creative brief research

How to Write a Creative Brief in 11 Simple Steps [Examples + Templates]

Published: June 11, 2024

The first step in any successful project is drawing up a game plan with a clear objective. It's one of the reasons marketers love creative briefs.

A creative brief acts as a roadmap that takes a project from ideation to completion. It ensures the scope, timeline, key stakeholders, and purpose of the project are communicated clearly.

The creative brief is the single source of truth for everyone working on a project. If questions come up or tasks become unclear, the creative brief will steer things in the right direction.

What is a creative brief?

A creative brief is a short document that sums up marketing, advertising, or design project mission, goals, challenges, demographics, messaging, and other key details. It's often created by a consultant or a creative project manager. The goal of a brief is to achieve stakeholder alignment on a project before it begins.

The Purpose of a Creative Brief

Whether you’re a consultant pitching a creative brief to a client, or a project manager presenting a brief to your team, start by speaking with the project stakeholders.

These discussions will help you understand the company's mission, project goals, and challenges your team faces. Then, you’ll have enough information to write a compelling brief that focuses on what’s really important to your company or client.

The idea of a creative brief sounds simple, but it can be hard to wrap a lot of important details into just a few pages. Therefore, a creative brief is typically comprised of eight sections that can fit on one to two pages.

Free Creative Brief Templates

Three customizable templates designed to serve as the blueprint for your next campaign.

• Campaign brief template.
• Video brief template.
• Client brief template.

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How a Creative Brief Works

Creative briefs are pretty standard documents within just about every marketing, advertising, or design team.

For smaller projects that live in-house (like designs, templates, marketing assets, etc.) the brief is owned by the team who will be executing on the information in the brief.

This is usually the creative team, but this team can fall within the brand department or even live within marketing.

For more advanced, long-term projects that involve an agency, the creative brief is owned by the creative team or agency who will be executing the work.

This is because they'll work closely with the stakeholders on the project to understand what is needed, plus they'll bring their own expertise and competitive research to the brief that the internal team may not have access to.

These types of creative briefs aren't rare, but they are created infrequently due to the nature of the projects they support. So for this post, we'll focus mostly on the day-to-day creative briefs that you're likely to use often. Here's how they work.

Creative Brief Outline

• Project Name
• Company Background
• Project Objective
• Target Audience
• Competitors
• Key Message
• Key Consumer Benefit
• Call to Action
• Distribution

Step 1. The teams who need assistance from the creative team will retrieve the creative brief template from a repository like OneDrive, Google Drive, or an online form.

Step 2. The team that is requesting the project will complete the brief according to their team's needs and goals. The completion of the creative brief starts with the team requesting the project so that they can explain their vision and goals clearly to the creative team.

Step 3. From there, the brief is sent back to the creative team to review. They'll be looking for timelines, resources, and budget requirements.

Step 4. If they have any questions, they'll go back to the team who wrote the brief and finalize the details.

Step 5. After that, the project is kicked off, sometimes with the help of a project manager, who will check-in with stakeholders on the project and keep everything on schedule, within scope, and within budget.

Step 6. Once the project is complete, both teams will review the deliverables against the creative brief to ensure everything is completed correctly.

The format of every company's creative brief might vary slightly to suit the needs of the project or client. Below is a simple outline that will be the foundation of your creative brief.

It includes the most important steps in the creative process and information that'll be relevant to stakeholders involved in the project.

Once you’re fully informed and ready to write, use the following steps to draft yours. To make it even easier, I've included a fill-in-the-blank template in the last step.

How to Write a Creative Brief

• Decide on a name for the project.
• Write about the brand and summarize the project’s background.
• Highlight the project objective.
• Describe the target audience.
• Interpret the competitive landscape.
• Prepare the key message.
• Choose the key consumer benefit.
• Select an attitude.
• Determine the best call to action.
• Draft the distribution plan.
• Share the creative brief with stakeholders.

1. Decide on a name for the project.

The first step in developing a creative brief is deciding on a project name. This might sound simple, but it's one of the most critical components of a creative brief.

If you're building a campaign around a brand new product or service, the campaign name will be the first time many members of your team will be introduced to it.

Referring to the campaign (and therefore product or service) by the correct name prevents the game of telephone from happening. Without a specific and clear campaign name, people will make up their own terminology which can alter the intent of the campaign .

To create a project or campaign name for your creative brief, keep it creative and brief. A few words or a short sentence should work just fine.

If you're launching a product, identify what the call to action will be for the target audience, then center the name around that. Here are a few examples of fictional campaign names:

• The Search for Adventure Campaign- A scavenger hunt-themed amusement park.
• The Don't Forget Your Memories Campaign - A photo frame company.
• The "What's hotter than Pepperco hot sauce?" Campaign - A hot sauce brand.

2. Write about the brand and summarize the project’s background.

Another simple, yet essential section is the company background. If you work in an agency setting, this is non-negotiable as your team is likely handling several client campaigns at once.

However, if you're developing a creative brief for an in-house project, you'll still want to include this part. New hires on your team, freelancers, and vendors will appreciate the background that your internal team is already privy to.

The company background shouldn't be a general history of the company or a copied and pasted paragraph from the about page. Instead, tailor this to the project at hand.

Set the scene with one or two sentences that sum up the brand’s mission. Follow this with a few sentences that give background on the brand and what led to the development of the project.

While some creatives have put this information all together in a quick paragraph, others separate it with headers like “Brand Statement” and “Background.”

Here are some questions to consider when writing a company background for your creative brief:

• Has the company launched a campaign like this before?
• Why is the company choosing to launch this campaign right now?
• What's happening in the market and how will this campaign respond to it?

3. Highlight the project objective.

Here is where the creative brief gets more specific. The project objective should briefly explain the purpose of the project, the timeline, and the audience it'll target. This can be done in a sentence or two, but you can get creative and stylize it in sections.

This part of the creative brief will be helpful in emphasizing why the project needs to happen. The goal aspects will help you and your team align on the project’s expectations.

If the company or client hasn’t identified any major challenges, you can focus this section on goals and objectives. Explain what a successful project looks like and how it will benefit the company.

Pro Tip: Writing a project objective is very similar to writing a goal, so take a look at this blog post for more detail on goal and objective writing.

Here’s an example of a sample creative brief for PayPal that offers separate sections for “The Problem” and “The Goal”:

4. Describe the target audience.

Next, it's time to define the target audience for the project. This is the segment of your market that will directly benefit from the product or service being launched.

You can take audience segmentation a step further by identifying a primary and secondary audience. Doing so will give your team more freedom to explore creative ideas that might resonate with one group more than the other.

When crafting the target audience section, be sure to include the following:

• Demographics - Simple demographic information gives your team insight into exactly who the audience is. This includes data points like age, income, education, ethnicity, and occupation.
• Behaviors - Buying behaviors, trends, and other customer history make up the target audience behaviors. These provide important context to the creative brief because they explain where the customer is in their buyer journey.
• Psychographics - This is how the audience thinks and feels about your brand and the product or service you sell, in general.
• Geographics - Digital, physical, and hybrid campaigns will benefit from having geographics stated explicitly in the creative brief so that media buyers can price ad slots in each market.

Pro Tip: Your creative brief shouldn't be too long, and this section can take up quite a bit of space. To make this section more digestible, consider using buyer personas .

Here’s how the sample brief for PayPal noted above thoughtfully explains a new product’s target audience:

5. Interpret the competitive landscape.

Knowing what your competitors are doing is advantageous for the whole team.

You can use competitive data to come up with ideas that haven’t been tried yet, learn from their failed projects, or build a project that improves on a strategy they’ve used in the past.

Include a quick list of competitors with similar product or service offerings.

Briefly list a few things your company has in common with them, how your brand has differentiated itself already, and a few areas where this project can help you get ahead.Get Your Free Templates

6. Prepare the key message.

The key message can be the most difficult part of the creative brief to develop because just about every stakeholder will have a different opinion of what it should be.

To get buy-in faster, try this simple trick. Ask yourself "We're launching this project, so what?" The "so what?" is your key message. It explains why your target audience should stop what they're doing and pay attention to your campaign.

The key message includes the pain point, what the audience's experience might be like without the pain point, and the benefit they'll receive as a result of your company's solution.

This framework places the customer in the spotlight of the campaign. Instead of telling them what this product or service could do for them, it positions them as the main character in the journey from problem to solution.

7. Choose the key consumer benefit.

If you're launching a new product, there are likely several features and benefits that the target audience will experience when they decide to purchase it. However, it's very difficult to structure a campaign around several different features.

That's why marketers and creatives use something called a key consumer benefit (KCB) in the creative brief to keep everyone aligned on the primary benefit being communicated.

To choose the right KCB, you'll want to get input from the project stakeholders and rely on consumer data to guide the decision.

Pro Tip: Your KCB won't always be the fanciest feature of your product. The benefit that solves the biggest problem for your audience is a great choice for the KCB.

8. Select an attitude.

The tone and voice of your campaign create the overall attitude and that should be consistent throughout every creative element that's being developed.

Identifying a few adjectives that describe the attitude of the campaign can help copywriters draft copy that sends the correct message within the right context.

Graphic designers can use colors and techniques to portray the tone and voice as well.

In this section of the brief, you should also note the appropriate voice for your audience. While some audiences, like those in the business world, prefer more formal language, others might engage more with a casual, relatable tone.

To substantiate your decision to choose a particular brand voice and tone, you could write something like, “Our brand voice is a casual and carefree tone because it speaks to younger Gen-Z audiences.”

Pro tip: Use a thesaurus to find specific words that evoke nuanced emotions and attitudes for a hyper-targeted campaign.

9. Determine the best call to action.

Finally, your audience needs something to do once they see your campaign. The good thing about CTAs is that they don't have to be physical actions.

A CTA could have a goal to change thoughts and perceptions about your brand which doesn't require the audience to do anything at all.

Your creative brief might include several different CTAs, especially if you have a primary and secondary target audience. But it's a good idea to have one primary CTA that drives the project objective we talked about earlier.

10. Draft the distribution plan.

When the project is done, you’ll need to make sure your audience actually sees it. List a few channels or platforms on which you plan to announce the launch, as well as any promotional content you plan to create.

When drafting this section, think about your target audience. Don’t waste time on a promotional strategy that they won’t see.

For example, if you’re promoting a project to Gen-Z, you’ll want to invest in social media rather than billboards or newspaper ads.

11. Share the creative brief with stakeholders.

Once you’ve drafted a creative brief, share it with the team you’ll be working with. You’ll also want to circulate it around the company via Slack, email, or presentations.

If you’re a consultant working outside of a client’s company, encourage your clients to share the brief internally.

As you or your clients spread awareness, you should be open to answering questions or taking feedback from colleagues in case they have any great ideas.

This strategy will improve team alignment , increase support of the project, and ensure that all of your colleagues are on the same page.

Follow Along with HubSpot's Free Creative Brief Templates

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Creative Brief Templates

Having trouble with the flow and organization of your brief? Here are simple templates that could help. Copy and paste into a document and fill in the blanks. You can also add to the templates or adjust them as needed for your project.

Download More Creative Brief Templates

[Inset company or client logo at the top along with the project name.]

COMPANY BACKGROUND:

For ___ years, ______ [Brand Name] has been serving customers in the ____________ [group/job field/geographical area] with ____________________ [product or service].

[Brand Name] has made achievements including __________,__________, and ___________. We have also launched marketing campaigns that have touched on ____________,________, and ____________. With the launch of _________ [project name] they hope to ___________.

PROJECT OBJECTIVE:

With this project, the company aims to solve problems related to ____________________, while also expanding on ___________ and improving on _____________.

TARGET AUDIENCE:

Our target audience is ____ [gender], in the age range of _ and _, and live areas like ____, _____, and ______. They enjoy _____, dislike ______, and might work in fields like _____, _____, and _____. They want more of ________ and their daily pain points include ________.

Their favorite products might include _______ and ______. They learn about these products through channels including ________, _________, and _______.

COMPETITORS:

Our three biggest competitors [are/will be] ________, ________, and _______. These competitors offer _____, ______, and ______. We are ahead of them in _____ and ______, but we are behind when it comes to product offerings like __________ and _________.

KEY MESSAGE:

The target audience is experiencing __________ [pain point], but with our newest project ___________, they'll get to experience _________ [new experience without the pain point]. That's what makes ______ [solution] an unrivaled solution within the market.

KEY CONSUMER BENEFIT:

________ [feature] is the best way for our target audience to experience _____ [benefit].

[Include three to five adjectives that describe the tone and voice of the project.]

CALL TO ACTION:

When the target audience sees our campaign, they will [feel/think/do] _________.

DISTRIBUTION:

We will promote the launch on platforms and channels that our demographic regularly engages with. These will include ________, ________, and _______.

We will also release content including _______, _______, and ________ to gain attention from our audience and inform them of the project.

Below are a few messages we will use:

• _________________________________________________.

Here are more templates to consider:

1. Simple Campaign Creative Brief

2. video creative brief, 3. simple client creative brief, types of creative briefs.

Creative briefs serve several purposes in the communications field. Marketers, designers, and advertisers use them differently. Depending on your role, your team, and the project you're working on, one might be more effective than the other. Below are some of the most common types of creative briefs used across industries today plus examples of what they might look like.

1. Marketing Creative Briefs

A marketing creative brief is most commonly used to bring campaigns to market. This type of creative brief can be used for both new and existing campaigns. Broad business goals and strategies to accomplish them are usually included in this type of creative brief. It's also not uncommon to see revenue goals and a budget included in a marketing creative brief.

Simple Marketing Creative Brief Example

2. Product Design Creative Briefs

Product design creative briefs outline the go-to-market strategy for a new product or feature launch. Product marketers are responsible for developing this type of brief. Developed in conjunction with the product manager, the product design creative brief will describe the features and benefits of the product and how the audience will benefit from them. Unique features of this type of creative brief include product documentation and product descriptions.

Product Design Creative Brief Example

3. Advertising Agency Creative Briefs

Advertising agencies develop creative briefs often for the various clients they serve. These briefs are concise and include the client's brand guidelines as well as the specific project guidelines. A budget may also be included in the brief so that all teams can make wise decisions about the tactics they recommend for the client. An account manager or supervisor develops the creative brief and shares it with client stakeholders before the agency begins working on the project.

Advertising Agency Creative Brief Example

Creative Brief Examples

1. creative request template.

For the day-to-day management of creative projects, using a creative request template in Asana acts as a dynamic take on a traditionally static creative brief. With a few tweaks to suit your business's needs, this template flows through each stage of the project while specifying tasks, deliverables, and key points that need to be included in the project. Moreover, Asana provides several types of views that make this template easy to look at from a calendar view, list view, board view, and timeline view so you'll always know the progress of your project in relation to the creative brief.

When to Use This Creative Brief:

This creative brief example is great for marketing, brand, creative, and design teams who handle a large backlog of projects with stakeholders on many different teams. Use this brief for both ad-hoc and regularly occurring projects.

2. Creative Brief Presentation Template

This creative brief example was designed by TemplateForest. It's a visual-forward example of a brief that works well for long-term projects like building a business or refreshing a brand. This longer brief includes a variety of information from internal brand insights to an external competitive analysis.

Use this creative brief when you're partnering with a creative agency on bigger projects. They can use this layout to inspire a creative brief that fits the needs of your business.

3. Red Bull

Image source

This creative brief is straightforward and simple. The only eye-catching visual is the use of the brand's logo. However, all the necessary information is included. 

When to Use this Creative Brief

Use this kind of brief when you want a straightforward document detailing your brand's longterm creative projects.

4. Quaker 

This Creative Brief by Quaker lays out the brand's problem, plan, and guidelines and includes visually appealing graphics to drive home the brief's point. 

A brief like the one above is most useful if your organization is embarking on a long-term project or if there's a lot of information and data that needs to be conveyed in an understandable manner.

5. Graphic Design Creative Template 

This template is designed to allow graphic designers to gather important information from clients so that they designer can create a product that is aligned with the client's vision.

When to Use this Creative Brief 

Briefs like this work best when working with clients on detailed projects. 

6. Nike Creative Brief

This creative brief example for Nike features all the crucial information a brief should include while utilizing the Nike logo and symbols to create visual interest. 

A brief like this serves the same purpose as the Quaker brief. If you have a lot information to convey, including symbols and interesting colors will help the information stick out and remain top of mind. 

Streamline Projects with a Creative Brief

Scope creep happens to the best of us. Projects get bigger, stakeholders are added, and the objective of the project seems to morph as time goes on.

Streamline your next product launch or marketing and advertising campaign with a creative brief. As a result, you'll find that your team is more aligned with the project's goals.

We've even provided free creative brief templates to get you started — download them below.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in July 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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• The complete guide to writing creative ...

The complete guide to writing creative briefs

Just like any other task, creative work deserves a clear plan and measurable goals before work begins. That’s where a creative brief comes in. Developing a creative brief allows you to take a proactive approach and outline requirements while planning out your creative work. Among other important elements, your creative brief is your opportunity to define the scope, deadlines, and deliverables specific to the creative part of your project.

Overall, a creative brief helps keep everyone on the same page—reducing feelings of frustration or confusion—while making sure no part of the design process is bottlenecked.

What is a creative brief?

A creative brief is used to define any relevant creative requirements, including messaging, audience, and outlining how success will be measured. Once the brief is created, plan to host a  kickoff meeting  to discuss conflicts or restrictions. That way, you have time to revise and update your creative brief before the work begins.

Remember this—creative briefs aren’t meant to be written and then left stagnant. Before your work begins, your creative brief should be an ever-evolving document that may change as the creative requirements continue to be scoped or tweaked. However, by the time the work starts, your creative brief should be a  clear plan  and have specific goals that your design, content, and creative teams can refer back to throughout the process, making sure everyone is aligned and making the right decisions.

Essential elements of a creative brief

Understanding what a creative brief is and why you need one is important. However, knowing what to actually put in one will save you significant time and reduce back and forths with your creative team. You can avoid having to circle back to questions and conflicts down the road by putting the appropriate information in your creative brief up front.

Take a look at these “must-haves” for every creative brief. Whether you’re planning a marketing campaign, writing a creative brief for an advertising agency, or preparing a creative brief for your internal team, these nine steps will help you clarify the key information your team needs for success. Keep in mind that your brief may contain more elements—and you can certainly add them as they relate to your work—but the criteria mentioned below should be part of nearly every creative brief.

Title and description

Goals and objectives, messaging and tone, assets and deliverables.

Stakeholders

Distribution process

First, give your creative brief a title. Provide a short description of the creative work so team members understand why they are a part of it. Let them know the intention of the creative work.

Title:  Advertising campaign for new product launch

Description:  As we prepare to launch Apollo Enterprises newest product, we’ll be putting together a series of advertisements to introduce it to the market.

Why are you working on this? At this point in your creative brief, you want to define the specific business need and what the work will accomplish. What does success look like for this particular body of work? As you’re writing down your goals, make sure they are measurable. At the end of the project, you’ll want to look back on them and clearly know if you’ve met your objectives.

Goals and objectives:  Reach 500,000 potential customers via paid search over a one-month period and add 5,000 new subscribers to our email list.

Outlining your target audience will help better tailor your creative to them. Look for specific insights, as those become your gems of valuable information. Get clear on who will be consuming your deliverable (video, ad, etc.). Try your best to define what that person looks like by outlining demographics such as age, gender, income level, marital status, or education level.

Also note what your audience values, along with their interests, wants, and needs. State if you’re trying to reach current customers or potential ones. Answering as many questions as possible about what your audience looks like will help you and your team along the way.

Audience:  Men, 30-65, mid-high income, at least a high school diploma. They value time outdoors, working with their hands, tools, and gadgets. They’re not current Apollo Enterprises’ customers.

Now that you know who your audience is, you need to clearly establish what messaging you want to put in front of them. Also, when your target market receives that message, what should they think, feel, want, and do? Are you asking them to take an action?

If you already have brand guidelines be sure to include them in your creative brief, or direct stakeholders on where to find them. Following brand guidelines ensures the tone and voice of your messaging matches that of your overall brand, and keeps your messaging consistent across marketing initiatives.

If you don’t have established brand guidelines, work with the right team members to put together some information about the tone and voice that this particular creative work should follow. Think of your message as a person. It should have a voice (a personality) and a tone (a mood or attitude).

Messaging and tone:  We want to empower our audience to be creators and use Apollo Enterprises’ new product as part of their most valued suite of tools. We should celebrate the target audience for working with their hands and make them feel proud of their creations.

Since your team’s work will produce some sort of creative asset (or many), this part of your brief should describe what those assets and deliverables are. For example, if you’re creating an advertisement, the final deliverable would be the actual ad. Make sure you specify asset requirements such as dimensions, number of versions, and design elements.

Assets and deliverables:  Three different advertisements, each with a different tagline and image (one version for each of the following sizes: 250x250, 728x90, 120x600).

Creative work usually requires cross-functional  team collaboration . Marketing and design are almost always involved, and oftentimes other departments will also play a part. This means several individuals from different teams working together on the same desired outcome.

This is why it’s so important to identify all important stakeholders upfront. Each team member should know who is involved and what they’re responsible for. You’ll save yourself a lot of time fielding questions down the line if you add this to your creative brief.

