Creating a winning internet campaign: New media shops require effective briefs to deliver successful online projects. (Internet).

Any agency working in any discipline will tell you that a bad piece of work usually starts with a bad brief. But in the world of new media, how can a client effectively tell an agency what it wants?

"The perception is that interactive projects are late, over-budget and never achieve ROI," says Omaid Hiwaizi, executive creative director, of HHM Interactive, the new media division of integrated agency HHM. "It's down to a combination of poor planning, briefs and management."

In the past, says Hiwaizi, new media agencies have typically come up with the goods in terms of creative work, but have had problems because, unlike more established agencies, they have no heritage of customer service.

HHM splits its briefing process into two stages: a preliminary ideas brief, in which ideas are generated and thought through, followed by a production brief in which the details of the implications of the technical production process are ironed out.

"You have to start with the idea - because if that's wrong, no amount of …