Communications Agencies Federation Guide to Briefing a Consultancy

The Client Brief

How and why should a client brief a consultancy?

Everything in a public relations programme flows from the brief.  The clarity of - and buy-in to - the brief is crucial to the effectiveness of a campaign and the success of the working relationship between agencies and clients.

The PRCA and other organisations within the Communications Agencies Federation have published a best practice guide to briefing communications agencies - The Client Brief.  The objective of the guide is to provide marketing professionals with best practice on how to effectively brief consultancies. 

The Client Brief covers three main areas:

  1. Why write a brief
  2. The principles behind a good brief
  3. What a good brief should contain.

A pdf of the Client Brief can be downloaded as a PDF below.

The Client Brief (summary)

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The clients listed in this section are those which retain a consultancy on a continuing basis to deal with their public relations either in a specialised area or as a whole. One asterisk (*) against a client's name indicates that the consultancy has been retained by that client for three years; two asterisks (**) indicate that it has been retained for at least five years. Clients served on an ad-hoc basis are listed separately.

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