Stakeholders:

Creative team: Larry (ad copy), Emma (ad design)

Marketing team: Hannah (team lead), Caleb (email marketing setup for campaign), Terry (ad distribution)

Product team: Zach (Product Manager)

Establishing your budget from the start will help you actually stay in line financially and guide your decision-making. Be sure you write down actual numbers and identify costs where you can. Conducting some quick research ahead of time will help. Are there ways you can cut some costs? Giving yourself some time to play with the numbers before you even begin the work will keep you in good graces with your boss!

Budget:  The overall budget is $8,000 with $5,000 going to ad spend, $1,500 to design, and $1,500 to copywriting.

Establishing a  timeline for your work  early on will keep you and your team on track. Decide on a start date and end date, and then fill in as many important dates as you can in between. Knowing the important deadlines from the beginning gives all stakeholders an idea of how long their part of the work will take. They can plan accordingly and let you know of any conflicts. Be as specific as you can with dates and deadlines, and keep in mind that adjustments may need to be made as the work progresses.

Kickoff meeting: May 5

Final creative brief due: May 10

Ad copy due: May 30

Ad designs due: June 10

Ad buy plans due: June 15

Ads are live: July 1 - July 31

Measure ad success: Ongoing

Wrap-up: August 15

Identifying how your media assets will actually get to your audience is a part of your creative brief that can’t be skipped. All the hard work you put into every other step of your creative process culminates with an effective distribution strategy. In other words, how will you communicate your message? Social media, email, blog posts, and paid advertisements are just a few ways to distribute your media.

Distribution process:  Google Adwords platform to deploy ads.

Creative brief example

Seeing examples of what great creative briefs actually look like can help you formulate your own. Check out this stellar example and pay close attention to the details. You can tell that the project manager took time and thought to develop this creative brief, and help their team work together smoothly.

Creative brief template

Get started with this creative brief template to outline your campaign goals, creative deliverables, due date, marketing strategy, and more.

Title and description:

A clear name that your stakeholders can easily identify, and a short summary that conveys the intention of your creative brief.

Goals and objectives:

Define the metrics of success for your creative brief.

Who are you targeting in your campaign and what are their values, interests, and needs? This section should include any relevant demographics.

Messaging and tone:

What type of tone are you trying to strike? How do you want your audience to feel when they see your creative assets?

Assets and deliverables:

Asset and deliverable 1

Asset and deliverable 2

Asset and deliverable 3

Stakeholder 1

Stakeholder 2

Stakeholder 3

What is your overall budget? Are there any specific details to how the budget should be spent?

Date:  Description

Date: Description

Distribution process:

Specify how you will reach your audience once your assets and deliverables are ready.

Using a creative brief when working with agencies

Sometimes internal stakeholders aren’t the only people you’ll be collaborating with on creative work. Companies may choose to hire an agency to help. If you find yourself  working with an agency , here’s how you can use a creative brief to make the most out of the partnership.

Make your creative brief a starting point

When you deliver the creative brief to your agency contacts, take the opportunity to discuss your goals with them and refine the creative brief if necessary. Ask for their input. They are there to help and getting their buy-in will make every part of the overall process easier. Allow your agency partners to educate you on what will work and what won’t.

Create a robust final version of your creative brief

The more valuable information you put it in, the less questions will come your way later. And, remember, while the agency is a partner of yours, they are working with other companies as well. Giving them as much information as you can will make you and your creative brief stick out (in a good way). For example, you’ll want to include any applicable style guides, tone of voice recommendations, relevant internal messaging information, and any brand guidelines the agency should keep in mind while working.

Be open to change

Creative work moves quickly, and some project leaders make the mistake of thinking their creative brief has to be rigid in order to support fast-moving teams. In reality it’s a living document. Until you start executing on the work, it should always be open to conversations and edits.

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Write your best creative brief

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Build a creative brief that makes your life (and those of your stakeholders) easier to execute your creative work successfully.

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Creative Brief Examples: How to Write a Marketing Creative Brief in 8 Steps

Haillie Parker

June 4, 2024

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As Boromir once said in the cinematic masterpiece The Lord Of The Rings , “One does not simply make a funny video .” 🤌 OK, we took some artistic liberties—but the sentiment rings true! You can’t just whip up a creative project from scratch without Creative Brief Examples and expect it to be successful.

Creative projects require careful research, intentional planning, and collaboration to make a splash. And before teams can hit the ground running, these elements must be packaged together in an informative document known as the creative brief. ✨

But how do you know if your creative brief is checking every box?

Follow along to learn everything you need to know to build an effective creative brief including a detailed outline, step-by-step workflow, top examples, and more. Plus, access to customizable creative brief templates!

What Is a Creative Brief?

What belongs in a creative brief, advertising campaign creative briefs, content marketing creative briefs, website redesign briefs, step 1: give the project a proper name, step 2: coordinate your objectives with long-term goals, step 3: identify your target audience, step 4: solidify your messaging strategy, step 5: determine the final deliverables, step 6: budget your time and resources, step 7: set your milestones, then the timeline, step 8: name your key players, step 9: lock in the brief, 1. creative brief document template, 2. creative brief demand planning template, 3. creative brief whiteboard template, take your projects further with creative briefs.

A creative brief is a short but informative document outlining the main details of any creative project and leads the team from ideation through the final deliverables. It’s the key to creating your roadmap and solidifying must-know information like:

• Project requirements
• Brand guidelines
• Creative assets
• Audience and messaging
• Scope and timeline

And more—depending on your project! 🎨

Creative briefs are standard practice for most agencies and marketing teams . And like a design brief , the creative brief begins with a request from a client, company stakeholder, or another department within your organization.

While the team developing the project ultimately owns the creative brief, constructing it is a collaborative effort between everyone involved.

Start by discussing the request itself. Go into this meeting with the intention of understanding the requestor or client’s vision, mission, and purpose to find the elements that really matter to them. From there, you can address any immediate challenges and offer your industry expertise to bring the project to life.

The goal is to get everyone on board with the project plan—especially your stakeholders. With the requirements set in stone, design teams , writers, and marketers will know exactly how creative to get with your project and what’s expected.

What makes standardizing creative briefs so difficult is the ever-changing nature of each individual project. But that’s also what makes your brief so valuable!

A creative project could be almost anything—from launching a complex advertising campaign to producing a web series. Each project will pose a distinct set of challenges, but the creative brief is there to help creative teams identify and solve those issues as quickly as possible.

Think of your creative brief as a reliable source of truth to refer back to throughout the project process. Whether it’s to provide updates, cross reference your work with the original plan, or double-check your messaging, the brief is your North Star. ⭐️

Creative Brief Examples

The outline and workflow we’ve covered will fit virtually any creative project. But that doesn’t mean each brief will look the same. Creative briefs are the starting point for every creative project—no matter how big or small. Some projects will lean heavier into certain sections of the creative brief than others. Here are a few creative brief examples to help you gauge the differences between projects.

Bonus: AI Outline Generators !

Advertising and marketing campaign briefs range from somewhat simple to extremely complex, depending on the scope of work. In this creative brief example, you may want to include additional research, multiple visual references, and several draft reviews to ensure the production and delivery goes off without a hitch.

This is also a great example of the type of project that may include more than one CTA. While there will always be one primary purpose behind the campaign, it’s important for the creative team and stakeholders to align on the marketing KPIs , deliverables, and delivery process as quickly as possible.

New to writing campaign briefs? The best place to start is with a customizable template like the Campaign Brief Template by ClickUp !

A content marketing creative brief guides the blog and SEO teams to develop articles, copy, and materials that resonate with the company, its customers, and beyond! The audience, objectives, messaging strategy, and timeline are crucial in content marketing projects , especially if you’re following a tight content calendar .

Content marketing objectives include anything from increasing brand awareness to generating potential sales leads. They are often created for the brand’s own website, social media platforms, newsletters, or content database .

The project’s success is generally determined through website traffic, engagement rates, conversions, and various social media metrics to tie back to the company’s larger goals.

Many companies use these projects to establish their thought leadership by partnering with third-party publications which requires a detailed brief to properly follow a brand-specific tone of voice and style guidelines.

Web design workflows are no small feat and open the door to tons of unique creative elements including UX considerations, functional requirements, creative process needs, and more! Website redesign creative briefs still follow the same basic steps and structure but must be looked at through additional lenses:

• Are the graphics, typography, and messaging consistent with the brand?
• Can users easily navigate the website and reach the product or services with ease?
• Does the design support the functionality you need?

With so many elements to any website, there can be a lot of back and forth between the designers and the client. To avoid draining your team with constant review sessions and minor tweaks, make sure you as the creative project manager set clear boundaries on the number of edits you’ll allow on the project before the final deadline.

There’s no need to exceed two rounds.

How to Write a Creative Brief

Even with your outline ready to go, there is a strategic approach to completing your brief as efficiently as possible. Follow these steps to ensure your team and stakeholders are on the same page throughout your creative briefing process so no stone is left unturned!

Starting things off strong with one of the most crucial pieces of your project—its name! Your project name should be clear and concise while communicating the intent. It doesn’t have to be flashy or funny, but it should resonate with your target audience and be compelling enough for them to want to learn more. In a sense, the name is your project or business’ first impression.

The overview is where you can dissect the project name a little more for the sake of the team. In a sentence or less, use your overview to answer any questions that may remain from the project name to avoid miscommunication or back-and-forth between stakeholders and the creative team. This could be a brief explanation of what the project will be and its core message.

With your project name and description in hand, you’re ready to outline your main objectives and goals. Your objectives are detailed and project-specific. It’s your opportunity to align the team on potential setbacks before they happen, CTAs, and prove the project’s worth.

All of this starts by defining these key points:

• The problem you’re addressing
• How the project will solve it
• Why it needs to happen

Nailing down the what, how, and why of your project will set the expectation for what a successful outcome will look like when it’s all said and done. From there, you can draw connections between the project’s more granular objectives and the company’s larger goals or mission.

Your target audience is the group that will benefit most from your project or campaign and tells the creative team who they’re connecting with. If you already have user persona profiles created for your business, use those resources and market research to build this section! You don’t have to tell your user’s life story, but be sure to cover basic information including:

• Demographics : Age, job title, education, marital status, and ethnicity
• Behaviors : Buying trends and histories
• Psychographics : Their general interests, opinions, and attitudes)
• Location : Not just physical! Think about where to find your customer digitally

Now that you know who you’re marketing to, you can strategize the best ways to connect with them. Your messaging strategy is all about being in the right place at the right time and speaking to your audience the way they want to be spoken to.

AKA, how will you distribute your creative project to the intended people?

Consider the social media and online platforms your target audience most commonly consumes, and create tailored content for those channels. This forethought will help you make significant decisions like whether to create a video, written post, or series of photos to draw your audience toward your product or service.

But it doesn’t stop there. Once your audience member visits your website, reaches your CTA, or clicks on your link, be sure to greet them with consistent and familiar messaging to guide them all the way through the funnel.

Ahh, now for the good stuff—what the project actually is.

The prior sections of your creative brief are essential for justifying, setting up, and framing your assets for a successful launch. But there are many ways to interpret the project strategy and vision up to this point. Use this section to eliminate any gray area and potential miscommunication by detailing exactly what the creative team will provide.

Your final creative deliverables include all digital or physical media requested, specific design elements, references to similar work, size or format requirements, mockups, and more. To ensure your client or stakeholder is completely satisfied with the final product, it’s better to lean into the details than leave too much for the imagination.

It may not be your favorite part of the job, but it’s so important to be fully transparent about your budget. Your budget isn’t a limitation, it helps the creative team determine how creative they can get with the request.

Be sure to note whether there’s a bit of wiggle room in the budget and when the project has hit the maximum amount. Think of your budget like the bumper rails on a bowling lane. Having these boundaries give the creative team clear guidelines to work within.

If you need help with budgeting your project—try the ClickUp Budget Project Management Template to break down every detail and cost.

And let’s not forget—the creative team members are experts in this! The challenge of crafting projects within a predetermined set of requirements is nothing new for them.

With a crystal-clear budget to lead start the project off on the right foot, no one will be disappointed or met with an unwanted surprise.

When mapping out your timeline, it’s easier to start with the significant dates in your project—also known as your project milestones! These benchmark events include:

• Your project kick-off
• Creative brief approval
• Draft reviews
• Production completion
• Final asset turnover

With these dates, you can flesh out the tasks between each milestone, subtasks, dependencies, recurring meetings, and more.

Your approved timeline and milestones will be the central resource for building a detailed project roadmap and properly delegating the teams’ individual workloads.

To establish full transparency with everyone involved, make sure you identify each major player for the creative project.

For the project manager, this clarifies each point of contact, their titles, and final sign-offs. As for the project itself, this portion of the creative brief also acts as a paper trail documenting whether certain aspects of the project have been approved and when.

Once you’ve taken the first pass at constructing your creative brief, send it back to your client and stakeholders for final approval—then it’s time to put it to use!

After the creative brief has been reviewed and accepted, no further edits should be made. But of course, all projects are different! If changes are made to the brief at any point, be sure to thoroughly document, date, and share those updates with everyone involved in a proper project meeting.

Creative Brief Templates

Even with a clear outline and step-by-step workflow, nothing beats a pre-built and customizable template to streamline your creative brief process.

These tools were designed to include every critical element to avoid errors that may haunt you down the road. Your ideal creative brief template will seamlessly integrate with your creative project management software and be easily tailored to each project’s needs.

ClickUp leads the charge when it comes to templates for creative and design teams with its own vast Template Library . With over 1,000 templates and new ones created every week, ClickUp has you covered—no matter your use case! Here are a few of our favorite creative brief templates to jump-start your next project.

If you’re looking for a carefully curated, beginner-friendly, and collaborative creative brief template—this is it! The Creative Brief Document Template by ClickUp is the secret to aligning the marketing team, stakeholders, and clients on all creative project elements well before the project begins.

From defining your project’s purpose to outlining the budget, this template breaks down every must-have creative brief element in an easy-to-use format with pre-built tables, checklists, and prompts to guide you.

This ready-made ClickUp Doc also comes loaded with every powerful feature ClickUp is known for including:

• Threaded and assigned comments to streamline your editing process
• Slash Commands to embed tasks, third-party websites, rich styling, and media for added context throughout your template
• Nested pages to expand your creative brief into the production process and build a visual hierarchy
• Simple @mentions to call members to your Doc
• Custom sharing and permission settings to control who can edit or view your brief

And more! Access this template in all its glory at absolutely no cost

Use the Creative Brief Demand Planning Template by ClickUp on its own or pair it with the template mentioned above to set clear goals before your creative project. This template takes your traditional creative brief example a step further with features to help you act on your ideas the moment inspiration strikes you.

This intuitive List template is every creative project manager’s dream with five Custom Statuses to visually convey progress, 20 Custom Fields to filter and sort tasks in seconds, and seven custom views to manage your projects from every angle. Among these many views, you’ll find:

• A pre-built List to organize all of your creative work
• A creative brief Form to collect all necessary information from the client
• Every accepted project is arranged in a clean Table view
• A detailed project calendar to stay on top of deadlines and project Milestones

And much more. Especially if your agency juggles more than one creative project at a time—this template is for you.

We’re not saying we saved the best for last—but it’s certainly the most interactive! The Creative Brief Whiteboard Template by ClickUp bridges the gap between business and design to effectively communicate ideas and requirements from the same highly visual canvas.

Unlike your typical digital whiteboard software , ClickUp Whiteboards connect instantly to your workflow with the power to convert any text into actionable tasks. This isn’t just a pre-structured diagram .

This template stays with you long after your own creative brief is approved with workflow Automations , seven Custom Statuses, and nine Custom Fields to take the edge off of your creative process. Plus, there are four ready-to-go project views to help craft your timeline and workflows.

OK, we covered a lot of material there. Let’s regroup, shall we? By now, you’ve got:

• The must-have elements of any creative brief
• A detailed outline to craft your own
• A step-by-step workflow
• Three creative brief examples
• Multiple creative brief templates

All that’s left to do is log into ClickUp and watch your creative brief transform before your very eyes!

ClickUp is the only productivity software powerful enough to centralize all of your creative work in one collaborative platform. With over 1,000 integrations , a vast Template Library, hundreds of project management features , and flexible pricing , ClickUp is the one-stop-shop solution for teams across industries.

What’s not to love? Try ClickUp for free, today !

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Creative Ways to Write Creative Briefs [+ Templates and Examples]

Creative work is often thought to be instinctive instead of planned—not true. Seasoned marketers love creative briefs!

And there are plenty of good reasons why –

You get a clear plan of how to go about things.

You can chalk out trackable goals and requirements.

You can define the scope , campaign goals, deliverables, and deadlines proactively.

You can ensure everyone on the team is on the same page, working without confusion or misunderstandings.

However, the catch is that it is not always easy to think straight—a prime requirement when creating any sort of creative brief. 

So, to help you, we’ll cover everything you need to know about creative briefs in this comprehensive guide. Let’s go!

What Is a Creative Brief?

A creative brief is essentially a type of blueprint that guides different teams to work together.

It captures all the essential information teams need to drive successful projects, such as the project scope, deadline, budget, goals , target audience, brand voice and tone, and more. 

For example, in the case of website creative briefs, various teams, such as copywriters, marketers, graphic designers , web developers , etc., use the creative brief to ensure that the website ticks off all the predefined creative goals.

The Importance of Writing Creative Briefs

So, the general advantages of a creative brief include:

• Improved team collaboration where each team works with a better understanding of the creative requirements as well as how to tackle challenges during the project lifecycle
• Enhanced stakeholder alignment and better expectation management as each deliverable gets completed
• Contextual messaging that drives creativity while documenting the project’s important data simultaneously (read: intended target audience, KPIs to be measured , potential risks, etc.)

All in all, a creative brief doubles up as a guiding principle for your teams so that they can achieve the creative campaign’s goals with less friction and iterations!

12 Must-Have Elements in a Typical Creative Brief Template

Want to restrict the back-and-forth between teams with your creative brief?

Get your  creative brief template  in line. 

Typically speaking, a good creative brief often comprises 12 key elements that communicate everything your creative teams need to know to get started on the right foot:

1. Project Name

The project name refers to a clear and concise title for the project. It provides a quick reference point for all team members.

Example: “Redesigning a Company Website – Project [XYZ]”

2. Company Background

This section provides important context about the company, such as its origins, the industry it operates in, its work culture, and its mission.

This piece of information helps creative teams to better align with the company’s identity.

Example: “Our company, [XYZ Corporation], is a leading tech company that specializes in innovative consumer electronics and has been in business for over a decade.”

3. Objectives

As the name suggests, the Objectives segment outlines the project’s goals, what it aims to achieve, and the expected outcomes.

Example: “The primary objective of this campaign is to increase brand awareness by 20% and generate 10,000 pre-launch sign-ups for our new product.”

4. Target Audience

The target audience defines the intended audience for the project. It includes data relating to demographics, audience preferences, their current pain points, and so on. 

A deeper insight into the ideal user base will define and guide the most creative briefs and approach for the marketing/advertising campaign.

Example: “Our target audience comprises tech-savvy millennials aged 25-35, with a focus on urban professionals. They love to use the latest products and are active on [ABC] platforms.”

Define project objectives and convert them into milestones. Use Nifty

5. Brand Guidelines

The brand guidelines segment showcases the existing brand guidelines (if any), including preferred design as well as communication preferences.

Example: “Please follow our brand guidelines outlined in the attached document, which includes specifics relating to usage of our logo usage, desired color palette, and intended tone of voice.”

6. Market Insights

Market insights highlight the latest and relevant market research to inform the creative approach using insights and not just intuition. 

Example: “Our recent market research indicates that there’s an increased demand for eco-friendly products in our industry.”

7. Key Considerations

This section emphasizes specific factors/aspects that must be highlighted in the project (think: product features or market trends, for instance).

Example: “We need to emphasize our product’s sustainability and affordability as compared to our competitors.”

8. Project Scope

Project scope defines the specific tasks and deliverables within the scope of the project, providing clarity on what needs to be accomplished and how.

Example: “The project includes designing a new website, creating promotional materials, and launching a social media marketing campaign.”

9. Deliverables

This component lists the tangible items and assets that the creative team needs to produce as part of the project.

Example: “The deliverables include a website wireframe, product brochures, social media ad creatives, and a launch event plan.”

Define project scope, set deadlines, track deliverables, and more in one place. Nifty

10. Budget 

It outlines the allocated budget for the project and offers insights into any financial constraints (if applicable).

Example: “The allocated budget for this project is $100,000.”

11. Timeline

The timeline defines the project timeline. Make sure to include key milestones and deadlines, ensuring everyone is aware of the project’s time constraints.

Example: “The project should be completed within three months, with the website launch scheduled for the end of the second month.”

12. Approval Process

This segment answers questions relating to – What is the process for reviewing and approving creative work, and who are the key stakeholders involved?

Example: “All creative assets must be reviewed and approved by the marketing account manager before final production.”

How to Write a Creative Brief: A Step-by-Step Guide

Whether you’re creating a marketing creative brief, an advertising creative brief,  or a website creative brief, following the right process is important.

Here’s a step-by-step guide you can follow when writing creative briefs:

Step 1: Collect Your Customer’s Requirements to the T

The journey of writing a creative brief begins with gathering all the pertinent information about what your customer requires. 

To do this, engage in the following steps:

• Conduct thorough discussions with your client and teams to identify the former’s needs, objectives, and expectations
• Ask probing questions to ensure you have a comprehensive understanding of the project’s purpose, target audience, and specific ideas, as well as preferences the client may have.

Additionally, consider using a  paraphrasing AI tool  to rephrase and reword the gathered information effectively in easy-to-understand words. This can be especially helpful if you are taking notes during a long or complex meeting.

