Why Government Campaign Briefs Often Produce the Wrong Work

A bad brief produces bad work even when the supplier is excellent. In government communications, briefs that produce the wrong work tend to have identifiable characteristics. Understanding them helps agencies write briefs that are more likely to produce campaigns that actually work.

The message brief problem

The most common brief problem in government communications is confusing a message with an objective.

“We want Queenslanders to know that flood preparation saves lives” is a message. It tells the supplier what the agency wants to say. It doesn't tell them what the audience needs to do, what's currently stopping them, or how the campaign will be measured.

A campaign built on a message brief produces work that communicates the message. It doesn't produce work that changes behaviour, because behaviour change requires understanding the audience's actual barriers rather than the agency's communication intent.

Before writing a brief, ask: what do we need the audience to do differently? That's the brief's foundation. The message follows from the answer.

The deliverables-first problem

Many government briefs lead with the deliverables: a 30-second TVC, three social posts, a print banner, a digital display series. These specifications may be entirely appropriate for the project. They may also be completely wrong. Without knowing the audience, the behaviour objective, the channel landscape, and the budget, there's no basis for knowing whether a 30-second TVC is the right format.

Briefs that specify deliverables before strategy produce campaigns that execute the wrong things very well. The TVC gets made exactly as specified. It doesn't reach the audience. It doesn't change the behaviour. But it meets the brief.

Let the strategy drive the deliverables. If you have genuine format constraints -- a media buy already committed, broadcast placements already booked -- include them as constraints rather than as the starting point. Where flexibility exists, leave room for the supplier to recommend the right approach.

The internal perspective problem

Government briefs are written by people inside the agency who understand the policy context, the legislative framework, and the organisational priorities that sit behind the communication need. The audience doesn't share any of that context. They're making decisions based on their own experience, beliefs, and circumstances.

Briefs that are written from the inside -- focused on what the agency needs to communicate rather than what the audience needs to hear -- produce campaigns that feel institutional. They communicate accurately from the agency's perspective and land badly with the audience.

A useful test for any brief: does it describe the audience's current reality, or the agency's communication intent? The best briefs do both. They explain what the agency needs to achieve and provide genuine insight into why the audience isn't already doing it.

The missing context problem

If your agency has run campaigns on this topic before, that history belongs in the brief. What was tried. What worked. What didn't land. What the audience has already been exposed to.

This context prevents a supplier from recommending an approach the audience has already been saturated with. It prevents the agency from receiving a concept that's been tried before and failed. And it tells the supplier something important about the communications environment they're working in.

Welcome to the Fold

We've been working with Queensland Government communications teams for more than twenty years and we ask different questions at the brief stage as a result. If your brief is still being developed and you want to talk it through, we're happy to help with that before anything formal happens. We're appointed to the Queensland All-of-Government Creative Services Panel (GGS0120-25) and six other government panels.