August 2026 | avocado

AUGUST 2026 / THE MONTHLY EDITION

The art of the brief.

A brief is a thinking document. Eight short reads on asking better questions, cutting wasted effort and building a more useful relationship with your agency.

THE LEAD STORY 8 ARTICLES IN THIS EDITION

Tell your agency who needs convincing

Our audience is everyone” sounds ambitious. It gives an agency very little to work with.

Write the brief before you write the shopping list

By now, your brief should explain the business problem, the people involved, the outcome you need and the constraints around the work.

Before you ask for a campaign, name the problem

We need a campaign.” It is a familiar starting point. It also leaves a lot for your agency to guess.

Keep digging.

Give the work one clear job

A single campaign is often expected to build awareness, generate leads, improve perception and increase sales. Then every stakeholder adds something else.

Put the budget and the deadline in the brief

Keeping the budget hidden rarely makes a proposal more useful. It makes the agency design around an unknown.

Show what you know and what you still need to learn

Your agency needs the useful evidence, including the uncomfortable bits.

Agree how decisions and feedback will work

A good brief can lose its value when five people give five different directions halfway through a project.

Decide what progress will look like

“Move the needle” only helps if everyone knows which needle. Before launch, agree the measure that best reflects the business objective. For a lead generation project, that might be qualified…

Agency Brief Workbook

Bring the problem, audience, evidence and decisions into one working document.

Download the guide 5-page Word workbook · Avocado Tree Digital

What should your agency
help you think through?

Start with your discovery brief

The art of the brief.

Keep digging.

Agency Brief Workbook

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