Step 2: Do Your Market Research

To develop a successful and effective creative brief, you need to be well-versed in the market in which your project will operate. Try the following tips:

• Leverage your marketing software to conduct research and gain insights into the industry, trends, competitors, and potential opportunities.
• Clearly outline your research goals by analyzing your customer’s preferences, assessing the market size, and evaluating the competition.
• Who are your potential customers?
• What are their needs, behaviors, and preferences?
• Surveys and questionnaires to gather quantitative data by surveying a large sample of your target audience.
• Interviews wherein you conduct in-depth interviews with key industry experts, customers, and stakeholders.
• Observational research in which you observe consumer behavior in real-world/online settings (depending on your requirements).
• Secondary research in which you analyze existing data, reports, and studies to get a better pulse of the target market.

This research will not only inform your creative strategy; it will also help you to position your creative project effectively in the market.

Step 3: Establish Goals and Outcomes

The third step is all about clearly outlining your project’s objectives and desired outcomes:

• Do you want to increase brand awareness?
• Do you wish to boost sales?
• Are you looking to convey a particular message?

Make sure to define these goals with specificity.

Remember, your creative brief should serve as a complete guide and a roadmap for achieving these objectives.

Nifty allows you to add custom details to your project thanks to its “Custom Fields” feature:

With this feature, you can ensure that none of the project’s critical details fall through the cracks.

You can also set and track project goals by tasks, task lists, custom tags, fields, and assignees:

Nifty automates your goal data by automatically adding/removing tasks as and when they’re created based on custom tags, fields, and assignees. 

That’s not all. Nifty enables you to leverage custom tags to track KPIs. For instance, you can create goals that automatically update and measure your team or individual’s performance with just a few clicks.

Step 4: Define Scope and Deliverables

Now that you’ve gathered all the useful information, it’s time to translate that data into the project scope and deliverables.

You can try Nifty’s Milestones feature to improve team alignment around project goals and sprints. This is done by visualizing milestones in an easy-to-understand Gantt chart format:

You can also leverage the Swimlane view to pilot objectives by intersecting project milestones and tasks as shown below:

That’s not all. The Milestones feature provides real-time automation of ‘in progress,’ ‘completed,’ and ‘overdue’ status based on the completion of tied tasks.

If your team deals with a repeating schedule, you can set up recurring milestones and ensure that the team never misses any important work again.

Step 5: Document All Your Findings

Collecting all the customer information is not enough.

You need to document everything, and that, too, document it in real-time. 

Nifty’s Docs feature allows you to:

• Create useful notes, docs, and wikis for your project
• Share the document with others using a simple link
• Integrate natively with Google Docs for faster and seamless working:

• Plan, track, and manage your workflow within one collaborative workspace

Pro tip : Once your creative brief is ready, plan a kickoff meeting . This will allow you to reassess if there might be any conflicts along the way collectively with the team. You can make the requisite changes and update the brief before the actual work begins.

7 Tips for Writing Creative Briefs to Get That Breakthrough Idea!

Writing creative briefs doesn’t follow a linear path, nor is there a ‘one-size-fits-all’ strategy that works.

However, having a few tips up your sleeve doesn’t hurt:

• Spot on: Make sure that the creative brief is clear, specific, measurable, and realistic. There’s no room for guesswork or blind spots.
• Not data-heavy : Ensure that the brief is not voluminous with endless data that’s forcefully added. Sticking to the less is more philosophy will empower your team to focus on what truly matters.
• Iterate : Continue to keep changing your creative brief as the requirements or scope evolves.
• Accuracy : Think of your creative brief as the bible that your teams will follow. This means there’s no room for any mistakes or inaccuracies. 
• Context: Your creative brief should highlight what the brand has been communicating to the customers, what they want users to do next, and how the deliverables will fit into the overall communication strategy.
• Insights: Your audience insights should be at the heart of the brief. Any kind of marketing or communication you initiate must stem from what your customers want and why they want it.
• Alignment: Sometimes, in the creative flow, you can stray away from what was originally intended. You need to make sure that your creative brief is aligned with your brand’s objectives at all times. 

In the end, use this checklist to ask the following questions:

• Does your communication single-mindedly convey your brand’s objectives?
• Does the content map to your ideal audience’s interests and insights?
• Is the team aware of the deliverable’s true deadlines?
• Are you constantly inserting the team and stakeholder feedback and pivoting in real-time?
• Are all your stakeholders able to access the creative brief anytime, anywhere?

5 Compelling Creative Brief Examples 

Here are five examples of creative briefs worth getting inspired from:

Example 1. Airbnb – To convert digital connections into meaningful IRL experiences

Here’s a creative brief example by Airbnb that was provided to participants entering a contest. But there’s plenty to learn from in this creative content brief too.

Notice how the brand provides:

• A backstory 
• Details into Airbnb’s key challenges
• Points on what to focus on in the creative brief

Your brief should be as detailed and clear as this.

Example 2. PayPal – To reiterate what PayPal is all about in the customer’s mind

This is an example of a marketing creative brief which talks about:

• The brand’s key insights and research gathered over time
• The marketing channels to use 
• Who the brand want to engage as the ideal target audience

Example 3. Nike – To promote the image that Nike looks after its factory employees

When it comes to creative briefs, it doesn’t get any better than Nike’s creative brief example outlined above.

The brand talks about the big picture in addition to the brand statement, target audience, and problem statement so that the team knows where they’re headed and  how  to head to their final destination.

Example 4. Gray’s Cookies – To get more customers to eat Gray’s healthy yet tasty cookies

Here’s a creative brief example of an advertising agency whose creative brief comprises all the vital components you need to roll out helpful touchpoints, such as:

• Target audience
• Customer insights and current thinking 
• What the business wants the customer to do
• The tone to include within the advertising deliverables
• Media assets and platforms to explore

Example 5. Netflix – To boost the number of subscribers during COVID-19

Our final and most extensive creative brief example on the list, Netflix gets many things right within its creative brief:

• Its media strategy is relevant and ‘hip’
• The target audience is represented in an infographic format, allowing for a quick read
• The brand tone and voice are explicitly mentioned
• The key challenges and purpose of the communication follow the S.M.A.R.T framework

Get Your Creative Briefs Sorted with Nifty

Creating a creative brief is one part of the story. You need to communicate the project’s goals and purpose to your teams.

However, the second equally important part is driving collaboration.

No project is a ‘one-man’ army. Your project will need internal and external collaboration between members so that everyone is on the same page at all times. 

And this is where project management software like Nifty shines.

You can collaborate with every member of the ecosystem in real time using Nifty’s Discussion feature:

Plus, you can share ideas and drive meaningful discussions at the click of a button. Everyone can follow a  singular  plan of action and use it as a centralized point of reference for all deliverables.

Remember, creative briefs are always changing, and project leads need all the resources they can get to ensure everyone is working together. 

Leverage Nifty’s project management features to stay organized and deliver creative products without breaking a sweat! Try Nifty for free . 

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How to write the perfect Creative Brief - A guide & template

Table of contents, what is a project outline.

Writing an effective creative brief is one of the crucial stages in the creative development of a project. Whether that's your new website, your marketing campaign or your content marketing plan , get the brief right, and you'll be increasing your chances of doing great creative work.

In this article, you'll learn:

What is a creative brief.

• The purpose of a creative brief.

The structure of a brief

• To use a creative brief template
• 3 Key elements of a great creative brief

The creative brief is a short written document that describes the essential aspects of a creative opportunity a business or studio has identified.

It clearly specifies the goal a company wants to achieve and describes the context. The creative brief becomes the document the creative team will refer to when defining and proposing their solutions.

What is a creative brief not?

A creative brief is not the prescription of a solution or an asset checklist. Many briefs tend to be too output-oriented. Those might look something like: "we need a bold website with engaging visuals and good browsing experience, so our products sell more."

Wrong. By doing this, you would be limiting the potential of an unexpected solution that could help you achieve your real goal in a much more successful way. In this example: sell more products.

What is a creative brief for?

The purpose of a creative brief is to inspire one or more creative professionals in identifying and producing a solution for a business goal. It defines a creative project.

Let's stop here for a second.

A good creative brief is as descriptive as it is inspiring. It's the document that kicks off the creative process, so it needs to build some momentum and get people excited. Talk about the possibilities you could achieve together, and be specific about the essential parts that need to be delivered for the project to be a success.

Let's get something straight: each creative brief should be unique to the project it's describing. It should be written in a style that sets the tone for the project. It should also make emphasis on t

The creative brief for the home page of a funeral home has to be different from the brief of the social media launch campaign of Dua Lipa's latest album. Makes sense, right?

That being said, there's a blueprint you can follow as a starting point to make sure all essential aspects of the project are covered.

Over the last years, this creative brief template has been handy to me.

1. Project specifics

3. proposition, 4. objective, 5. criteria, 6. target audience, 7. deliverables, 8. resources, what is included in a creative brief.

Since we understand now how the brief is structured, let's understand what should be included in each brief.

This section works as a header for the brief. It's a summary of all the technical aspects of the project. No descriptions here, just data.

Include things like a deadline, project budget , and names of each team member involved.

Describe the context in which this opportunity has been identified. A bit of background of what has happened recently and the motivation behind the project.

This section is the core of your brief. State in one single sentence what you are trying to accomplish. Go deep. Don't stay on the surface with something like: "grow our Instagram account to 10k followers". Find and define the core motivation in just a few words. I strongly recommend using a question format following IDEO's ideation formula: "How could we...?".

Be mindful here. Remember the old say: there're no wrong answers, just wrong questions.

Now that our motivation has been clearly stated, you can get a bit more specific on what are your project goals.

To make things easy, I usually fill in the blanks of the following sentence.  

We want to _______ by _________ because _________ . We will be happy when _________ .

Agreeing to specific criteria is a way to leave the door open to any possible solution, always knowing there're are some boundaries creatives need to work within. It helps you adjust expectations and gives the team something to hold on to.

Probably the other most relevant section of the brief beside the proposition. Avoid falling in cliches or simply copy-pasting a description of your ideal customer profile . The more specific this section is, the more relevant the solution is going to be for your audience.

Let the creative team know the deliverables you have in mind by creating a simple checklist of assets if that's possible. This checklist is not a dogma and can always be rewritten in the future. However, it's useful for creatives to know what you're expecting.

It's a good practice to provide references, or other resources you have, to put creatives in the right mindset to get started.

Your company style guide will be essential for graphic design. An article which point of view you find interesting can inspire your copywriters, and even a book you think is relevant can unlock new ideas.

Tips to write a Creative Brief

Most people in marketing teams begin writing a brief by jumping into a text document and start dropping words of what they want someone else to do. Don't be that person.

Ironically enough, the most important thing to do when writing a brief is to listen.

Before you get started, here are some recommendations I've learned along the way:

1. Capture the big picture. Talk with as many people as you can to get a holistic view of the context and the business goal you're trying to achieve.

2. Write for creatives, not for yourself . Put yourself in the shoes of the creative team who is going read and work with this brief. Whether that's an internal team or an advertising agency, make sure you're empathetic when writing it. Is it clear enough? Does it point in the right direction? Does it provide valuable information avoiding cliches?

3. Keep it short . Here's my golden rule: a brief should never, under any circumstances, be more than two A4 pages long.

Following these guides has been really useful for my creative team to understand better our stakeholders and deliver better results. Hopefully, these tips will help you too kick off projects with better alignment with your teams.

Go ahead and make the template your own. And remember, it's called brief for a reason! ;)

Creative Brief Template

There're many creative brief examples on the internet, just a Google search away from you. However, the right way to write a brief is that one that works for you and the creatives who are going to work on it. Feel free to use this free creative brief template and adapt it to make it yours.

Laure Albouy is Slite's first marketing hire and in charge of Product Marketing. Her role? Making sure our users get the most out of Slite —including guides, product announcements, market research and more. Laure lives in Paris and is a pasta afficionada.

Alex Antolino is a Creative director, content creator, and overnight music producer. Antolino co-founded MMMIND Studio, where he spent five years creating online content and commercials for well-known fashion and tech brands. As Typeform’s Creative Director, he has defined the creative vision of the brand and has led the creative team in implementing it through content and design. https://www.alexantolino.com/

In his Instagram account (@antolino) he shares powerful branding insights and actionable strategies on how to build meaningful brands that lead to business growth.

Working remotely? So are we since 2016. Slite may be the right communication tool for you!

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How to write a creative brief: Best-practice, examples & templates 🖌

Here at Briefly, we obsess over the marketing brief - the brief that clients share with their agencies.

But the creative brief (the one that agencies write in response to that marketing brief) is an equally important document.

It translates the marketing brief into a format that will inspire ingenious creative thinking. So crafting it deserves time, effort, careful consideration, and no small amount of fun.

What is a creative brief?

The creative brief is a document used to inspire and instruct a creative team to produce (hopefully) a gorgeous, compelling, and effective advertising campaign. Often, it's written by a strategist or planner at an agency, but can sometimes be the responsibility of a client if they're working directly with a creative team.

Besides the marketing brief (sometimes called the client brief), it is the most important document in the creative process.

The good news: if you follow these 11 steps, you’ll be on track to deliver a great brief.

What is the difference between a creative brief, a marketing brief, and a client brief?

A creative brief is written for a creative team and is designed to direct and inspire the creative work itself. It is usually based on a marketing brief that the client has provided and written by an agency. For smaller projects or if the client is briefing a production agency or freelancer directly, they may write the creative brief themselves. If you're writing this type of brief, you're in the right place.

A client brief is the same as a marketing brief. They're written by clients and outline a new project for their agency. If you're looking to write one of those, head over to our article on ' How to write the perfect marketing brief '.

How to write a creative brief

Step 1: Name your brief and get a template

Step 2: Set the objectives

Step 3: Define the problem

Step 4: Articulate the brand or product truth

Step 5: Capture your audience insight

Step 6: Find a category truth

Step 7: Lean on a cultural lever

Step 8: Craft your key messages

Step 9: Build the strategic proposition

Step 10: Make sure to include the considerations

Step 11: Inspire the creative team

Step 1 - Name your project and get your creative brief template ready 📦

Give your brief an exciting name.

This might sound simple, or even silly. But giving your brief a name is an important step.

This is how everyone will refer to this brief over the coming months. And if you don't name it, eventually someone else will. So if you want to avoid the risk that your brief might become known as the "Stinky Horrible No-One-Wants-It Brief," give it an exciting name.

Creative brief template

Templates structure all your thinking and all the information that you need to include in your brief.

If you don’t already have a brief template, create your own (if you’re brave) or choose one of our free, expertly crafted ones (if you’re smart).

Step 2 - Set your objectives 🎯

Usually, the creative brief follows the marketing brief. And the marketing brief usually includes three objectives :

• The business objective What the company needs to achieve to improve its bottom line
• The marketing objective What you need consumers to do (or not do) that will achieve your business objective
• The communications objective What you need consumers to think or feel that will achieve your marketing objective

You need to think carefully about how you frame your objective in your creative brief. It can be tempting to copy-and-paste the communications objective directly. After all, aren't creative teams trained to solve communications problems with creativity?

Yes, they are. But too often, communications objectives aren't framed in a way that most creative teams will be able to effectively respond.

Most of the time, you can get around this by rephrasing the comms objective in more human language.

For example, if the communications objective in the marketing brief looked like this...

Increase perceptions of 'Nike understands the community I live in' amongst Young Londoners by 30% by Q4.

Then the objective you might write in your creative brief could look something like this...

Get young Londoners to see that Nike understands what it means to grow up in London - and makes products that I'd be proud to wear on the streets of London.

In your creative brief, you can often sidestep some of the rigmarole of SMART objectives. These are creative objectives and KPIs that you're setting, and often too much formulaic rigour can hinder, rather than help, the process.

Step 3 - Define the problem 🧠

In a similar vein, you might receive a few problems from the marketing brief: a business, marketing, and communications problem.

And in another similar vein, you need to be considered in your approach to setting your own problem for your creative brief.

Your problem should be a direct response to the objective that you have set. Ask yourself: What stands in the way of achieving that objective?

You might get to something that looks like:

Nike has spent so long putting sports superstars in its campaign that it has lost its ability to appear relevant to young Londoners.

Step 4 - Articulate the brand or product truth ⭐️

The only question you need to answer in your creative brief here is: What is the one unique thing about the brand or the product that will be most compelling to your audience?

Sounds simple, right?

Afraid not.

This is where many arguments start between marketers and agencies (and their creative teams). Creatives often want to subdue the presence of overtly 'advertising-y' messages, and that often includes calling out product truths. Meanwhile, marketers are often focused on how every piece of advertising is driving sales of their product or service. And these two forces can clash.

So, as you're writing this section of your brief, it's important to think of how this brand or product truth can fuel a creative team's ideas, rather than shackle them.

Product truth example

Flora plant butter's product truth.

In this ad for their new plant-based butter, Flora and their agency Pablo used a product truth to create some simply brilliant OOH advertising (alongside an equally brilliant campaign). The truth that plant-based butter and dairy butter both have their origins in the same material, with some different processing in the middle, became the centre of the campaign idea.

Product messaging doesn't need to be stale and boring. Creative thinking around your product truth can lead to insightful, funny, and memorable creative work.

Step 5 - Find your audience insight 💎

Hopefully, there should be a clear target audience in the marketing brief you have received - if not, press your client for one. Or if you're a marketer writing the creative brief, spend some time thinking about who you want to target with this campaign - and read our guide on finding your target audience to help get you moving.

In a creative brief, you need to go a step further than just finding the right audience. You need to craft an insight for this audience - a key fact, piece of information, or description of them that not only makes it clear who this campaign is aimed at, but unlocks a way of talking to them.

There are lots of ways to find an audience insight, but often the most interesting and most useful in a creative brief focus on an emotional truth for their target audience:

• What are their ambitions?
• What are the problems than annoy them every day?
• What are they afraid of?
• Who do they trust?

There are a million and one questions like this that you can ask, so this part of the brief requires some careful thought and some consistent practice.

Here are a few examples of adverts that clearly captured an emotional truth about their target audience, and in turn what emotion they wanted to make the audience feel.

Audience insight examples

Transport for london's audience insight.

In this impactful campaign to encourage drivers to stick to the speed limit, Transport for London (the local government body responsible for most of the transport network in London) decided not to focus on the drivers themselves, but on their passengers. They recognised that drivers who speed don't care for their own wellbeing because they don't think that they'll get in an accident if they drive over the speed limit. But what these drivers do care about is the safety and wellbeing of their passengers, particularly when they're loved ones. So TfL created a campaign that tapped into this fear that their own reckless driving could not only harm their passengers, but that their passengers were constantly uncomfortable when in the car.

Spotify's audience insight

Spotify Wrapped has been a successful engagement campaign ever since it started. And interestingly, it didn't even come from an audience insight - one of Spotify's engineers realised they had lots of listening data for their users, and began coming up with some ideas for how they could put it to use. Or so the story goes.

But the reason it became such a popular campaign is that, even accidentally, it did tap into a powerful audience insight: people love to share the music they love - and they love to brag about it. Whether it's how much music they listen to, how big a fan they are of a certain artist, or how different their music taste is to everyone else, Spotify Wrapped lets people indulge in the feeling that their opinion is valid and valued (even if no one else pays any heed to their Wrapped Instagram story).

Step 6 - Define the category truth 🥸

In this section, you need to take a top-level view of the category (or industry, vertical, sector - whatever you want to call it). The idea is that if you can understand how people think about the category, and how people behave and buy in the category, then you can better influence their decisions when it comes to choosing your brand.

There are a number of ways to think about the category, but one particularly useful method is thinking about category entry points (CEPs). Pioneered by the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, CEPs are useful ways to think about how people shop in your category. Or, according to the Institute themselves, "they capture the thoughts that category buyers have as they transition into making a category purchase".

Jenni Romaniuk states that, "Category entry points are not about the brand, they’re about the buyer" - which may lead you to think that CEPs are more closely linked to audience insights. But what you need to understand about CEPs is that, even though they can vary by audience, they are universal triggers that come to mind for consumers when they are buying in your category.

How to identify category entry points

There are two broad elements to identifying CEPs:

• Need state What situation are people in when they most need a product in your category?
• Determining Factors How do people quickly make decisions about which brand they choose within a category?

Need states usually exist outside of the immediate purchase moment. They tend to crop up when a consumer experiences a problem that a product within a certain category would solve. One of the most famous campaign ideas that stems from a need state comes from Snickers, who decided to own that most universal of need states: hunger.

Category entry point examples

Snickers' category entry point.

Over several years, Snickers ran a campaign designed to associate the brand, a chunky, peanut-riddled chocolate bar, with hunger. Outside of the usual 3 meals, hunger striking at inopportune moments gets plenty of people feeling hangry, and as a substantial, sweet and salty snack, Snickers found a category entry point that they could claim - with no small amount of humour and advertising budget.

Determining factors , on the other hand, typically arise at the moment of selection or purchase. These are more immediate cues that trigger someone to pick one brand over another. There are a number of types of factors up for grabs here, from price to quality, from provenance to innovation.

UberEats' category entry point

UberEats' 'Do Less' campaign focuses on a very particular and under-appreciated CEP: people order food so they can do nothing at home. So often, delivery services talk about speed and convenience. But UberEats narrowed into a key, underpinning reason why people value this convenience. When you order food to your house, chances are you've decided that you can't be bothered to go to the supermarket. But rather than sit there and mull that decision, you entertain yourself in whatever weird ways you choose when no one else is around. This boredom-inspired weirdness is a prime time to think about getting some food delivered, and UberEats created a campaign that associates that moment with their brand - and no other.

