James Beveridge, co-founder