The brief: five questions that save weeks

Many brand projects start with a two-line email: "we need a website" or "we want to change the logo". It is a legitimate start, but the quality of what happens next (budget, timing, result) depends a lot on a small, unglamorous document: the brief.

A brief does not have to be a treatise. It has to answer, in plain words, five questions. If you have them clear before talking to a studio, the first meeting is already working.

The five questions it should answer

• What problem we want to solve, explained in one sentence.
• Who we are talking to and what we know about them.
• What has to be different when the project ends.
• When we need it and why that date.
• What budget range we are working with.

If one answer is "we don't know", that is also a useful answer: it marks where research is needed before designing anything.

Objectives you can recognise

"We want more awareness" is a wish, not an objective. A good objective can be checked afterwards: people asking for the new product at the point of sale, more requests coming through the form, the sales team telling the same story. If you could not say, six months from now, whether it worked, it is not an objective yet.

The budget is not a secret

Hiding the figure does not protect you: it slows things down. With an honest range, the studio can size the proposal from day one instead of presenting a project you will never approve. The exact figure is not needed; the order of magnitude is enough.

Who decides

If four people make the decision, better to say so at the start. Projects rarely stall for lack of ideas; they stall because a new voice appears in week eight. Knowing who approves, who comments and who executes saves everyone time.

The first conversation

At Hommu, when we start a brand strategy consultancy, the first conversation does exactly this: it puts the problem in order before talking about solutions. If you have a brand challenge on your hands, write to us and we will look at it together.