Step 7 - Find a cultural lever 🛤️

This topic deserves its own article - and we're writing one right now.

Well really, it deserves its own book (we might get there one day). Truthfully, if there was a quick way to 'read' culture and understand the massive forces that drive people and societies to do what they do and think what they think, then everyone would do it. And looking at all the advertising that sits around us, it's clear that not everyone does try to find a real cultural insight.

So where are you meant to start?

Observation

Yes, sadly, this means lots and lots of research. Talk to your consumers, talk to experts, read books and reports and surveys, study all the data you can get your hands on. But also, observe real life: pay attention to what appears on your FYP on TikTok, think about the conversations that your friends have over pints at the pub. And ask why .

The five Why's

This isn't a surefire route to a cultural insight. But this is a useful trick to start to find one. Like an annoying child who just learned the word "why", repeatedly ask yourself "why" when you observe something interesting. Five times seems to be the magic number.

For example...

A report I read says that 50% of girls stop playing sport as teenagers. Why? Well, the report says that it's because of lower levels of confidence, and higher levels of negative body image amongst teenage girls. Why? Teenage girls are under significantly more pressure than boys their age, particularly when it comes to playing sport. Why? Girls are judged for more than their sporting ability - for things like their looks or their body shape. Why? Many sports have been dominated by the men's game, and so men's sports are seen as the 'norm' while women's sports are seen as different for some reason. Why? Decades, even centuries, of underfunding and sexist policies have lead to a state where women in sport have to be twice as good to be seen as half as worthwhile.

From a single observation, you're able to trace your way to a significant cultural force that shapes the world we live in today. It's important to remember to verify each leap you make with more research - or else you could end up with something that logically make sense, but unfortunately has no basis in reality.

Step 8 - Craft your key messages 🔑

In a creative brief, your key messages are the things you need your audience to remember in order to land your strategic proposition (more on that in a little bit). They are based on your product and brand truth, filtered through your audience insight, and supported by your category truth and cultural lever.

🏞 Simple and jargon-free

This is a brief to a creative team, not the finished article. So you don't need to write elegant, persuasive copy for your key messages.

But, since this brief is asking your creative team to do just that, your task is to be simple - but a little provocative.

The key messages in your creative brief need to be uncomplicated, but they need to spark some creative thinking. Use expressive language, use metaphors if they're helpful. But above all, keep things clear and plain.

👉 Selective

There is a limit to how many messages someone can remember from a single ad.

Think of it like asking someone with mediocre hand-eye coordination to juggle. If you throw them one ball, they can probably throw it up and catch it, no problem. Throw them four balls, however, and they won't just drop one - they'll drop them all. The same applies to your key messages: say too much, and your audience won't remember any of it.

🔎 Supported

For each key message, indicate why the brand has a right to say this. These are called RTBs (Reasons To Believe). Don't expect your creatives to include these in the finished article, whatever that might be, but think carefully. If you're asking creatives to lie about the product (for instance, if you're trying to claim something that you just cannot support), don't be surprised when you get back some vanilla, generic messaging.

If you want to really craft your key messages, check it out our handy guide on writing a compelling set of key messages .

Step 9 - Refine the strategic proposition 🫵

We're not about to take you through the ins and outs of writing strategy. Plenty has been written on the topic, and frankly, by now, we're guessing you really just want o get on with your brief.

One of the simplest frameworks you can use to summarise a strategy is the Get / To / By framework:

• Get your target audience
• To do something that will solve your problem
• By convincing/demonstrating/encouraging/demanding/pleading/etc. that they do that thing

For example:

Get Young Londoners who don't think that Nike understands what it's like to be them ‍ To buy and wear more Nike products on the streets of London ‍ By showing them that Nike doesn't just get what it takes to be a kid in London - they get what it takes to thrive as a kid in London.

And that's it. That's all we're giving you. We weren't kidding - if you're here to learn how to be a strategist, you might be in the wrong place. But, for those of you who do want to learn more, check out this brilliant article by Mark Pollard about how to approach strategy.

Step 10 - Lock down the considerations 🔒

This is where you need to nail down the details. Make sure you’ve got the following in your creative brief:

• Considerations What do you need to say in this campaign? What can you definitely not say? What needs to be in the campaign to avoid your CMO throwing a fit?
• List of deliverables What assets do you actually need to create? Give the channels, formats and number of assets that you're expecting.

Take a look at our in-depth checklist on what admin to include in your brief in our article on the topic here .

Step 11 - Inspire the creative team 🪄

If you've followed all these steps, you should have a concise, focused brief-on-a-page.

But now it's time to think about how you'd actually brief the team.

How are you going to bring the energy? How are you going to inspire them?

Here are some ideas to turn your next briefing into an inspiring mega-session:

• Turn your one-pager into a set of slides so you can tell a real story
• Tell a real story: find real-life examples or analogies to make your brief feel more real itself
• Bring in best-in-class case studies as examples and to set the bar high for your creative team
• Take it out of the office. If you're briefing them on a Nike project, why not take them to a local basketball court?
• Please, for the love of God, don't brief them over Zoom. Do it in person.

If you need any more inspiration, we've put together a few tips on how to make your next briefing more inspiring than any you've delivered before .

Creative brief example

If you've followed all 11 steps, you should end up with an inspiring creative brief. Here's an example for a fictional sports tailoring brand:

That's all it takes to craft the perfect creative brief. Now sit back, and wait for the magic to happen.*

*No actually, don't do that. As the person who has briefed the team, make yourself available to guide and help them as they work through their ideas - and to protect the strategy, and ensure they stay on-brief.

We promise that if you do all of that, you'll find that by the end of the creative process, you'll be pleased with what comes back.

Keep learning

How to write the perfect marketing brief

How to set marketing objectives

How to get the admin right

How to brief your agency

How to find an insight for your brief

How to write a value proposition

How to segment your market

How to craft key messages

How to start writing a marketing brief

How to Write a Creative Brief (+ Examples and 7 Templates)

Table of Contents

Have your creative projects been chaotic? 

Has there been confusion among the team members about what the final product should look like? 

Maybe you wasted a lot of time making sure that everyone has all the necessary information. 

All these problems can be avoided with one simple document — a creative brief. 

In this article, we will go over:

• What a creative brief is, 
• What it should include, 
• How to write a creative brief,
• Tips for writing a high-quality creative brief, and 
• Benefits of a creative brief.

We will also provide you with 7 different types of free creative brief templates .

So, let’s begin! 

What is a creative brief?

A creative brief is a document that functions as a guide for creative teams, helping everyone keep in touch with the project’s objectives and guidelines.

It should be, as the name suggests — brief. Ideally, it should fit on 1 to 2 A4 pages, contain the gist of the project, and serve as a guideline for everyone involved in the project. 

What must a creative brief include?

Not all creative briefs have to look the same. 

There are many ways to organize a creative brief depending on the type of creative project it’s made for — marketing, social media, brand definition, logo creation, etc.

 Still, there are some elements of a creative brief that are always included:

• Project title — indicates what the project is about,
• Company background — information about the company that can be relevant to the project,
• Objectives — what you are trying to accomplish with the project,
• Target audience — who you are trying to reach,
• Tone of voice — the way you speak to your target audience, 
• Distribution — the channels by which your message will reach the target audience (such as social media or TV commercials),
• Budget — the amount of money reserved for the project,
• Competition — companies offering similar services or products as you, and
• Timeline — all relevant time points in the project from the start to the due date.

Of course, you aren’t limited to just these elements. What’s important is that the creative brief contains all the relevant information for your project. 

For example, when creating a website or a logo for a business, instead of using the term “tone of voice”, “style” might be more appropriate. And you could add another element like “color scheme” since that is an important part of creating a good design.

10 Steps to writing a creative brief

In the following text, we will explain all the steps you need to go through to produce a high-quality creative brief.

Step #1: Choose the name for the project and provide a short overview 

The name of the project should be short and reflect the essence of the creative brief. 

For example, the name “Creative brief for a TastyFood restaurant marketing campaign” clearly shows the purpose of the brief and the name of the client. 

A short overview of the project should follow the title — just a sentence or two to summarize what the project is about.

Step #2: Summarize the company’s background

Outline the company background. There is no need to go into detail about the company. It’s enough to mention its core values and the information relevant to the project, such as what problems the company is currently facing and what kind of image they are trying to portray. 

What you write in this section depends on whether your company hired an external agency for the job (for example, a video production company to make a promotional video for a new product) or if the creative team is employed at the said company. 

If it’s the latter, you can omit general information about the company since it’s already known to all involved. 

Step #3: List the objectives

Take the time to precisely state the objectives of the creative project, i.e. what you are trying to achieve with this project. Some of the more general objectives can be:

• Rise in brand awareness,
• Increase in sales,
• Change of company image, etc.

For example, a marketing strategy for an app may have an objective “increase the number of new sign-ups by 10% in the next 3 months” .

💡 Plaky Pro Tip

If you want to make this step easier, learn more about objectives and key results in projects:

• A guide to using OKRs in project management

Step #4: Define your target audience

It’s essential to know who your marketing campaign or your advert is aimed at. Who are the people who will buy your product? You must have a clear vision of them when creating the brief.

Depending on the aim of the campaign and the company’s product, different information can be relevant. Some of the information you can include is the audience’s:

• Social status,
• Employment status,
• Habits, 
• Beliefs, and

Step #5: Choose the tone of voice

After establishing your target audience, the next question is how to get through to them. 

You should determine what emotions you are trying to evoke and what picture you are conveying to the minds of the audience.

For example, a commercial for a bank should have a more serious tone that makes them look dependable and serious. 

On the other hand, a commercial for a soft drink company can have a more relaxed tone, attempting to connect the drink with the idea of having fun and being happy.

Step #6: Research the competition

If you want to conquer a market, you have to be aware of the competition. Or, in the words of Sun Tsu: “ Know thy enemy” . 

Do thorough research on your competitors. Who is currently popular? Who offers products similar to yours? List their positive and negative traits. 

Knowing what your competitors are offering means you can find a way to offer something better. 

Step #7: Set the budget

It’s a good idea to set the budget at the very beginning of the creative project. This enables the team to organize their work accordingly. 

Instead of just defining the total budget, it’s better to allocate your funds at the beginning. 

For example, if you are making an advertising campaign for new sportswear, you can divide the budget between social media ads, TV commercials, and hiring a sportsperson to be the face of your brand. 

If you want to learn about different budgeting methods, take a look at this article:

• Best project management budgeting methods to try

Step #8: Ask for feedback

Once you have completed the brief, you should ask for feedback from project stakeholders , such as your client or company executives, as well as your project team members . 

You can organize a project kickoff meeting where people could express their opinions and ideas together or just send everyone a copy of the brief and have them send the feedback back to you. 

Step #9: Review and edit 

After you have received feedback, consider the suggestions and make changes if necessary. 

You can go back and forth between these 2 steps until both you and the stakeholders are satisfied with the brief.

Step #10: Distribute the brief 

Once the creative brief is finished, distribute it to everyone working on the project. 

Free product management tool

Simplify your product’s journey and bring more agility to your team, with Plaky.

3 Tips on how to write a creative brief 

To help you create a top-notch creative brief, we asked professionals with experience in writing them to share some tips with us. 

Here’s what they had to say.

Tip #1: Think about the aim of the project before starting on the brief

We talked to James Parkinson , Head of Marketing Content at Personnel Checks, and he emphasizes the importance of understanding the goal of the project:

“You need to understand what the end goal or aim for the project or task is before you try to create a brief. Many people get this wrong and end up producing a large document with contradicting information. When, in reality, if you fully understand the desired outcome, then the brief can be very to-the-point and efficient.”

If you become better at setting goals, make sure to read our article on the topic:

• How to define S.M.A.R.T. goals in project management

Tip #2: Include success metrics

We asked Gene Caballero , Co-Founder of lawn care business GreenPal, to share his thoughts on making creative briefs. He points out you have to decide on the success metrics for your project:

“Determine in advance how you will measure the success of the campaign. We usually focus on metrics like sign-up rates, website traffic, and social media engagement.”

You use the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to collect performance data and measure the success of your project. 

Tip#3: Take your time

Don’t be tempted to just rush through the brief so you can start the project as soon as possible. Dedicate enough time to in-depth research. 

Caballero emphasizes how important it is to dedicate enough time to the creation of the creative brief:

“ Remember, the creative brief is a guiding document that helps ensure everyone is on the same page. It’s the roadmap for your project , so taking the time to do it well is critical. ”

7 Creative brief templates

There are many types of creative briefs you can make for different creative projects.

We have singled out some of the most popular ones here and created free editable templates that you can use for your projects.

Simple creative brief template

When creating your first creative brief, it’s best to start with the basics. Here’s a simple creative brief template:

🔽 Simple creative brief template

It has all the key elements necessary for a creative brief, and it can be edited to your preference, so you can use it for any kind of creative project, both in-house and external. 

Marketing creative brief template 

Creating a high-quality marketing campaign requires creativity. But it’s also important to stay organized and not let that creativity lead to chaos. 

According to CoSchedule’s 2022 Trend Report on Marketing Strategy , organized marketers are a whopping 674% more likely to be successful. This is why you need a well-made marketing creative brief.  

Here is a free template to help you create a creative brief for your marketing campaign.

🔽 Marketing creative brief template  

This template can be useful to anyone managing a marketing project . 

It presents all the elements in the form of a table. You can adjust the space dedicated to each element to fit your project’s needs. 

For example, you will probably want to describe the target audience and the tone of voice in more detail than the other elements since these 2 are crucial in organizing a good marketing campaign. 

Advertising creative brief template 

Although marketing and advertising are similar, the focus of advertising is a bit different, so the creative briefs will differ as well. You can use the template below to write a creative brief that would fit your advertising project. 

🔽 Advertising creative brief template

The most important part of this brief is deciding on the distribution model — how the ad is going to reach the audience. 

You can dedicate a substantial amount of the brief to clearly stating how you want your advertising campaign to reach your target audience. 

Video creative brief template 

The process of video production is complex, requiring people from different areas of the business to work together through 3 different phases in their video management software : 

• Pre-Production,
• Production, and 
• Post-Production. 

That’s why creating a creative brief is a step you mustn’t overlook. You can use the template below to create a well-organized creative brief for video projects without difficulty.

🔽 Video creative brief

Whether it’s a promotional video, a tutorial on how to use a product, an interview with a customer, or a commercial, creating a video is often part of a bigger project. 

But the video production team (or an agency you hired) likely won’t be familiar with the details of that project. So, the video creative brief will serve as a guide to help them create a video that meets all the requirements. 

Having good project management software for video production can be a great help in your work. Check out the following list of the best such tools on the market: 

• Top 10 project management software for video production 

Logo creative brief template 

A logo is the first thing a customer notices about your product or service. 

So, making a logo that will stand out and attract the attention of your target audience is a crucial part of getting your product recognized.

That’s why the creation of the logo is a separate project that requires its own creative brief. You can find a well-designed logo creative brief template on this link:  

🔽 Logo creative brief template

Unlike some other creative briefs, the logo creative brief doesn’t include “tone of voice”, but instead has elements such as:

• “Color scheme”, 
• “Logo style” and
• “Font type”. 

This is because the visual element is highly important when creating a logo, so it deserves to be divided into several categories. 

Social media creative brief template

According to Kepios’ 2023 report on global Internet use , there are 4.80 billion social media user identities in the world. So the quality of your social media campaign can be the difference between a successful product and an unsuccessful one. 

Make sure to use a creative brief to guarantee a well-organized social media campaign. You can use the template below to make your first social media creative brief.

🔽 Social media creative brief template  

Aside from the basic categories a creative brief should have, you should also specify which social media channels you are focusing on in the social media brief. 

For example, if your target audience are teenagers and people in their early 20s, you will probably focus on TikTok and Instagram. But if you are targeting business people in their 30s and 40s, your main focus should be LinkedIn. 

💡 Plaky Pro Tip 

If you want to learn how to create a social media calendar, check out the links below: 

• Social media content calendar guide + 60 ideas
• Social media calendar template 

Website creative brief template 

Since designing a website often involves a web design company and an external client, a well-written creative brief is a necessary part of the project. 

Make sure to try the website creative brief template we created for you. 

🔽 Website creative brief template

Almost any business today needs a website, so it’s very common for various businesses to employ a web design company to create it for them. 

This brief helps companies and web designers be on the same page and work together without problems.

7 Creative brief examples 

To help you see what a filled-out creative brief looks like, we have prepared an example for each type of the above-presented types. 

Simple creative brief example

In this simple creative brief, a construction company needs a marketing strategy for their new estates. 

Since their target audience are upper-class and business people, the tone they’re aiming for is confident. They want to look exclusive so their customers should feel privileged to own the property they’re selling. 

CREATIVE BRIEF FOR SKY HOUSES PROJECT

Paradise Estate needs to develop a marketing strategy for their new project “Sky Building”

Company background

Paradise Estate is a company building modern and exclusive buildings on the outskirts of cities. They have recently started a new project called “Sky Building”, which will have 48 apartments (12 stories with 4 apartments each). 

Objectives 

• Sell 50% of apartments before the building is completely built.
• Confirm Paradise Estate apartments as high-quality and exclusive housing.

Target audience

• Upper-middle and upper class
• Business people in their 40s and 50s 
• People with families

Tone of voice

Confident tone with an air of exclusivity, making people feel privileged to own apartments in this building. 

Stakeholders

Company CEO: Michael S.

Sales Director: George N.

Marketing Team Director: Diana C.

Design Team Director: Priya K.

Distribution

Social media (Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook)

TV commercials

Budget 

Social media advertising: $10,000

TV commercials: $25,000

Project start: July 7, 2023

Advertisement due date: July 28, 2023

Social media campaign: From August 4, 2023, to October 13, 2023

TV campaign: From August 11, 2023, to October 13, 2023

Marketing creative brief example

In this example, a restaurant owner hired a marketing agency to organize their marketing campaign for their restaurant in a new location. 

CREATIVE BRIEF FOR A RESTAURANT MARKETING CAMPAIGN

Company  

TastyFood restaurant 

TastyFood is a family restaurant on the outskirts of town. They are opening a restaurant in a new location. Their customers are mostly people in their 50s and 60s from the same neighborhood. 

• Show that TastyFood is a good restaurant for families with children.
• Have a full restaurant on the day of the opening.
• Middle-class people in their 30s and 40s who go to restaurants for late lunch or dinner after work
• Young families with children 

Friendly tone to paint a picture of a warm atmosphere: happy families enjoying their time together, friends eating dinner and laughing, etc. 

Competition

• Italian restaurant on the same street
• Two other small family restaurants in the neighborhood

Restaurant owner: John R.

Marketing agency owner: Tom A.

Marketing team lead: Dev C.

Project start: August 1, 2023 

Project due date: September 19, 2023 

Website launch: September 25, 2023

Billboards in the neighborhood

Youtube ads

Facebook and Instagram ads

Total: $20,000

Marketing agency: $7,000

Billboards: $5,000

Social media ads: 7,500

Additional expenses: $500

Advertising creative brief example

Here, a chocolate factory wants to increase sales numbers of their hot chocolate drink. They want to reach children and adults through TV commercials and YouTube ads. 

ADVERTISING CREATIVE BRIEF FOR A CHOCOLATE FACTORY

Project overview

A chocolate company wants to make a Christmas advertisement for their hot chocolate drink.

Company name

WeLoveChocolate

The company produces chocolate bars, chocolate cookies, and hot chocolate drinks. While bars and cookies have high sales numbers, chocolate drinks are not as popular. They want to advertise their product as an indulgent treat customers would want to buy.

• Connect this brand of hot chocolate with feelings of contentment and happiness during Christmas time in the minds of the customer. 
• Increase the sales of hot chocolate by 20% by the end of 2023. 
• Children aged 5-14
• Adults feeling nostalgic about their childhood

Happy, relaxed tone of voice that paints a picture of an idyllic family atmosphere during the Christmas holidays. 

• TV commercials on children’s channels, and on regular channels in the evenings
• Youtube ads 

Total budget: $45,000

Advertisement creation: $25,000

Advertising on TV: $20,000

Youtube ads: $5,000

Video creative brief example

This video creative brief is created by a supermarket working with a video production company to create a video that will promote online shopping.

VIDEO PRODUCTION CREATIVE BRIEF FOR A TUTORIAL

Video production project name

“How to order online” tutorial video creation

Easy Shop Supermarket

The popularity of the supermarket is increasing constantly. There are too many customers for the supermarket’s facilities to handle, and the rows at the cash register are long. The supermarket launched online shopping on their site, but the majority of the customers are not using it. This is why they hired a video production company to create a video that would promote online orders. 

Objectives  

• Increase online sales by 40% in the next 4 months.
• Decrease the time people have to wait at the cash register.
• Eliminate crowds in the supermarkets.
• Busy people with full-time jobs and families with children
• People who are struggling to achieve everything and who have too many errands in a day

The tone should be informative and friendly, with simple explanations, without unnecessary tech jargon to confuse the customers. 

The video will be posted on the supermarket’s homepage.

There will be a post on all the supermarket’s social media accounts, notifying customers there is a new tutorial video.

There will be a TV at the entrance to the supermarket playing the video. 

