Writing better briefs – a discussion with Greene King and Samworth

Writing research briefs is a difficult endeavour. Sometimes it’s the struggle of trying to balance the various, often competing needs, of myriad stakeholders into something coherent. At others, it’s just being so time poor that the brief is just a snappy sentence or two fired over email between meetings (with results needed next week!).

Building a winning brief isn’t as easy as it should be. According to a global study, a third of every marketing budget is wasted by poor briefs and misdirected work. What’s more, 90% of marketeers agree that the brief is one of the most valuable and paradoxically most neglected tools marketers have. Added to this, 82% agree that writing a good brief is hard.

Clearly this is something that afflicts many of us in the research industry. So where are marketeers, and many in the research industry, getting things so wrong?

In this video, Boxclever, along with client partners from Greene King and Samworth hold a panel discussion on the challenges of asking the right questions and writing research briefs. We will hear how client-side insight teams can get to the heart of what keeps their CEO up at night and what they are doing to understand the big hairy questions that need answering. And most importantly, how to put them into simple, clear language for research briefs. The panellists also discuss how agencies must raise their voices, get to grips with the questions being asked and tell clients when something isn’t clear. 

Panel:

Tom Coombes, Quant Research Director, Boxclever

Tom has been in the research industry for 2 decades, working in a variety of client-side and agency roles as a quantitative research specialist during that time. Tom joined Boxclever in 2022 and now works with a range of clients across Telco, Media, Retail and Food categories. Tom is an enthusiastic researcher, passionate about weaving qualitative, quantitative and analytical research techniques into smart narratives that can help shape business strategy.

Hannah Chevrier, Quant Research Director, Boxclever

Hannah has over 10 years experience in the research industry including 5 years in the insight team at Boots/Walgreens. She has worked with a range of brands and retailers including Estée Lauder Group, ASOS, Asda and M&S.  She has A passion for getting to know and building relationships with people, has a no nonsense approach & is commercially minded.

Caroline Morley, Insights Manager, Greene King

Caroline started her career at GFK, she has since worked in the insight teams at Molson Coors & Boots. She is now enjoying researching the world of pubs at Greene King.

Kate Bayliffe, Group Insight Manager, Samworth

Kate Bayliffe is a Group Insight Manager at Samworth Brothers; with 15 years’ experience in client side research gained at Boots, Avon and Npower.  With equal passion for understanding consumer behaviour and food trends Kate loves bringing the consumer to life to help embed a customer centric culture focussing on delivering impactful, engaging insights turning “so-what’s” into “now what’s”

You can find out more by getting in touch with Hannah Chevrier hannahchevrier@boxcleverconsulting.com or Tom Coombes on tomcoombes@boxcleverconsulting.com