Briefing, das

A term common in the advertising industry, das Briefing is given neuter gender, is capitalized, spoken with an uvular -r- and used with quite a narrow meaning: it refers to the formal and initial verbal explanation by the customer to the advertising agency of the task at hand. The agency then forms a set of proposals and presents these to the customer, beginning with das Rebriefing, a formal summary by the agency of what it has understood the task to be. If the task has been misunderstood, the customer may interrupt and offer their own Rebriefing, which effectively terminates the meeting. For other uses of the English briefing, such as instructing police or soldiers about a mission, the Germans would say Aufgabenstellung.