One brief, or four arguments

A house does not set out to hire four agencies. It hires a strategist it trusts, a production company a director likes, a talent agency the last campaign used, and a media shop the market 'requires.' Each of them is good. None of them is responsible for the sentence.

By the time the work reaches China, or an American buyer, the sentence has been improved four times. Improved, here, means made safe for the person who did not have to shoot it. The pictures get louder to compensate. The budget pays for the repair.

One brief is not a romantic idea about collaboration. It is a refusal to let the line move every time it changes hands. Strategy, advertising, and talent can still be different crafts. They cannot be different opinions about what the campaign is for.

If you are about to appoint a second agency to 'handle the market,' ask who is allowed to change the line. If the answer is everyone, you have already started the argument.