No Brief, No Bullseye: Why Most Account Managers Are Setting Everyone Up to Fail

Across agencies everywhere, account teams regularly sell in creative concepts and launch campaigns without a fundamental piece: the written client brief. No clear document laying out the problem, objectives, product, target audience, media considerations, or KPIs. Teams brief campaigns from client conversations or email requests at best.

This is the equivalent of being handed a bow and arrow and being asked to hit a bullseye, except you're blindfolded and there isn't even a target. It's no wonder creatives, designers, production teams, and clients quickly become frustrated with projects. The target needs to be known by everyone so the entire team can point in the right direction.

The Uncomfortable Reality Most Agencies Ignore

The pressure to say "yes" and move fast has created a culture where asking for a proper brief feels like a time wasting friction. Account managers worry that insisting on documentation will slow things down or make them look difficult. So they wing it, hoping their interpretation of that client call was accurate.

But here's what Harvard Business School research on project failure consistently shows: the majority of project failures stem from unclear requirements at the outset, not execution problems down the line. Yet some account managers continue to treat briefs as optional paperwork rather than strategic foundation.

Without a brief, teams run significant risks. The target can be moved mid-process by the client, resulting in wasted time and frustrated teams. Even worse, there's no way to determine if campaigns were successful, meaning accounts can't learn what worked for future projects.

Why Everyone Loses When You Skip the Brief

Think of it this way: if you were going to build a house, you wouldn't just tell the builder to build one. They need details like room count, stories, bathrooms, style, budget, and location. You start with a clear design brief that the architect transforms into a final blueprint. The client is the one wanting to build a house, and the agency is the architect and builders. Without knowing exactly what they want, you can't build their dream home - or worse, it ends up structurally unsound. Here's how each side is impacted:

The Creative Team Gets Set Up to Fail : Without clear parameters, creative teams solve the wrong problem beautifully. They pour talent and time into work that misses the mark because the mark was never properly defined. Then they're blamed for not reading minds.

The Client Loses Confidence : Clients who don't see their business challenges reflected in creative work start questioning the agency's strategic understanding. What they perceive as solutions that miss business reality creates doubt about the partnership's value.

McKinsey's research on agency-client relationships reveals that projects with clearly defined briefs have 67% higher client satisfaction rates and significantly lower revision cycles.

Operating without proper briefs creates what behavioral economists call "planning fallacy" – the tendency to underestimate time, costs, and risks while overestimating benefits. When everyone's working from different assumptions about success, those assumptions compound into expensive misalignment.

Research consistently shows that campaigns developed from comprehensive briefs deliver significantly better performance than those built on informal requirements. The brief creates a kind of performance insurance for agencies.

Reframe to You're Creating Clarity, Not Paperwork

When clients resist providing detailed briefs, reframe the request. To help the conversation instead of "we need you to fill out this form," try "let's make sure we're solving the right problem brilliantly."

While other agencies manage confusion from unclear requirements, you can create conditions for breakthrough work by establishing clear strategic foundations with your client. And they will notice the difference. Creative teams appreciate the clarity. And campaigns become more effective because they solve defined problems rather than imagined ones.

So...Make it Mandatory

Make sure you get a written brief. Push clients for it. Get them to write it or write it with them. When they give you a brief, be critical of it. Ask questions to ensure they've thought through everything and provided all required information, including 'what does success look like.' In the end the better their brief, the clearer and more concise your creative brief will be.

In summary:

1. Without a client brief, teams have nothing to aim at

2. Push for written client briefs - reframe as strategic collaboration

3. Be critical of briefs - ask questions until you have complete clarity

4. Get counter-brief summaries signed off by clients

5. Only after this foundation can you begin work and brief agency teams

Without a proper brief, you're not just shooting blind – you're guaranteeing that even your best shots will miss the target that actually matters.