Better briefs, better results.

At Premier Inn, inconsistent briefing standards were limiting the effectiveness of our creative output. Despite strong internal talent and trusted agency partners, briefs often lacked clear objectives, strategic context, or usable audience insight. This leads to inefficiencies, repeated revisions, and misaligned creativity. To consistently deliver brand-building work, we needed to raise the quality and consistency of our briefing approach.


Insight
We realised that a good brief isn’t just a form – it’s a strategic tool that aligns business ambition with creative direction. It drives clarity, collaboration, and better outcomes. Yet many team members had never been trained to write or deliver one. The process could be approached and treated as admin rather than a strategic moment. We needed to embed a culture where briefing was taken seriously and owned end-to-end.


Idea
We invited Abigail Dixon – an award-winning marketer, CIM course director, and author of The Whole Marketer – to lead a full-day workshop to drive change. The practical and interactive session covered SMART objectives, audience insight, strategic clarity, and actionable feedback. We worked through examples, improved our templates, and reframed briefing as a creative and collaborative tool, not just paperwork.


Impact
The workshop gave us a shared framework, improved confidence, and a more straightforward approach to briefing. Since then, briefs have become sharper and more strategic, with fewer amendments and more substantial alignment across teams and agencies. The session didn’t just improve how we brief – it shifted how we collaborate and deliver creativity across Whitbread.