Budget  

Video production team: $3,000

Speaker for the video: $400

Pre-production due date: July 17, 2023

Production due date: August 28, 2023

Post-production due date: October 9, 2023

Stakeholders  

Video production company, represented by: Andrew C.

Supermarket’s marketing manager: Christina L.

Supermarket’s IT department head: Fiona N.

Logo creative brief example

In this example, a design agency is hired by a soft drink company to create a logo for their new drink. 

BRIEF FOR SOFT DRINK COMPANY LOGO CREATION PROJECT

Company name  

Sparkle Inc. 

Overview  

A soft drink company wants a new logo to represent their new cherry-flavored fizzy drink.

They produce soft drinks which are sold in most supermarkets and stores in the country. But the sales are quite low. They want to attract young customers.  

Create a logo that would appeal to a young audience. 

Pre-teens, teenagers, and young adults with the average income 

Vibrant and modern style that looks fun and lively. 

Color scheme

Cherry Red #D2042D

Cadmium Red #D22B2B

Jet Black #343434

Almond #EADDCA

Indie Flower

Soft drink companies:

• Fanta 

Client: Sparkle, Inc.

Represented by: Andrew R.

Design team leader: Jessica B.

Design team members: Ben H, Kate E, Lee J. 

Timeline  

Start of the project: June 16, 2023 

First draft due: August 16, 2023 

Final version due: September 9, 2023 

Social media creative brief example

Here, a company making face masks wants to raise brand awareness by promoting its products on social media.

SOCIAL MEDIA CREATIVE BRIEF FOR FORCE OF NATURE

Force of Nature

Force of Nature is a small business that produces organic face masks with minimal impact on the climate. They are a new company on the market, and they are trying to raise brand awareness with social media campaigns.

Platforms  

The campaign will cover 3 social media platforms:

• Instagram 
• TikTok 
• Facebook 

Raising brand awareness with: 

• Short videos with skincare tips,
• Articles offering free gift cards to new subscribers, and 
• Stories with satisfied customers.

Women in their 20s and 30s in college or working with busy schedules who don’t have time for long and complex skincare routines. 

People who pay attention to the environment and try to make eco-friendly decisions 

Bright and joyful  

First posts on Instagram and Facebook: July 3, 2023

Videos on TikTok: July 5, 2023

Youtube ads: July 10, 2023 

$15,000 ($5,000 each for Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok)

Company CEO: Sarrah C.

Social media team: Jenny L. (Instagram and Facebook), Mark A. (TikTok) 

Design team: Kate R, Lisa N, 

Video production team: Ben T, Taylor E.

Website creative brief example 

In this website creative brief, a company selling organic vegetables hired a website design company to create a website where their customers can place orders and have the vegetables delivered to them.  

ORGANIC FOOD WEBSITE CREATIVE BRIEF

Organic Food needs a functional easy-to-use website for their customers to place orders

Organic Food has been selling their products to supermarkets and stores for 6 years. Now, they are looking to expand and enable their customers to buy directly from them instead of going to the store. 

• Create a functional website for people to place orders and book deliveries. 
• Expand to a new market. 
• Increase overall sales by 15% by the end of November.

Middle and upper-middle-class people who pay attention to their health and want supreme-quality produce. 

People in their 20s to 50s who are used to ordering online.  

Style 

• Simplistic and modern style
• Website should look professional without any unnecessary bling
• All Organic Food — offer a great variety of fruit and vegetables to order online, but the prices are quite high
• Natural Food — affordable organic vegetables, but they don’t offer delivery 
• Sunny Valley — the most serious competitor. They offer organic vegetables to order online, and if you spend more than $100 the delivery is free. 

Website design company 

Head of web design: Claire A. 

Organic Food CEO: Mark S.

Organic Food sales team leader: Helen L.

Introductory meeting: June 30, 2023 

Website idea presentation: July 14, 2023

Project due date: July 31, 2023

Website launch: August 3, 2023

Why do you need a creative brief?

Composing a creative brief at the beginning of your project is something you should never skip.

Some of the biggest benefits of having a creative brief include:

• Eliminating confusion and saving time,
• Saving money, and
• Encouraging creative thinking.

Benefit #1: Eliminates confusion and saves time

Caballero explains how the creative brief helps his team be on the same page and save time:

“We all know what it feels like to be lost in a swirl of emails and meetings. The brief keeps everyone aligned, cutting through the confusion. We’ve all got our copy, and it’s like we’re singing from the same hymn sheet. It’s a real time-saver.”

Benefit #2: Saves money

Creating a brief with everything planned at the very beginning of the project will save you money in the long run. 

Having a creative brief means that everyone will know the objectives and expectations right at the start of the project, so there is a higher chance that the creative team will succeed in creating what the stakeholders want. 

This way, the project resources won’t be wasted on the trial-and-error stage of the project. 

Benefit #3: Encourages creative thinking 

Caballero points out how having a creative brief actually helps boost creativity:

“A clear brief sets boundaries but also grants the freedom to explore within those boundaries. It’s like having a sandbox where our creatives can build the most magnificent castles, resulting in unique and effective solutions.”

When should you use a creative brief?

The easy answer is — whenever you have to manage a creative project . No matter the type of creative project, having a creative brief can come in handy.

But, specifically, you should never skip a creative brief when you are working on a complex project that has a large number of stakeholders and requires smooth cross-team collaboration. 

For example, an advertising campaign that includes the sales team, the marketing team, and the video production team would definitely benefit from having a creative brief. 

All of these teams probably work on several different projects simultaneously and aren’t familiar with the details of the advertising campaign, so it’s important to have a document with all the information in one place.

Who can fill out a creative brief?

Who will fill out a creative brief depends on whether it’s an in-house project or if a company hired an external contractor.

If it’s an in-house project, the creative brief will most likely be written by the team manager. 

If a company is working with an agency, the creative brief can be written by someone from the company who is familiar with the project, like a marketing manager or a product manager . The brief would then be delivered to the agency. Of course, the people in the agency can give their input and the brief can be revised if necessary. 

The creative brief might also be written by someone from the creative agency who would work closely with the representative of the company to understand all their demands and wishes. 

Creative briefs eliminate confusion and save time

No matter the type of your creative project, a creative brief is a must. 

Hopefully, after reading this article you have come to appreciate how significant creative briefs are and how much of a difference they can make. 

If you haven’t yet, make sure to incorporate them into your future projects.

After all, as Caballero says:

 “ A creative brief is the unsung hero behind every successful project ”.

Creative projects can easily become hectic, so it’s important to have a project management tool like Plaky to help you stay organized and on the right track. In Plaky, you can create a board for each project containing all your tasks, along with their due dates, statuses, assignees, and so much more. Sign up for a free Plaky account today and introduce structure to your creative projects.

Galina is a project management author and researcher at Plaky. She combines her interest in team collaboration and her natural knack for organization into writing informative and engaging texts to help people better understand project management. When she is not working, she can be found relaxing with a cup of coffee and a TV series or trying out new recipes from Asian cuisine.

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How to Write a Creative Brief with Examples and Templates

By Joe Weller | March 5, 2024

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A  creative brief  is a roadmap for teams planning a marketing or advertising campaign, including the objectives, deliverables, and target audience. Strong creative briefs keep team members and external stakeholders aligned as the campaign develops.

  Inside this article, you’ll discover how to write a creative brief , the main elements to include, and downloadable example briefs and templates . Plus, you’ll learn how to use generative AI to help draft a creative brief .

Main Elements of a Creative Brief

Creative briefs should include sections detailing the campaign’s goals, deliverables, style, and target audience. The brief will also have information about the brand and competition in the marketplace.

A project manager for the team requesting the content or a  member of the marketing or advertising team will write a creative brief. The specific sections of a creative brief might vary depending on the project and its stakeholders, but keep these eight main elements in mind:  

• Brand Identity and Project Overview: The first section of the creative brief provides relevant background information about the brand’s mission and the campaign’s purpose, whether it is responding to pain points or advertising a new product. Summarizing these key details at the outset gives the creative team a focused direction and ensures the campaign fits into the overarching brand identity. 
• Objectives:  Clearly define goals and be sure to link them to  key performance indicators (KPIs) . Using  SMART  (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound) goals when crafting objectives help you focus on the project and key metrics. 
• Competitive Analysis: Reviewing examples of recent campaigns from rival brands is a valuable strategy when seeking insight for a creative brief. Analyzing competitors’ strengths and weaknesses sheds light on what resonates with consumers and how to make a campaign stand out in the market.
• Target Audience:  Creative briefs should boil down which segment of the brand’s audience the campaign will target. Specific demographic profiles help the creative team understand customer behaviors and deliver the most effective and appealing assets.
• Tone and Style:  Whether defining a personality, listing adjectives that correspond with the core message, or designating a color palette, the creative brief clarifies the attitude and visual identity of the campaign. Designers need direction on the desired voice and style to ensure a unified final project that speaks to the target audience.
• Content Format and Deliverables:  Every creative brief must outline the specific content that the creative team needs to produce, such as social media assets, print advertisements, graphics, video content, online copy, or other elements of the campaign strategy. Include any format requirements or other specifications, so that the creative team can align their output with the campaign objectives.
• Timeline and Budget:  Stipulating key deadlines, checkpoints, and budget requirements enables the creative team to deliver on target. This information is crucial when working with external agencies, for whom the brief can function like a contract. Concrete schedule parameters give project managers details that they can follow up, warding off scope creep. Learn  how to manage scope creep  and keep projects on track.
• Stakeholders:  Briefs should include the contact details and roles for all the team members who will be involved in the project. Establishing individual responsibilities and review processes ensures internal and external stakeholders can communicate seamlessly throughout the process.

How to Write a Creative Brief

Writing a creative brief starts with gathering the information that will guide a campaign’s direction. Begin with a focused overview of the project and include concrete details on your objectives, audience, and deliverables.

A strong creative brief is clear, specific, and short. Think of it as a blueprint to inspire creativity and keep your team on track from ideation through delivery and execution. Consider using  creative brief templates  to save time and maintain consistency across multiple projects.  For branding campaigns or launches, a more specialized  brand brief  might be necessary. 

1. Gather Information and Resources  

Before you start writing, do the prep work for your brief. This might include researching competitors, analyzing pain points, meeting with stakeholders, and referencing past campaigns. Use this information to finalize your core message, target audience, and objectives.  

Once you have a clear idea of the campaign, gather the necessary supporting documents. Compile links to important resources, such as a brand style guide, digital asset library, and any example content for the creative team to reference.  

2. Decide What to Include  

The details of the campaign, stakeholders, and objectives will determine which elements of the creative brief are necessary. For example, internal team members might not need comprehensive information about your brand mission. Or you might include a budget for advertising campaigns, but not for designing a new website banner.

Keep in mind that the creative brief should be concise and focus on the creative direction of the campaign. If you need to determine a comprehensive marketing and distribution strategy, consider completing a  marketing strategy brief first.   

3. Name the Campaign and Write an Overview   

Naming the project is a simple first step to streamline communication. The campaign name should point to its core message — the idea, consumer benefit, or call to action (CTA) — the creative team needs to get across with their assets.  

Start by writing an overview that defines the core message in a few sentences. Consider including relevant brand identity aspects or drafting a short section with brand and product background. Establish why you are launching this campaign, the opportunities or challenges, and the takeaways for your audience. 

“For example, in our creative brief for a new rug collection launch, we highlighted our rugs’ unique designs inspired by Southwestern traditions and their high-quality sustainable materials. Conveying these key points up front allows designers and copywriters to center their creativity around the communication of these distinguishing factors,” offers  Connor Butterworth , CEO and Owner of  Southwestern Rugs Depot . 

4. Set Clear Objectives

Highlight one or two goals for the campaign that align with its core message. Be sure to define the KPIs you will use to measure success. Common campaign objectives include boosting engagement, increasing conversions, and communicating a specific call to action or desired consumer behavior.   

5. Analyze the Competition

Survey the competitive landscape for real-world models. Focus on a few major competitors and provide examples of their recent campaigns for similar products. Highlight key successes and failures to learn from, and create a list of the ways in which your brand or product differs.  

Elaine Chen , Founder of marketing consultancy Excogita, advises, “Creatives understand that not every project will immediately hit the mark, but they need feedback to get to the right place. Spend time looking at competing campaigns so that you have concrete ideas about what you feel will and won't work, and share some of these insights in your brief.”

6. Define the Demographic

Determine a primary target audience for the campaign. Are you trying to reach a segment of the current brand audience or potential new customers? Break down your target audience with demographic data — such as age, gender, and geographic location — as well as buying behaviors and psychographic information, such as preferences and interests. 

Instead of listing all the aspects of your target audience, use profiles or personas to draw a precise portrait of your customer in a couple sentences. Learn  how to create customer profiles  to better understand your audience with individualized buyer personas.  

7. Explain the Tone

Choose several adjectives that describe an attitude or personality for the campaign. Align this personality with the key message, cater it to your target audience, and fit it within your brand identity. Include links to any brand style guidelines or designated fonts and color palettes.

Should graphics feel sophisticated and minimalistic or playful and energetic? Is the tone authentic and empowering or confident and provocative? The adjectives you choose will guide both the visual direction and voice of your campaign, keeping all the elements of the project cohesive.

8. Designate Deliverables

Determine what assets or content the creative team needs to produce to meet the campaign objectives. Specify the content format, the number of deliverables, and any requirements or specifications, such as image dimensions or character limits. You might mention your distribution strategy if modified versions of the assets will be needed for different platforms.

9. Walk Through the Timeline and Budget

Working backward from the campaign launch date, determine when assets need to be delivered in order to be reviewed by key stakeholders and released on schedule. Fill in important due dates, review periods, meetings, and final approval deadlines leading up to the release date. If the creative team will be producing video content or multichannel advertising campaigns, establish a budget.

10. Present to Stakeholders

Share the completed brief with all the stakeholders involved, from the creatives who will be producing the content to the executives who will approve final designs. The creative team might consist of in-house designers and marketers, or it could be an external agency. Consider including a project manager to track deadlines and deliverables. Project managers can create a separate  project brief  to summarize high-level details.

Whether you present the brief at a  project kickoff meeting or distribute it electronically, be open to feedback. The creative team might have questions on the timeline, resources, tone, or approval process. The marketing director could help you fine-tune the target audience and core message. Refine the brief if necessary before you share the final version. Make sure everyone understands the direction of the project and their responsibilities.

Examples of Creative Briefs

These creative brief examples use variations on the basic creative brief template to communicate specific project details to stakeholders. These downloadable and customizable templates include example copy for a variety of creative brief scenarios.

Simple Creative Brief Example Template

Download the Simple Creative Brief Example Template for Microsoft Word

Download the Simple Creative Brief Blank Template for Microsoft Word

Here’s an example of a creative brief for a marketing campaign designed in-house. This short creative brief template keeps a tight focus on the project itself — and doesn’t waste time providing unnecessary context.

Client Creative Brief Example Template

Download the Client Creative Brief Example Template for Microsoft Word

Download the Client Creative Brief Blank Template for Microsoft Word

This example shows how a creative brief might be completed for implementing a marketing campaign with an agency. There is more information about the client — the brand, project message, and call to action — while leaving room for the creative team to innovate. 

Graphic Design Creative Brief Example Template

Download the Graphic Design Creative Brief Example Template for Microsoft Word

Download the Graphic Design Creative Brief Blank Template for Microsoft Word

Here’s an example of a creative brief for a graphic design project that is perfect for solo graphic designers or graphic design firms planning projects in collaboration with their clients. The simple, adaptable layout has room for details on image requirements and design elements, as well as direction about the project. 

For more elaborate design projects — such as a logo design or product design — consider using a specific  design brief .

Advertising Creative Brief Example Template

Download the Advertising Creative Brief Example Template for Microsoft Word

Download the Advertising Creative Brief Blank Template for Microsoft Word

This creative brief example uses a straightforward advertising campaign template to cover objective, tone, messaging, target audience, and non-negotiables. There are also key advertising elements needed for the campaign. 

What to Keep in Mind When Writing a Creative Brief for Internal Use vs. an Agency

Creative briefs are a campaign’s starting point for both in-house teams and agencies. The project’s stakeholders will determine the brief’s content. Both internal and external creative teams need information about the campaign’s message, but agencies might need more brand details.

Internal creative briefs are often short and direct, since the stakeholders will bring their understanding of the brand and its identity to the project. Internal creative teams might already be familiar with style guidelines, recent campaigns, and customer personas. It’s still important to include focused direction specific to the campaign objectives, but the brief can be more informal and flexible.

Creative briefs shared with external agencies, on the other hand, are often more extensive. CEO and Founder of  Awning.com Shri Ganeshram recommends crafting a “more detailed and structured brief” when working with an agency. “It has to convey the essence of your brand and project requirements without any assumed knowledge,” he continues. “When I worked with an external design agency for our marketing campaign, the detailed brief we provided helped them grasp our brand ethos quickly, resulting in a highly successful campaign.”

As a marketing executive with both in-house and agency experience, Chen points out that projects that are contracted out might also require more comprehensive briefs. “Many companies are only working with agencies on high-profile or very strategic assignments such as major advertising campaigns, creating new brands, or significant rebrands. Accordingly, the briefs will need to include lots of insights about the product and audience, while avoiding being too prescriptive to give the agency room to innovate.”

Additionally, while both internal and agency creative briefs typically include deliverables and deadlines, these stipulations might carry more weight externally. In his experience working with agencies, Ganeshram explains, “The creative brief acts as a contract of sorts that outlines what the client expects, providing a clear framework within which the agency operates. This distinction is crucial for ensuring both parties have aligned expectations.” 

Pitfalls to Avoid When Writing a Creative Brief

An effective creative brief empowers designers, advertisers, or marketers to deliver original and compelling content. On the other hand, vague or complicated briefs make it impossible for creative teams to meet expectations. Avoiding these pitfalls streamlines the creative process.  

There are five common pitfalls to keep in mind when writing creative briefs:  

Ambiguity:   

A vague direction can make it impossible for the creative team to understand the vision for the campaign. Provide specific information about the tone and message, as well as clear guidelines for the format of the final product. “If you leave anything up for interpretation, then you risk the result not being what you expected,” advises Kristien Matelski, Content/PR Manager at  Vizion Interactive . “I’ve found that a few good examples are much more valuable than just describing what I’m looking for.”

• Overprescription: Conversely, including too much detail can limit creativity and overwhelm the core message. Designers, copywriters, and other creatives need freedom to bring their own expertise and imagination to the project. “While detailed background information is always helpful, realize that you can only convey so much in a single communication,” Chen notes. “Avoid requiring your creative team to fold in too many messages or else you could end up with a garbled mess.”
• Broad or Unspecified Audience: It’s crucial to define a target audience with as much detail as possible. Large campaigns might have primary and secondary markets, but to create effective assets, the team needs to have a specific audience in mind and understand their behaviors. “Too often companies are so focused on what they have to say that they end up failing to incorporate customer perspectives and create a message that just falls flat,” cautions Chen.
• Unrealistic Expectations:  The purpose of a creative brief is to keep stakeholders’ expectations and responsibilities aligned throughout the project’s development. However, if the brief sets impossibly tight deadlines or unattainable objectives, creatives won’t be able to deliver compelling results.
• Complicated CTA:  Campaigns work best with a simple and clear core message or desired outcome. Creative briefs that fail to develop a clear call to action result in campaigns that can’t meet their objectives. Chen adds, “It's most realistic to ask consumers to do just one easy thing after seeing your ads. A complicated, multistep process or a confusing mix of options is doomed to fail.”

How to Use Generative AI to Write a More Effective Brief

Recent advancements in generative AI have made it a powerful tool for crafting creative briefs. AI can analyze pain points and customer data, suggest relevant core messages, and elevate directions on tone and style. Think of the AI as a partner or assistant when drafting your prompts, and be prepared to finetune the results.

“Generative AI can be a game-changer for crafting creative briefs in marketing and advertising,” observes Peter Wood, CTO at  Spectrum Search . “It's essential to leverage AI for initial idea generation. By feeding the AI system with your campaign’s objectives and target audience demographics, you can get a diverse range of creative concepts and narratives, which might not be immediately obvious to a human team.”

You can also use AI to assist in data analysis when researching your competitors and establishing customer personas. Wood continues, “This analysis can inform the tone, style, and content of your brief, ensuring it is aligned with what resonates with your audience.”  

“As a content manager, I’ve found that creative briefs have been a primary use for AI,” reveals Kristien Matelski. To get the best results from the AI, she recommends providing it with background information about your brand and objectives, as well as detailed instructions for the content you want it to generate. Keep revising and updating your prompts as you work, and make sure to verify any facts or data in your results. 

Here are four tips to keep in mind when utilizing AI to draft your creative brief:  

• Pretend the AI Is Your Assistant:  AI is not a search engine, and it can handle more complex directions. “Be as detailed as possible with what you want, like you’re giving instructions to an assistant to write a brief or outline for you,” suggests Matelski.
• Provide Background:  Feed the AI relevant information about the brand, product, or campaign objectives. Matelski says, “I generally start by giving the AI some context about the who, or the company we are generating a creative brief for, including a link to their website. Then I tell it the what that we’re creating, a creative brief or outline for a new product page.”
• Include Specifics:  If you are using a template, make sure to list the fields you want the AI to generate. Establish any requirements and important campaign directives to include in the brief. As an example, Matelski offers, “Be sure to mention X, Y, Z brand names, color choices, and keywords.”
• Edit, Edit, Edit:  Once the AI has generated the brief, read through the results and determine next steps. “You’ll need to edit yourself or go back and forth with the AI a few times to get it how you want it,” Matelski acknowledges. You might ask the AI to condense the overview, suggest a more playful core message, narrow the objectives, or tailor the deliverables for a specific social media platform. Consider whether you need to provide additional information with your instructions.

