There’s an excellent adage in Afrikaans that says, ‘Goekoop is duurkoop’ – which simply means ‘cheap is expensive’. An attempted cost-saving can often lead to extra costs in repairs or replacement or both. Likewise, limiting the time or effort spent on creating good briefs for press releases or other written communication is likely to result in far greater – and often wasted – investment in time, effort, frustration, and possibly costs, than would have been spent on creating a good brief to start with.

So having positioned briefs for writing projects alongside cheap and unbranded electrical appliances, let’s take a look at how to ensure you’re investing in ‘leading brand’ briefs from the get-go, and skipping the rewrites, misunderstandings, frustrations, tense conversations, and more rewrites that a poor or even non-existent brief can result in. Having said all that, a great brief cannot make a great writer out of a bad one; it can just ensure that your good writer delivers according to your expectations, first time, every time.