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What Is a Creative Brief in Marketing?

Discover the importance of a creative brief in marketing and how it helps guide successful campaigns.

In the world of marketing, a creative brief is a vital document that serves as a roadmap for any creative project. It outlines the goals, objectives, and specifications that guide the creative team in developing effective marketing materials. A well-crafted creative brief can make all the difference in ensuring that marketing campaigns deliver impactful and consistent messaging, resonate with the target audience, and achieve desired outcomes.

The Purpose of a Creative Brief

At its core, the purpose of a creative brief is to provide clear direction and alignment between the marketing team and the creative team. It acts as a blueprint that helps everyone involved understand the objectives, key messages, and desired tone for the project. By defining these elements upfront, a creative brief streamlines the creative process, minimizes miscommunication, and ensures that the final output aligns with the brand's identity and marketing strategy.

Defining the Creative Brief

The creative brief is a concise document that outlines the project's objectives, target audience, key messages, and any other necessary information. It typically includes sections such as:

• Background: This section provides context about the project, including the brand's background, industry landscape, and any relevant research or insights.
• Target Audience Analysis: Understanding the target audience is crucial in developing effective marketing materials. The creative brief should include details about the target demographic, their preferences, needs, and motivations.
• Marketing Objectives and Goals: Clearly defining the marketing objectives and desired outcomes ensures that the creative team has a clear understanding of the project's purpose and what it aims to achieve.
• Key Message and Value Proposition: The creative brief should highlight the core message that needs to be conveyed, along with the unique value proposition that sets the brand apart from its competitors.
• Brand Guidelines and Tone of Voice: Maintaining brand consistency is essential for establishing a strong brand identity. The creative brief should outline the brand guidelines, including the logo, colors, typography, and tone of voice.
• Budget and Timeline: Aligning expectations on budget and timeline helps manage project scope and ensures that the creative team can deliver within the allocated resources.

Each section of the creative brief plays a vital role in providing a comprehensive overview of the project. The background section sets the stage by providing the necessary context for the creative team to understand the brand's history, values, and market positioning. This information helps the creative team to develop marketing materials that are in line with the brand's identity and resonate with the target audience.

Target audience analysis is a critical component of the creative brief as it allows the marketing team to define the specific demographic they are targeting. By understanding the preferences, needs, and motivations of the target audience, the creative team can tailor their messaging and design to effectively engage and persuade the intended recipients.

Marketing objectives and goals establish the purpose and desired outcomes of the project. These objectives serve as a compass, guiding the creative team in their decision-making process. With a clear understanding of the marketing objectives, the creative team can create materials that are not only visually appealing but also strategically aligned with the brand's overall marketing strategy.

The key message and value proposition section of the creative brief is where the brand's unique selling points and competitive advantages are highlighted. This section ensures that the creative team understands the core message that needs to be communicated and the value that the brand offers to its customers. By emphasizing these key elements, the creative team can develop compelling content that resonates with the target audience and effectively communicates the brand's value proposition.

Brand guidelines and tone of voice are essential for maintaining brand consistency across different marketing channels and materials. The creative brief should provide detailed instructions on how the brand should be visually represented, including the logo, colors, and typography. Additionally, it should outline the desired tone of voice, ensuring that the messaging is consistent with the brand's personality and values.

Budget and timeline are practical considerations that need to be addressed in the creative brief. By aligning expectations on budget, the creative team can plan and allocate resources accordingly. Similarly, setting a timeline helps manage project scope and ensures that the creative team can deliver within the agreed-upon timeframe.

Why is a Creative Brief Important in Marketing?

A well-crafted creative brief is important in marketing for several reasons:

• Clarity and Direction: A creative brief provides clarity and direction to the creative team, guiding them in developing marketing materials that align with the brand's vision and goals. With a clear understanding of the project's objectives and key messages, the creative team can focus their efforts on creating impactful content that effectively communicates the brand's value proposition.
• Efficiency: By outlining the project specifications and requirements upfront, a creative brief allows the creative team to work more efficiently, reducing rework and streamlining the creative process. With a well-defined brief, the creative team can avoid unnecessary back-and-forth communication and make informed decisions that move the project forward.
• Consistency: By defining the brand guidelines, key messages, and tone of voice, a creative brief ensures consistency in branding and messaging across different marketing channels and materials. This consistency helps to build brand recognition and trust among the target audience, reinforcing the brand's identity and values.
• Collaboration: A creative brief encourages collaboration between the marketing and creative teams. It facilitates effective communication, aligns expectations, and fosters a collaborative environment that leads to better outcomes. By involving both teams in the brief creation process, a shared understanding of the project is established, fostering a sense of ownership and teamwork.

In summary, a well-crafted creative brief is an essential tool in marketing, providing clear direction, streamlining the creative process, ensuring consistency, and fostering collaboration. By investing time and effort into creating a comprehensive creative brief, businesses can maximize the effectiveness of their marketing efforts and achieve their desired outcomes.

Components of a Creative Brief

Let's delve deeper into the key components that make up an effective creative brief:

Target Audience Analysis

Understanding the target audience is fundamental to developing successful marketing materials. The creative brief should include detailed information about the target demographic, their preferences, needs, and motivations. By knowing the audience inside out, the creative team can tailor the messaging and design to resonate with them effectively.

Marketing Objectives and Goals

Clearly defining the marketing objectives and goals ensures that the creative team understands the purpose of the project. Whether it's raising brand awareness, driving sales, or launching a new product, the creative brief helps align everyone's efforts towards achieving the desired outcomes.

Key Message and Value Proposition

Identifying the key message and value proposition is crucial in capturing the essence of the brand and the campaign. The creative brief should clearly articulate what makes the brand unique and why the target audience should care. This ensures that the creative team can develop messaging that resonates and compels the audience to take action.

Brand Guidelines and Tone of Voice

An effective creative brief should outline the brand guidelines and the desired tone of voice. This includes elements such as the logo, colors, typography, and the style of writing that reflects the brand's personality. By maintaining consistency in branding, the creative team can reinforce the brand's identity and build brand recognition.

Budget and Timeline

Managing expectations regarding budget and timeline is crucial in ensuring a smooth project execution. The creative brief should include information about the available resources, allocated budget, and the timeline for completing the project. This helps the creative team plan and prioritize their work accordingly, ensuring that deadlines are met and deliverables are within scope.

Creating an Effective Creative Brief

Now that we understand the components of a creative brief, let's explore the key factors in creating an effective one:

Collaboration between Marketing and Creative Teams

A collaborative approach between the marketing and creative teams is essential in developing a strong creative brief. The marketing team provides valuable insights and objectives, while the creative team brings their expertise in crafting compelling messaging and design. By fostering open communication and collaboration, a creative brief can truly capture the brand's essence.

Conducting Research and Gathering Insights

Before creating a creative brief, it's important to conduct thorough research and gather insights about the target audience, market trends, and competitors. This research provides the foundation from which the creative brief is built upon, ensuring that it is informed and data-driven.

Crafting a Clear and Concise Brief

A clear and concise creative brief is essential for ensuring that everyone understands and stays focused on the project's objectives. Avoid overly technical language or jargon and use clear, simple, and concise language to communicate the vision, key messages, and goals of the project.

Setting Realistic Expectations

Setting realistic expectations regarding budget, timeline, and deliverables is important in managing stakeholders' expectations and ensuring a successful project outcome. Clearly communicate any constraints or limitations upfront to avoid misunderstandings or scope creep during the project execution.

Benefits of Using a Creative Brief

Ensuring consistency in branding and messaging.

A creative brief sets the foundation for consistent branding and messaging across all marketing materials. By defining the brand guidelines and key messages, a creative brief helps maintain a cohesive and recognizable identity, reinforcing the brand's values and resonating with the target audience.

Maximizing Efficiency and Productivity

With a well-defined creative brief, the creative team can work more efficiently and productively. By having a clear understanding of the project objectives, key messages, and target audience, the creative team can focus their efforts on delivering high-quality materials that meet the brief's requirements.

Minimizing Miscommunication and Errors

A thorough and well-communicated creative brief minimizes the risk of miscommunication and errors. It ensures that everyone involved in the project, from the marketing team to the creative team, is aligned and has a clear understanding of the project scope, deliverables, and expectations.

Facilitating Creative Problem Solving

A creative brief also provides an opportunity for the creative team to approach the project from different angles and explore innovative solutions. By understanding the objectives and desired outcomes, the creative team can think creatively and find unique ways to solve marketing challenges, ultimately delivering more impactful and effective campaigns.

Overall, a creative brief is a critical tool in the marketing industry that sets the foundation for successful and impactful marketing materials. By providing clear direction, aligning teams, and ensuring consistent messaging, a creative brief maximizes the chances of delivering marketing campaigns that leave a lasting impression on the target audience and achieve desired outcomes.

When it comes to managing marketing assets, a digital asset management platform like HIVO can greatly enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of the creative brief process. HIVO provides a centralized hub for storing, organizing, and sharing marketing assets, making it easier for marketing and creative teams to collaborate and access the necessary materials when working on a project. With features like version control, metadata tagging, and permissions settings, HIVO streamlines the creative process by providing a seamless workflow and ensuring that the right people have access to the right assets at the right time.

In conclusion, a well-crafted creative brief is an essential tool in marketing that ensures alignment, clarity, and efficiency in creative projects. By investing time and effort into creating a comprehensive and effective creative brief, marketers can set their campaigns up for success and deliver impactful and consistent messaging that resonates with the target audience. And with the support of a digital asset management platform like HIVO, the process becomes even more seamless and efficient.

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Creative Brief: Definition, Examples, and Template

September 14, 2023 - 10 min read

No matter the industry, every creative team faces the same challenge of delivering excellent work under the most rigorous of deadlines. One important tool they use to organize incoming requests is the famed creative brief. In fact, some creatives say that a creative brief is the single most important indicator of whether a project will be successful or not. Even for internal creative teams, the use of a creative brief template can save time and effort and improve outcomes. 

But there are plenty of briefs out there that simply aren’t optimized to get the job done. In fact, in a survey of more than 1,200 C-level agency executives, 53% found briefs complete but lacking in focus, 27% found them incomplete and inconsistent, and 20% found them complete and focused most of the time.

Having an ineffective creative brief is like having a compass that doesn’t point north — it’ll take you somewhere, but probably not where you want to be. In this blog post, we’ll explain what a creative brief is, how it should be designed, and what it should include. We’ll also take you through Wrike’s purpose-built template, the fastest and easiest route to a truly effective creative brief that you can customize to your unique needs. 

What is a creative brief? 

A creative brief is an important document that outlines the key elements of a marketing, creative, or advertising project. It’s where the “ask” is encapsulated, detailing exactly what is required and when. It can also, over the course of a project, serve as a roadmap for creatives to follow in order to stay aligned with the planned objectives, audience, and messaging. 

While we will examine key inclusions in more detail later in this blog post, here are some important factors to keep in mind when thinking about drafting a brief:

• Objective : A brief should clearly define the stakeholders’ goals for the project. It could be increasing brand awareness, driving sales, or launching a new product.
• Target audience: Who are the consumers you’re trying to reach? Make sure you identify their demographics and behaviors so you can tailor the work to suit their needs.
• Messaging: Keep in mind the primary message you want to convey. This should be a compelling statement that resonates with your target audience.
• Tone and style: By defining a voice and visual style that aligns with your brand and audience, you can boost your message’s chance of being heard.
• Deliverables: It’s vital to list what needs to be produced at the end of the project. It could be any creative output, from a TV ad to a social media post or print campaign. 
• Timeline: While they may change, specifying the project’s deadlines will ensure everyone is aware of timing expectations.
• Budget: Outlining the financial resources available for the project will help with optimizing resource management so the project doesn’t run over its budget.  
• Publication/distribution: Some creative briefs also detail how the asset or deliverable should be put out into the world, whether via publication, broadcast, or any other means.

Taking the time to craft a detailed, inclusive creative brief will keep stakeholders aligned, the work focused, and the project on track for successful delivery.

Who should write creative briefs?

A creative brief is typically filled out by your account manager or traffic manager after a face-to-face discussion with the client. As the name implies, a brief should be relatively short (think one to three pages) and give a solid overview of what was agreed on in the meeting. The person writing it should be able to demonstrate a high level of creativity and strategy. If you still have questions, ask the client to clarify before you begin writing the brief just in case. 

Account managers and traffic managers take note: this is the best time to ‘wow’ your client. Consider budget-saving or innovative alternatives to their big-picture items they might not have thought about otherwise. Bring on a content expert from outside your team who can help give you greater context about the work or industry before you finalize the brief. Or even consider interviewing other departments at the client’s company to get a feel for how they’ll use the brief or benefit from the project. 

Should clients have a say in creative briefs?

This decision will depend on your organization, department, or team, but you should weigh the pros and cons. If clients don’t have a say in creative briefs, your team runs the risk of wasting billable hours and your client’s time working on activities that don’t align with their needs or wants. If they do, you’ll have a better idea of what they want and how they’d like to approach the project. 

Remember, a creative brief isn’t just about the end goal, it’s also about the process. If your client will need to approve key elements or would prefer to be more hands-on, the creative brief not only defines that but it also lays the groundwork for your collaboration efforts throughout the project. 

Creative brief template

As you might imagine, creative briefs can vary wildly depending on your organization’s style, the type of creative work, and who is actually drafting it. This haphazard approach can lead to inconsistencies, gaps in information, incorrect deliverables, and a less-than-professional look for clients. 

Ideally, a department, team, or agency’s creative brief should be standardized and uniform to include all the information that is needed for seamless commissioning, creation, and delivery — a blueprint for creative success. 

The best way to do this is to create a creative brief template for stakeholders to fill in. By taking the time to really consider what should be included, you can ensure you capture all the information you need from the get-go, minimizing any over-and-back messages asking for clarification. It will also help to eradicate wasted time because creatives can follow detailed instructions to create assets that get approved at the first pass.

The good news is that Wrike is here to help with guidance and advice based on more than a decade serving marketers and creatives in over 240 countries. To start, we created a fast and free creative brief template that’s available for immediate download in PDF and Google doc format (you’ll need to make a copy for your own use). This template will provide you with all the basics you need to put together a quick brief for sharing with colleagues and clients.

If you need something a little more sophisticated, we’ve also put together a detailed guide that’ll help you build a more advanced creative brief template. The best part about this template builder is that it is — like almost everything in Wrike’s platform — completely customizable. This means that you can adapt your template to ask questions specific to your business processes, clients’ needs, or creative output. You can even design different templates for different teams — for example, one for design, one for copywriting, and one for campaign management. 

By following the steps in the guide, you can ensure that all stakeholders — from clients and project managers to designers and copywriters — have a clear understanding of the project’s objectives, target audience, messaging, tone, and style. Once you’ve created the brief, you can even generate tailored dashboards, unique workflows, and Gantt charts for a complete project overview.

Elements of a creative brief template

Wondering what is in a creative brief? While you can add custom sections to fulfill your goals and communicate intent, the following elements are must-haves:

1. Contact details

As with any work intake form, specify who the stakeholders are, list the contact details, and spell out the role they each play in the creative process. Do the same for your internal team. That way, it’s easier to reach out with questions at any point in the project.

2. Creative brief template overview

Outline the request at a high level. Paint a picture for your team that answers the who, what, and where of the project. Provide enough context so that your team comprehends how this job affects the bottom line.

Questions to answer:

• What is this job about?
• Who are the stakeholders?
• Who are the assignees?

3. The objectives

Here’s where you summarize the goals of this job. That way, if there’s any disagreement over the execution of the project, you can tie it back to the goals.

• What do the stakeholders wish to achieve?
• If it’s a customer-facing deliverable, what action do you want the end user to take?

4. The audience profile

This section tackles the target audience. If you build a complete picture of the audience that you must persuade, then your creative team can do a better job of tailoring their work to the audience’s needs and concerns.

• Who are they, and where do they live or work?
• How will they be reached?
• What issues concern them?
• What do you want them to feel, think, or do?

5. The execution specifics

Here’s where the main meat of the creative brief lies. This section should hold all the execution details and creative brief sample questions about the deliverable and how you communicate your message.

• Tone: What is the tone of your written copy and message? What adjectives describe the feeling or approach? What do these adjectives mean to the customer?
• Message: What are you saying with this job? Does messaging need to be developed? What will the audience remember at the end? What similar messages are competitors using?
• Visuals: How will visuals help convey the message? Is there a certain visual style the client wants? Are there visuals in place already, or do they need to be created?
• Other details: List all deliverables and their formats/sizes.
• Timeline, schedule, and budget: When do things need to be done? How much will it cost?

How to write a creative brief

Now that you know what writing a creative brief is all about, here are some more details about what goes into a creative brief. 

Start with a project summary that gives a big-picture overview of what the project is in the simplest terms, who the project will help, and why it’s important. Anyone who glances at this one or two-sentence statement should instantly understand what the creative brief is all about. 

For example, a creative brief for a blog may read like this: “Blog keyword research project aimed at building a calendar of posts for small business owners who need expert productivity coaching.” Here you can see the deliverable is clear and so is the audience. You also know exactly what the end goal is (booking coaching clients), which will help determine the steps needed to accomplish it, like adding a CTA about a consultation at the end of each post. 

Then, further define your audience with detailed information about their demographics as well as their goals, fears, and likes or dislikes. After, explain what problem the solution posed in the brief will solve if accomplished. Continuing with our blog example, it might look something like this: “Company A has a blog that is active but has lower than average traffic numbers but is their most successful conversion tool for coaching clients. In order to get more views (and, ultimately, more sales), our keyword research will improve domain authority and get first placements in search engine results.” 

Once that’s done, you’ll need to describe the goal (outlined in SMART goal terms) plus how the goal will be measured and what timeline will be followed. You’ll also define who is involved and what role they play. And last but not least, the creative brief will end with budget and finance information. Both of these sections can be identified as client financial management .

Incorporating cultural and social context in a creative brief

No creative team exists in a vacuum — we’re all operating in an increasingly globalized world, creating work that will be seen by a wide audience in multiple locations. That means understanding the cultural and social context of your target audience is vital. A creative brief isn’t just a tool to guide your team — it’s also a strategic document that should reflect a deep understanding of the audience you’re trying to reach.

Every culture has unique aspects that can significantly impact how a message is received. From color symbolism to communication styles, these cultural nuances can affect the perception of your project. For example, humor varies widely from one culture to another. A joke that might be hilarious in one country could be seen as confusing or even offensive in another. If your creative brief is for a campaign that includes humor, it’s crucial to ensure that the joke will resonate positively with your target audience.

Cultural differences don’t just affect the content of your project — they also influence its format and delivery. For instance, some cultures prefer detailed, long-form content, while others value brevity and directness. Some audiences might engage more with visual content, while others prefer text-based information. Where one market is familiar with brash, colorful imagery, another could prefer a more subtle approach.

Considering social context and incorporating cultural nuances into your creative brief can help ensure that your project is not only culturally sensitive but also effective in achieving its goals.

Here are some tips on how to incorporate cultural and social context into a creative brief:

• Research your audience: Use market research, surveys, and social media to gain a deep understanding of your target audience’s cultural and social context
• Include cultural insights in your brief: If it’s relevant, make sure to include a section or set of questions in your creative brief dedicated to cultural insights
• Consider local experts: If you’re targeting an audience in a different country or culture, consider working with location experts or culturally experienced consultants
• Test your ideas: Before launching a project, trial your ideas with a small segment of your target audience to ensure your draft asset or campaign resonates as intended

Creative brief example

So what might a good creative brief look like? To give you a sense of what should be included, we’ve put together a quick example of a creative brief for a fictional company, Healthy Habits, which is launching a new product: a fitness tracking app. That brief might read as follows:

Project overview: Healthy Habits is launching a new fitness tracking app aimed at encouraging individuals to adopt healthier lifestyles. This project involves creating a comprehensive marketing campaign to promote the app.

Objective: The objective of the marketing campaign is to generate awareness about the new fitness tracking app, drive app downloads, and encourage user engagement.

Target audience: Our target audience is a group of health-conscious individuals aged 18–35, who are tech-savvy and interested in tracking their fitness progress.

Unique selling proposition: Healthy Habits fitness tracking app not only tracks your physical activities but also provides personalized workout and diet plans based on your lifestyle, preferences, and goals.

Message: Empower your fitness journey with Healthy Habits — a personal fitness companion that adapts to your lifestyle.

Tone: The tone of the campaign should be motivational, empowering, and friendly.

Deliverables:

• Social media campaign: A series of engaging posts for Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter
• Email marketing: A planned sequence of emails to our subscriber list introducing the new app and its features
• Website content: A website update with new product information and promotional banners
• Blog posts: Three informative articles about the benefits of fitness tracking, encouraging readers to use our app
• Press release: An announcement to media outlets with all the key details of the new product launch 

Timeline: The project should be completed within a three-month period, starting from the first week of January to the end of March.

This is just a basic example of a fictional project. Of course, every brief will differ, depending on the project, its objectives, target audience, and the creative strategy. However, a few things should apply to every brief, regardless of the exact content and purpose — it should be clear, concise, and aligned with your project or strategic goals.

Creative brief case studies

Reebok’s product campaign

Reebok needed to spread awareness about its newest product through a campaign that involved a discount offer. Its clearly defined target audience outlines gender, age group, marital status, income range, and key areas of interest related to the product. It used an unconventional “Insight” and a “Single-Minded Thought” section to further cater to its specific needs within the brief. This is a great example of a creative brief format that follows the rules while also personalizing it for the goal. 

Red Bull’s new target demographic

Looking to reach a previously untapped market, Red Bull designed a creative brief to outline who it wanted to reach (in this case men and women experiencing mid-life crises) and how it would reach them (trying something new to help achieve their dreams before it’s too late). Note the section on rational and emotional reasons to buy. This makes it easy for marketers to develop a clear and strategic path forward. 

Monopoly’s call to action

Monopoly used its creative brief to outline where its product stands in the market today and where it would like to be in the future. It defined what the point of communication with its audience was, as well as what mandatory project requirements the team came up with. 

What the creative brief template can (and can’t ) do

No matter how you structure your creative brief, the end result will be like a checklist outlining the information and objectives of a campaign. However, never underestimate the value of a comprehensive, well-thought-out creative brief — it can guide the work in a specific direction, provide the details of the audience, client, and pain points, and might even inspire the team to generate some groundbreaking ideas.

Jeff Goodby, co-chair and partner at advertising agency GS&P, once likened the creative brief to a fisherman’s guide — that person who takes you to the best place to fish, and even provides you with ideas on which bait and lures to use. He won’t fish for you, but he provides the fisherman (the creative talent) with the information and inspiration to be successful.

Build creative briefs with Wrike

As you can see, there’s a lot to consider when writing a creative brief. Clients or stakeholders will have to complete whatever sections you include, and you want to make sure you haven’t wasted their time or yours. Often, it helps to think about the end result and work your way backwards. For example, if you cast your mind back to your most recent project, were there any mid-project questions or last-minute changes? Try to avoid these by making sure you have all the information you need upfront in a detailed creative brief.

Sounds like a lot? We get it, which is why we’ve done the hard work for you. Access Wrike’s comprehensive guide to building a creative brief template that can be completely customized to your needs. We didn’t stop there, either — we’ve also included instructions on how to create a workflow and dashboard to manage incoming work, as well as generate a Gantt chart to visualize the project deadlines and ensure your great work is delivered on time, every time.   

Occasionally we write blog posts where multiple people contribute. Since our idea of having a gladiator arena where contributors would fight to the death to win total authorship wasn’t approved by HR, this was the compromise.

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What is a Creative Brief — Types, Templates and Formats

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I magine this: You’re an architect designing a grand skyscraper. But instead of a blueprint, all you have are vague ideas and hazy specifications. Sounds like a recipe for disaster, right? Now, let’s apply this scenario to the world of marketing and advertising. Here, our skyscraper is your campaign, and the blueprint? That’s your creative brief.

But just like any blueprint, a creative brief is more than a piece of paper—it’s a vital tool that can make or break a campaign. In the following sections, we’ll explore the importance of a creative brief, its key components, and how it sets the stage for a memorable and impactful campaign.

What is a Creative Brief for Creatives?

First, let’s define a creative brief.

A creative brief is a roadmap that ensures everyone involved — from copywriters to graphic designers, from marketing strategists to social media managers — knows exactly where they're headed, what they're building, and why they're building it.

Let's begin by looking at the definition of a creative brief.

CREATIVE BRIEF DEFINITION

What is a creative brief.

A creative brief is a strategic plan, or blueprint, that provides a clear understanding of a marketing or advertising campaign’s goals, audience, and expected outcomes. It's a comprehensive document that outlines the project's key elements, such as the campaign’s objectives, target audience characteristics, brand positioning, key messages, and deliverables. 

It acts as a guiding light for all creative individuals involved in the project, providing a clear direction and helping to keep everyone on the same page. In essence, a creative brief ensures that all creative solutions align with the project's strategic goals and objectives.

What is a Creative Brief Used For?

• Guiding creative project direction
• Aligning team on objectives
• Establishing clear audience understanding
• Ensuring consistent branding/message deliverance

The Importance of a Creative Brief

Imagine setting off on a journey without a map, or trying to assemble a puzzle without seeing the picture on the box. That's what embarking on a creative project without a brief is like.

Why is it important exactly? This video breaks down how creative briefs are used and why they are important for creatives. 

Intro to Creative Briefs  •  What they are and how Creatives can use them

Clarity and direction: your creative north star.

A creative brief is the cornerstone of any successful campaign, providing a roadmap for all team members to follow. Without it, there's a risk of miscommunication and confusion, leading to fragmented solutions that lack unity and coherence. 

A well-constructed creative brief establishes a clear direction from the get-go, setting the tone for the project and ensuring everyone is on the same page.

Efficiency and Time Management: Your Route to Streamlined Execution

A creative brief helps streamline the entire creative process, making it more efficient and time-saving. By establishing clear objectives, target audience, and key messages from the get-go, it avoids miscommunication and unnecessary back-and-forth between team members. This allows for a smoother execution of tasks, saving both time and resources.

The Role in Measuring Success: Your Yardstick for Achievement

Lastly, a creative brief serves as a benchmark against which the success of a project can be measured.

It outlines the objectives and deliverables, providing a clear yardstick to evaluate whether the end product has hit its mark or fallen short.  

This is vital for future campaigns, as it allows for a better understanding of what worked and what could be improved upon in the future.

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What is a Creative Brief Made Of?

Key components of a creative brief.

Now that we've grasped the significance of a creative brief, let's dive into its key components. These components are crucial in crafting a thorough and impactful brief that lays the foundation for a successful project. 

How To Write A Creative Brief? Example Seamless Campaign

As we analyze the components to a great creative brief, let's apply them to a specific example. We'll call this spec creative brief The Great Outdoors: An Adventure Gear Campaign .

Objectives: The Foundation of Your Campaign

The objectives are the starting point of your creative brief. They define what you want to achieve with your campaign and provide a clear direction for all creative solutions. These should be specific, measurable, and tied to overall business goals.

"Our goal is to create an engaging, visually compelling campaign that positions our brand as the go-to choice for outdoor enthusiasts. We aim to increase brand awareness by 30% and boost sales by 20% over the next quarter."

Target Audience: Knowing Who You're Speaking To

Understanding your target audience is crucial for any campaign's success. The brief should include a detailed description of the target audience, including demographic information, psychographic traits, and any other relevant characteristics that will inform creative decisions.

"We're speaking to adventurers aged 25-45, both male and female, who love to explore the great outdoors. They value quality, durability, and functionality in their gear. They are eco-conscious and prefer brands that align with their environmental values."

Brand Positioning: Staying True to Your Identity

A brand's positioning is what sets it apart from its competitors. It defines the unique value proposition and personality of the brand and should be clearly stated in the creative brief. This will ensure that all creative solutions are aligned with the brand's identity.

Example: 

"Imagine this: you're standing at the edge of a forest, a vast wilderness stretching out before you. You're not just a visitor here - you're part of it, connected to the earth beneath your feet and the sky above. That's the feeling we want our brand to evoke.

We're not just selling outdoor gear; we're selling the promise of adventure, the thrill of exploration, the serenity of nature. Our products are more than mere tools — they're companions on a journey, reliable and rugged, ready to face whatever challenges the wild throws your way.

We position ourselves as the brand of choice for the fearless explorers, the weekend warriors, the lovers of the great outdoors. We understand your passion because it's our passion too. And we're here to ensure that nothing comes between you and your next adventure."

Key Messages: Communicating Effectively

Key messages are the main points you want your audience to take away from your campaign. They should be concise, memorable, and aligned with the objectives and brand positioning.

Example: "Embrace your wild side with gear that's as tough and ready for adventure as you are. Our products are not just tools, but companions in your quest to explore the great outdoors."

Deliverables: The End Goal

The deliverables are the final outputs of your campaign. These should be clearly stated in the brief, along with any specifications or requirements.

• A series of social media posts showcasing our products in action.
• A short promotional video for web and television.
• Print ads for outdoor and lifestyle magazines.
• Email marketing campaign targeting existing customers and leads.

Timeline and Budget: Keeping Things on Track

A creative brief should also include a timeline and budget for the project. This will help keep things on track and ensure that all team members are aware of deadlines and constraints.

• Kick-off meeting: January 1, 2024
• Initial concepts due: January 15, 2024
• Final drafts due: February 1, 2024
• Campaign launch: March 1, 2024

The total budget for this campaign is $200,000. This includes creative development, production costs , media buying, and analytics tracking.

There you have it, a simple yet comprehensive creative brief outline. Remember, the more detailed and specific your creative brief is, the better equipped your team will be to deliver impactful and effective solutions.

How to Write a Creative Brief

Tips for crafting a creative brief.

Crafting a creative brief is an essential step towards creating a successful campaign. Here are some tips to keep in mind:

• Involve all stakeholders in the process to ensure everyone's input and perspective is considered.
• Keep it concise and to the point. A brief should be easy to understand and provide a clear direction without being overwhelming.
• Be specific and avoid vague language or generalizations. This will help avoid misinterpretations and ensure everyone is on the same page.
• Continuously refer back to the objectives, keeping them at the forefront of all creative solutions.

A creative brief is more than just a document — it's a crucial tool for successful marketing and advertising campaigns. By providing clarity, efficiency, and a measurement of success, it sets the foundation for impactful and effective creative solutions. Remember to include all key components and follow these tips when crafting your next brief, and you'll be well on your way to creating a winning campaign.  

What is a Mood Board?

Another essential tool in the creative process is the mood board.  This visual representation of the desired aesthetic, tone, and messaging can serve as a guiding light for all creative decisions. Learn more in our next article.

Up Next: Mood Boards Explained →

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The creative brief: key components, how to write it, and a template

Creative projects need to be delivered faster and with higher quality than ever. Crafting a well-defined creative brief at the start of each new project is essential to setting your team up for success. A great creative brief is a blueprint that guides your project, aligning the team's vision and ensuring everyone is on the same page. This comprehensive guide will explore how to write the perfect creative brief. We'll provide valuable insights, practical tips, and adaptable creative brief templates to help you streamline your creative workflow and help all your team members.  Get ready to unlock the secrets of well-defined and reusable creative briefs and watch your creative projects succeed with clarity, creativity, and efficiency.

What we'll cover

Table of contents

What is a creative brief, the importance of an effective creative brief, types of creative briefs, when should you use a creative brief, who should ‘own’ the creative brief, essential components of a creative brief, how to write a creative brief step-by-step.

• Creative brief template: Ziflow’s new internal system
• How to use creative briefs

A creative brief is a living document that provides direction for creative teams and sets out project goals.

Creative briefs typically include:

• Brand or project statement
• Key objectives/challenges

Target audience

• Main competitors
• Company values/market positioning
• Campaign channels (such as  social media, banner ads, and print materials)

Deliverables

• Stakeholders
• Links to inspiration and resources
• Brand guidelines
• Client vision
• Company/product positioning
• Audience personas

Even in a seemingly straightforward project, it can be easy for team members to make assumptions, misinterpret each other, or just get distracted. These mistakes can lead to more time spent on revisions and delayed timelines. 

Creative briefs are the guardrails that keep a project with multiple stakeholders on track. They make sure the whole team is aligned on what they’re delivering. And when set up well, they can have some significant benefits, including:

Documenting the project plan

A creative brief is similar to a recipe — even if you think you remember all the steps, you’ll probably need to refer back to it at some point.

Documenting the plan ensures that all the necessary details are in one place, making them easy to reference for all parties. Not only does this make it easier to communicate that plan to key stakeholders, but it ensures everyone is on the same page — internally and externally.

Saving time and maintaining your creative flow

By documenting all the necessary information up front in the creative brief helps creative teams work more efficiently. For example, if a creative brief includes the brand guide, a graphic designer won’t have to ask to pause midway through a project to reach out to the client for details on using the brand’s fonts, colors, and logos and wait for a reply.

These kinds of delays can really hinder efficiency, but even more detrimentally, they can cause creative energy to fizzle out.

Creative brief templates help teams ensure all the necessary information is present without reinventing the wheel with each project. This speeds up the early stage of the project — they can ask for what information they need without thinking too much about it or stressing about forgetting something.

Improving accountability

One of the first rules of working with multiple stakeholders is to get everything in writing. Documenting all the key information about the project in one place makes it easy for all the stakeholders to reference the agreed-upon guidelines. Creative briefs are a key reminder that can be referenced or revised throughout the project as it evolves.

Anticipating the unexpected

Sometimes — especially with projects that have a long timeline — client priorities change, or new stakeholders step into an important project role. The creative brief can explain how shifting objectives, additional requests, or new instructions impact delivery dates. This level of transparency helps prevent miscommunication and keeps projects within scope.

Accelerating approvals

The creative brief can be a place to set expectations for what the feedback and revision process looks like. Outlining which stakeholders should be included at what points in the creative process can eliminate confusion or chasing down stakeholders at the last minute.

Improving creative quality

Establishing the creative direction and purpose at the beginning of a project with a creative brief can make a huge difference in quality. That guidance means the deliverable will be more strategically aligned with the client's overall goals, and that the creative development will be inspired by the client’s vision.

• Traditional creative briefs will outline basic information about the project, including objectives, target audience, key messaging, tone of voice, and any other specific requirements or constraints.
• Digital creative briefs focus specifically on digital projects such as websites, social media campaigns, email marketing, or online advertising. It can include additional details such as user experience, SEO considerations, and technical requirements.
• Design creative briefs may include additional reference materials, mood boards, and technical specifications in the case of product or packaging design.
• Brand briefs focus on refreshing brand identity, including elements such as logo design, brand colors, typography, and brand personality.
• Integrated marketing campaign briefs may require different types of creative assets spanning different channels and media, each of which may have a dedicated project brief with lists of deliverables, due dates, and stakeholder information. An integrated brief is important to make sure that there is consistency and alignment across all touchpoints, including how the creative will be adapted for each channel.
• Product launch briefs are used when launching a new product or service. They are specialized briefs that can include unique selling points, competitive landscape, target market, and key product messaging strategy.
• Event creative briefs are used for events such as conferences, tradeshows, or experiential marketing. These briefs will outline the event theme, audience, key messages, branding elements, and logistical considerations.
• Video or film briefs are used for video content and are specifically for video production teams. They outline the storyline, visual style, tone, and any technical specifications, including final delivery formats.
• Client creative briefs often take the form of any of the above briefs but often with more specific details on external timelines, deliverables, and costs associated with additional work. They may follow a template provided by the client or include tailored suggestions for the client outlined during project planning.

Creative briefs aren’t always necessary. Sometimes, the time and effort spent creating a brief would take longer than the actual work itself. Creative briefs are most useful for:

• New project kickoffs for highly conceptual or complex creative work
• Iterations of existing work/past projects
• Work that requires several stakeholders or effort across the creative team
• Creative projects with long timelines
• Any project that requires several rounds of approval or compliance review

Since creative briefs are used for a wide variety of project types, who “owns” the brief can also vary depending on whether the project is internal or external, the size and structure of the team, and the workflow. However, ownership often falls under these types of roles:

• Account Manager/Account Executive: This role usually involves managing relationships with outside clients. In agencies and other creative teams with external clients, account managers will own the brief, acting as the go-between and documenting key information.
• Creative Director: This leadership role often takes charge of crafting the brief to make sure the project lines up with creative standards. This is especially common in smaller teams where creative directors have more fluid roles.
• Strategist or Brand Planner: Some teams may have dedicated strategists whose role is to get to know the brand, audience, and market deeply. They work with both internal and external teams to determine a project’s strategic direction. 
• Project Manager or Creative Operations: Larger teams may have someone in charge of work processes. They help ensure that workflows are efficient and consistent and manage all the moving pieces of a project. Project managers often stay on top of the brief to make sure it includes all the information team members need to keep the project on pace.
• Creative Services Manager: This role can overlap somewhat with the project manager role, but the CSM focuses on the creative team . An expert in creative workflows, the CSM may own the creative brief and work closely with the team to keep the project aligned with the creative guidelines.

Whoever takes on this role in your team needs to be knowledgeable about the client and the creative process. They should also have organizational and leadership skills to help usher the project along.

Project background

The background digs into why the client needs a solution and how they decided to come to your team to create it. Usually, the background will detail what gaps the project aims to fill, including outlining why the current solution (if one exists) isn’t working. The project background should also clearly outline any problems the team hopes to solve.

The target audience information tells creatives who they’re trying to reach. For example, this could touch on demographics — age, occupation, and hobbies. The best briefs will accurately and comprehensively describe the ideal customer profile (ICP)  and buyer personas. Defining your audiences makes it much easier to identify their pain points — which you’re aiming to solve. For example, the ICP for a productivity tool could be a busy middle manager who is looking for ways to streamline their workflow. 

Messaging/tone  

This section describes what language you should use to deliver key information. It also details what you want the customer to get out of the ad.

For example, a takeout restaurant might choose a family-friendly tone of voice with a key message of “Get your food fast.” Putting this in the creative brief directs the creative on what to focus on when writing the script.

Main business objective(s)/goals

Every creative brief should describe project goals in detail. Helping the creatives understand the purpose of the project is key to keeping the creative direction on track. Some of the questions to ask when filling out this section include:

• Which OKRs does this support?
• Which KPI is it trying to move?
• What is the story we’re trying to tell?

For example, the same restaurant mentioned above may be trying to improve overall brand reach in a particular area as their OKR. An important KPI could be restaurant visits — maybe they have a goal of increasing visits by 8%. The story ties these goals back into the bigger brand: Why this particular restaurant versus another?

Competition

The research phase of a project usually involves diving into the work of company competitors. But sometimes, your closest competitors aren’t obvious. This section of the creative brief directs the team to your biggest competition so they can get inspired and see who they need to stand out against.

Project timelines are one of the most important logistical details to share in your creative brief. For more complex projects, this can be more than a deadline. Timelines may include a series of checkpoints for involving stakeholders and delivering feedback.

Budget and resources

Creative teams can be imaginative and ambitious. While this is great, the budget section helps prevent the team from accidentally going overboard and spending too much on one deliverable. This is also a good place to put links to existing assets — anything that the creative team can use to prevent redundant work.

This section of a creative brief answers the question: What are the concrete items the client needs for this project to be complete? Detailed specifications, such as preferred file size and file format, are helpful.

Channels of distribution

Where the creative project goes after it’s done is an important factor for creative teams. This can influence what the finished deliverable looks like, the tone of the messaging, and more. For example, social media posts created for LinkedIn are going to be completely different from posts created for Instagram. The creative brief should answer:

• What is this, and where is it going?
• How is it being distributed?
• Which existing assets will it link to?

Creative considerations

Brand guidelines are a must for every creative brief. Yes, every single one. This can include color palette, font choices, logo requirements, language, general creative direction, and anything else relevant to your or your client’s brand. This section should answer: 

• What is the unique takeaway or point of view?
• How does this add value for the audience?

Key benefits

Benefits are what a customer gets out of a product. If the creative brief centers on a product, then you need to include its benefits.

Benefits could be as simple as “never be late again!” or “discover your true self.” They’re less about the product and more about the customer’s needs and what they get out of it.

Reference material

A picture is worth a thousand words, and sometimes, referencing an existing asset is easier than explaining it with text.

References can include material that other companies created that performed well, examples of how the logo should be used, links to assets, and other important resources that the creatives will dig into.

Any other need-to-know information should be included in the creative brief. Does the client’s CEO have a thing against Oxford commas? Put it in there. Is there a color that the team should avoid? Make a note. The more complete a creative brief, the fewer revisions there will be later.

Not sure where to start? Here’s the order of operations for making a creative brief that will deliver great results.

1.  Summarize the project and define objectives

Start out with a high-level overview. Try to fit this into a couple of sentences. This isn’t the creative direction; it just provides the overall context for what comes next.

2. Identify your target audience

One of the first questions any good creative will ask is, “Who is this for?” Put this information front and center, and include any ICPs or buyer personas that can help them picture your ideal customer.

3. Outline key messages and brand guidelines

This is the meat of the creative brief. The central messaging and the creative guidelines will be the section that the creative team spends the most time with as they shape their deliverables. It’s great to get as detailed as possible here; try to anticipate any questions the team may have and answer them in this section.

4. List deliverables and formats

Now we’re getting into the details. This list clarifies what, exactly, the team should deliver by the end of the project. It also shares the details about what formats and sizes the deliverable should use to prevent back-and-forth with the client.

5. Set a timeline and budget

These key logistical details are less about the project and more about project management. This key information will help the creative team prioritize their work. It will also prevent their ambitions from getting overboard and spending too many billing hours and resources on one thing.

6. Establish success metrics and approval workflow

This section of the brief sets expectations for what happens after the deliverable is handed over. You can set clear, agreed-upon guidelines for what stakeholder feedback is needed and when. This prevents stakeholders from getting pulled in at the wrong time, which can result in total redos.

Clarifying success metrics also puts all stakeholders on the same page about how to evaluate the project after it’s released into the world.

Creative brief template: Ziflow’s new internal system 

At Ziflow, we recently developed a new creative briefing process for our own marketing projects. As we’ve grown, we realized we needed to formalize our own project planning to be more organized and communicate the progress of work more effectively with other stakeholders.

Our Creative Project Manager developed a creative brief template that all stakeholders use to request new work from our creative team. For our creative briefs, we use elements of the Goals, Audience, Creative, Channels (GACC) marketing brief to ensure we summarize the most impactful work for a project. Now, all of our creative projects — from web designs and videos to blog posts and product designs — begin with a this template that you can download from here:

Creative Brief Template

Here's a creative brief example we use to launch new social media ads. With the core information included, the creative team has an in-depth understanding of the project's purpose, needed deliverables, and any specifications for assets. 

This briefing process transformed what was an ad-hoc step for project planning to a standardized process for the intake of new creative work. Within two weeks of implementing this template, our creative team’s workflow was much more organized.

Now, our Creative Project Manager can more efficiently prioritize the creative team’s overall workload and bandwidth, properly assign or shift work to each team member, and communicate more efficiently with stakeholders like Ziflow's CMO, CEO, Head of Product, and others. By working off of detailed and approved creative briefs, the team can also avoid any distracting work or in-flight requests that are outside the original scope of the project.

Feel free to use this creative brief to start planning your own project!

How to use creative briefs 

Creative briefs are most effective as a living document that teams continually reference throughout the creative process. Think of creative briefs as Version 0 of a project that kicks off the entire creative workflow.

Store the creative brief as a document alongside iterations of project deliverables/creative work. If you’re using a creative collaboration space to review creative assets, you can embed the brief into each version. If you’re using automation for creative review , you can build approval workflows based on the deadlines and stakeholders included in the creative brief or project brief. 

The owner of the creative brief should consult it often to ensure that creative deliverables follow all guidelines and support the original goal. 

Discover how Ziflow streamlines your creative processes

Creative briefs can be challenging documents to manage. You need to keep track of all the project steps, all the stakeholders, and feedback and ensure that everyone is sticking to the guidelines and scope.

Ziflow makes managing feedback on creative assets easy with our all-in-one proofing platform. Designed with creative teams in mind, it’s intuitive and powerful, with tracking tools that even the strictest project manager will love.

Get started with Ziflow today to see how we can transform how you work. 

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How to Write a Creative Brief (Example & Template Included)

What Is a Creative Brief?

A creative brief is a short, one-or-two-page document that summarizes marketing and advertising projects. Creative briefs are used by marketers and creative professionals to define the goals, scope and timeline for a project and set guidelines for their teams. For this reason, a creative brief can be described as a project management document for creative teams.

Who Should Create a Creative Brief?

A creative brief may be written by an in-house marketing team, an advertising agency or a marketing consultant for internal purposes. It’s a document that should capture the requirements of a client who needs their services.

The creative brief is like a blueprint for a project that’s made to help graphic designers, writers, videographers and other members of a creative team know what they’re responsible for and how their work and deliverables fit into the larger project.

After you write a creative brief for your team, you’ll need to plan, schedule and track your creative project. To do so, you’ll need project management software like ProjectManager . ProjectManager is equipped with tools such as Gantt charts, kanban boards, project dashboards and timesheets to help you manage any creative project. Assign work to your team members, create schedules, track costs and much more. Get started for free today.

Why Are Creative Briefs Important?

The value of having a creative brief is that it sets out to ensure that the deliverables from the creative project meet the client’s expectations and business needs. Because of their clear value in managing marketing and advertising projects, creative project managers typically employ them for each project.

Yes, a creative brief is just a document, but it’s an essential one. If you have a well-made-up creative brief at the front of your project , you’re less likely to have problems as you progress through the life cycle of the work.

When Should You Use a Creative Brief?

A creative brief might be used for a variety of marketing and advertising projects such as:

• Launching a marketing campaign for a new product or brand
• Revamping your existing marketing strategy
• Rebranding an existing business
• Creating a website for your brand
• Creating a promotional video
• Starting a social media campaign
• Guiding your marketing team when working for an external client

Creative Brief Outline

A creative brief can be made in many ways, from a Word document to a PowerPoint presentation or PDF. While there’s no single way to write a creative brief, as the structure of a creative brief depends on who’s requesting the creative brief and who’s drafting it.

For example, a marketing agency working for an external client will need to gather as much information about their client as an in-house marketing team working on a project. Having said that, here’s a quick overview of the main elements most creative briefs should include.

• Company background: Include important information about your client such as its company’s core values, mission and vision as well as the name of the project , what it is and why it’s being done.
• Brand voice: The brand voice is critical to success and must be tied to the target audience and their values, so decide if it’s serious, light, humorous, etc.
• Message: Have a clear, simple and single message to tell the target audience. How will they believe that message to be true?
• Target audience: Who’s the target audience? What do they think about the product or service you’re developing, and is there anything that the creative team should avoid? Also, note the competition.
• Market insights: What are the key insights that have been learned about the market, and how does that relate to the company, brand or product?
• Project goals & objectives: Outline what needs to be accomplished, how it’ll be measured and what success will look like.
• Project scope: The scope of a project simply refers to all the tasks that will be executed.
• Project deliverables: List how to deliver the message to the audience and what the best way to do that is.
• Project timeline: Have a schedule to note when something is needed, when it must be done, how many revisions can be fit into that timeframe, etc.
• Project budget: What’s the financial commitment to developing this project?
• Approval: Who’s responsible for making approvals and decisions related to approval?

How to Write a Creative Brief

Now, let’s go over five simple steps you should follow when writing a creative brief.

1. Start by Understanding Your Client’s Requirements

Understanding the expectations and requirements of your client is key to success when writing a creative brief. This will be easier if you’re leading an in-house marketing team, as your team members will already have a good understanding of your company’s strategy, target audience and goals. If you’re working for an external client, make sure you get as much information from them as possible and make sure they approve your creative brief.

2. Conduct Market Research

Don’t neglect the work and marketing research before the creative brief is written. Some parts will be easier to develop than others. Defining the target audience and the best strategies to reach potential customers will require your team to do market research. Be sure to give those parts of the creative brief their share of time to get it done right.

3. Set the Goals for Your Creative Brief

Once you’ve understood the project requirements , it’s time to translate them into measurable and realistic goals for your team. For example, the main goal of your creative brief might be to simply increase the brand awareness of your company. Meet with your client and agree on an attainable goal, such as 30% more visitors to their website.

4. Define Your Project Scope & Deliverables

To accomplish the goals set forth in your creative brief, your marketing team will take a series of actions such as launching a social media campaign. Some deliverables will be images and promotional text created by your creative team. Once this social media campaign is live, you will track its success using digital analytics tools. Brainstorm with your team so that you don’t miss any detail.

5. Create a Budget for Your Creative Brief

Now that you’ve defined what your team should accomplish and how it’ll be accomplished, you’ll need to estimate the costs of each activity on your project scope. Once you know the costs for each task, you will be able to create a budget for the creative brief.

Creative Brief Template

Our free creative brief template is a great tool to get started with creative briefs. It’ll facilitate the process and help you make sure you don’t miss anything.

Creative Brief Example

The ad agency, Wieden & Kennedy , came up with the Happiness Factory campaign for Coke, with the tagline, “the Coke Side of Life” in 2005. It was driven by an issue that its client had, specifically that “Coke had become a forgotten friend.”

Its challenge to the creative team was to remind people what makes Coke special. The brand idea they wanted to deliver to their target audience was that Coke is the genuine taste of happiness. To support that, they listed that Coke is delicious and refreshing, but it won’t resolve world peace or restore the ozone layer.

Therefore, the tone was honest, intimate and personal, being friendly, joyful and uplifting. With these signposts to lead the creative team, they developed this eye-catching video . It’s remarkable to see how an outline can be filled in so dynamically with the right creative team and the proper direction.

Creative Brief vs. Client Brief

As stated above, a creative brief is created by marketers and creative professionals to guide the efforts of their teams. A client brief on the other hand is a similar document that’s created by a client, who uses this document to communicate his expectations to the leaders of a creative team who will then turn that client brief into a creative brief.

Creative Brief vs. Content Brief

A content brief is simply a document that’s created to guide the efforts of writers who are working on websites, social media management or other forms of copywriting. It may include guidelines such as brand voice, word count and SEO keywords.

Tips for Writing a Creative Brief

Just because they are highly effective, doesn’t mean that creative briefs are present in every instance of project planning . Surveys of ad agency executives have shown that many of the creative briefs used are not clear, and can be incomplete or inconsistent.

To avoid these shortfalls, the creative brief should be written after a client explains their expectations. Then the creative team can compile a list of questions that are answered by the requestor, usually a marketing team leader.

The answers to these questions will become the template for the creative brief and the whole creative execution of the project. As the project moves forward, the creative brief is always referred to, and any deviation can be identified and addressed.

Avoid Adding Too Many Details to Your Creative Brief

Adding too much information to a creative brief is a common mistake. While the creative team should know all there is about the product or service being developed, this is a creative brief—emphasis on the brief. The brief must be short and to the point; there are supporting documents for the details.

Know the Client Before Drafting Your Creative Brief

The client interview is critical to a successful creative brief. They are, after all, the ones who know what they want from the project. The creative team needs to have clear communications with the client, and before any creative brief is executed, it must be approved by the client.

Don’t Rush the Process of Writing the Creative Brief

While a creative brief is a short document you should take your time when researching and writing one. Also, once it’s completed, don’t just let it sit with the creative team. Yes, they can come to you with questions, but it’s best to be proactive and keep the human interaction present. Be available for the creative team to ask questions through the project life cycle .

How ProjectManager Helps You Manage Creative Briefs

While a creative brief sets guidelines for your creative team it’s just the first step when planning a creative project. Once you’ve written a creative brief, you’ll need the right project management software to plan how your team will execute the work. ProjectManager is robust project management software that offers tools that are ideal to plan, schedule and track creative projects. Here are some of its key features.

Plan With Multiple Project Planning Tools

ProjectManager’s project planning tools are perfect to plan and schedule the work that’s needed for your creative brief. You can use Gantt charts , kanban boards, task lists and project calendars to create a project schedule, assign tasks to your team members, set due dates and collaborate with them in real time.

Real-Time Project Dashboards & Reports

ProjectManager’s real-time dashboards are ideal for tracking costs, timelines, progress and workload at a glance. In addition, ProjectManager lets you create project reports in minutes so you can keep stakeholders informed.

Track Labor Costs With Timesheets

Creative briefs are executed by a diverse team of professionals, which means different rates of labor costs. ProjectManager’s timesheets and planning tools let you track the work hours of each member of your creative team so you don’t miss anything.

The creative brief is one of many essential documents that help with the planning of a winning project. ProjectManager is online project management software that helps you plan, track and report on every stage of the project’s progress. It offers kanban boards and a collaborative platform for teams to work together more productively and provides managers with real-time data, so they know exactly where the project is at any time. See how it can empower all your teams by taking this free 30-day trial.

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8 Steps to Writing a Creative Brief for Successful Project Delivery

Updated on: 22 August 2022

A project typically involves teams from different departments. As usually these teams speak and think in completely different ways, it often leads to communication challenges that will eventually thwart the results expected from the project. 

Aligning these disparate groups is key to delivering a quality product. To do so, you need to properly document what is expected from each team, leaving no room for confusion. One such document is the creative brief. This single document briefly clarifies the scope, deliverables, and deadlines specific to the creative requirements of a project. 

In this post, we will discuss what a creative brief is and how you can use it to successfully complete your projects.

What is a Creative Brief 

Let’s start with the basics. 

A creative brief is a document that details the mission, deliverables, challenges, demographics, messaging, deadlines, budget, and other key details pertaining to a creative project. It is often created by a creative project manager or a consultant to inform the company stakeholders or the clients on the important details of the project.

The creative brief helps establish agreement between the client and the marketing agency, or among the internal project team. It clarifies expectations and helps gain buy-in for the creative vision from those who are involved.  

A creative brief is usually a single page – sometimes may take up to two pages – document. However, a best practice to follow would be to try and keep it concise and limited to a single page. This will allow you to further extract the most important details and create a more refined picture of what you want to accomplish for the team.

Importance of a Creative Brief 

• Helps align the project participants around clear goals and get them on the same page.
• Documents and centralizes the key project details required to help the team work and collaborate efficiently. 
• Help clarify how you want your brand to feel and sound like in your creative assets to your creative partner/s.

Elements of a Creative Brief 

Although different projects or campaigns have different creative deliverables, creative briefs written for them may essentially contain more or less of the same elements. Based on whether you are employing internal or external support, you can include the following elements in your creative brief.

• Company background
• Problem or opportunity (project context and background 
• Goals and objectives
• Information on the audience 
• Messaging and tone
• Competitors
• Deliverables and KPIs
• Budget and timeline

How to Write a Creative Brief 

Whether you are creating the creative brief to present to a client or your internal team, it helps to first consult the project stakeholders to clarify the mission, project goals, priorities, and the possible challenges your team is facing. With this knowledge, you can write a compelling brief that focuses on what’s really important to your client or your company. 

Here are the steps to writing a creative brief effectively. 

Explain who you are

In case you are working with an external agency, you need to explain the core element of your business so they can better understand your brand before developing the campaign. This section can include a brief overview of your company , its mission, and other key details on the background of the brand. 

Specify the problem or opportunity (project context and background)

This is where you need to explain the’ why’ of the project – or the reason for initiating this project in the first place. This may either entail a challenge that your project aims to address and solve, or an opportunity you want to embark on. A brief statement explaining the need for the project and the proposed solution should be included here. 

Define the goal and objectives

Now that you have identified the specific business need your project will address, it’s time to write down the goal of the project. Include a statement of what needs to be accomplished, accompanied by the metrics that will be used to measure success. 

Resources: The Easy Guide to the Goal Setting Process

Profile your target audience 

This section answers who you will be targeting with your project or campaign; whether you are trying to reach out to your existing customers or a segment of new customers. The more information you have on them, especially in terms of demographics, their behaviors, pain points, motivations, and desires, the more you will be able to develop a campaign that successfully caters to their specific needs.

If you already have developed a customer persona, you can extract the necessary details from there.

Resource: The Easy Guide to Creating a Buyer Persona

Summarize the messaging and tone 

Clearly establish the message you want to convey to your target audience. The key message should not only reflect your brand but also the tone and voice of it should match that of your overall brand identity. 

If you already have defined brand guidelines, you can add them in your creative brief or share them with the project stakeholders so they can refer to them. 

Define your competition 

This element isn’t essential. However, this extra piece of detail will help your creative team further understand what needs to be done. Understanding how the competitors are branding themselves to their customers and how they have positioned themselves in the market will help inform your own decision on how to market or advertise a product or service uniquely.

Resource: How to Analyze Your Competitive Landscape

Outline the deliverables 

What is the final outcome of the project or campaign? For example, it could be a TV ad, a landing page, a new blog post, an ebook, or a video. This section should specify what those deliverables are and clarify the asset requirements such as dimensions or number of versions.

Resource: Work Breakdown Structure for Identifying Project Deliverables

Establish the budget and timeline

Estimate the associated costs for running the campaign early on. This will help the team stay within budget. Highlight the overall budget and include a breakdown of how it will be allocated. 

Likewise, establishing a timeline for the project at the beginning can also help the team stay on track and deliver on time. Mention the important dates and deadlines so as to allow stakeholders to estimate their tasks properly.   

Resource: How To Create a Project Timeline

Additionally, you can include details on stakeholders (departments or the teams that will be involved), the process explaining the steps that need to be taken to complete the project, distribution channels, and how you will distribute your media. 

Ready to Write Your Own Creative Brief? 

Now that you are aware of what is a creative brief, the elements that need to be included in a creative brief, and how to write one, you can start creating your own with a Creately creative brief template. 

Share your Creately workspace with other stakeholders to collaborate with them in real-time, and make use of the infinite canvas to centralize other resources such as brand guidelines, customer personas, and competitor profiles, pertaining to your creative brief; you can import and add them as PNGs or SVGs to the canvas or link to them. 

Got any questions or suggestions? Let us know in the comments below.

Join over thousands of organizations that use Creately to brainstorm, plan, analyze, and execute their projects successfully.

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What makes an effective creative brief (and how to create your own)

An effective creative brief gives writers, designers and videographers guidelines for what to include in a specific piece of content to ensure that it will achieve a marketing goal.

Its purpose isn’t to prevent a creative team from adding unique flourishes to their work but to ensure that all deliverables have concrete marketing value and that they align with brand values and characteristics.

Simple enough.

The slightly trickier part is figuring out exactly what to include in each brief to ensure that it provides sufficient guidance for your team.

Don’t worry. We’ve got your back.

First things first: One asset, one brief

A creative brief isn’t the same as brand guidelines.

Nor is it the same as a project plan, or a campaign slide deck. Those are “strategic documents,” not creative briefs.

You should have a creative brief for each and every asset (blog post, video, etc.) you create, with very few exceptions.

For the overwhelming majority of content you’ll see on our website, we rely on two specific brief templates: One is for written content, the other is for video content.

Design work typically accompanies our written content as opposed to being its own element, so we’ve worked a section into our creative briefs for blogs, white papers and eBooks called “Design recommendations.”

So, why one brief per creative project?

Because almost every asset you create for the purposes of digital marketing should be fueled by data. Sometimes, a data set can inform multiple assets; but in many cases, like if you’re trying to rank for a certain keyword, it can’t. This will become more clear as this post goes on.

What to include in a creative brief

For the purposes of this post, we’ll model our advice after the creative brief template we use to make sure our written content has value for search engine optimization (SEO). We use this brief template for nearly every landing page, blog post and eBook that we post on our site, as well as some of our video scripts.

With that in mind, here’s a creative brief outline modeled after our own to help guide your own content creation efforts:

Target keyword and asset type

We include a target keyword in nearly every creative brief (e.g., the target keyword for this post’s creative brief was “creative brief”). Our process for selecting those keywords is verrrrry involved and we won’t go into depth on that here.

The benefit of including a target keyword is that it helps you create a more data-driven creative brief, especially when writing for organic search. Picking a topic at random without any real sense for how many people are actually searching for it isn’t as precise as using an actual keyword with a monthly search volume, keyword difficulty score, etc. Using keyword data, you can discern a topic’s actual traffic potential, ensuring that your content creators’ energy is spent on content that has a strong chance of being discovered on the web.

The only exception is if you’re creating content about a timely, recent development in your industry like, in our case, a major Google search algorithm update. That doesn’t necessarily need a target keyword (and if it’s super timely, it probably doesn’t even need a creative brief).

The second part of this section – asset type –  is more self-explanatory: Blog post, landing page, eBook, white paper, video script and infographic are all examples of asset types.

Asset summary

Basically, what is this asset about? You’ll want to identify:

• Target audience: Who are you creating this for?
• Key message: What is your angle?
• Any broad guidance: Is there anything the content creator should avoid or keep in mind as they create this asset?

Pretty straightforward, right?

Design recommendations

What kind of imagery will accompany this content? Do you anticipate it benefiting from any custom design work, like charts, graphs, templates, etc.?

Is there a particular style or mood that you want to be conveyed in any illustrations? Any motifs?

This is where you would make note of all of these things. Try to be clear, and if you have a design branding guideline, make sure you link to it in this section of your creative brief.

Topics to discuss

There are a few ways to figure out what topics you would want to discuss for a particular asset.

For the content that we create on our website – and for any client of ours that receives Search Performance Briefs – we use software to figure out exactly what topics the top-ranking pages for a particular keyword are ranking for.

So, if our target topic/keyword for a brief were, “brand positioning statement,” we can figure out exactly what subject-matter the top-ranking articles for that keyword cover. We would then list those out in the creative brief like so:

These are essentially recurring words and phrases that appear on the pages that rank highly for the keyword. By covering them in your content, you improve your odds of ranking well on search. Google has decided based on a variety of factors that these are the types of sub-topics people who search for your particular target topic care about.

But what if you don’t have advanced analytics software at your fingertips?

• Inspect the top search results for your target keyword. Pay attention to subheads within the content, specific topics and recurring phrases within the best-performing pages. You shouldn’t feel inclined to structure your page or content exactly as they have. However, you’ll be able to spot some common themes between all of these pages.
• Look at ‘Related Topics’ on Google Trends: Search for your topic on Google Trends, and then scroll down to the section titled “Related Topics.” You’ll see several related topics to your target keyword.

Some of what you see in Trends may be irrelevant, so use your judgment here.

Otherwise, try to hit on all of the key subtopics related to your target keyword. This may take some creative finesse and will require research. For instance, if “SEO strategy” is your target keyword, you’ll need to figure out how “Google Ads” relates to it.

This method is not as scientific – or time-efficient – as using data pulled from tools like MarketMuse or SEMrush, but it’s better than no research at all, and it’s a worthwhile exercise for every piece of content you create.

Related keywords

Identify related keywords that might help you expand the breadth of your post and increase your chances of potentially ranking for other search queries.

Again, this is something you can automate with paid keyword research tools.

However, there are a few ways to do a similar exercise for free:

• ‘Related queries’ on Google Trends: Query is just another word for keyword. Include some of these terms to cast a slightly wider net and improve the potential number of keywords your page may rank for.
• Soovle: This free tool shows you autocomplete terms for a variety of search engines, including Google, Amazon, Wikipedia, YouTube and Bing. Type in your main keyword to generate a list of related search terms that could be worth touching on in your content.

Questions to answer

What sort of questions are you trying to answer with this piece of content?

Create a list of 5 or so potential questions about your keyword and/or topic that you think someone consuming this content should have an answer to by the time they’re done with it.

You can generate these questions through several means:

• Related queries and topics you’ve uncovered from earlier sections of your brief.
• Questions pulled from “People also ask” on Google.
• Questions you frequently encounter among your customers or audience.
• Your own experience.

Links to internal pages

Strategically linking to other pages on your site can help improve user engagement.

For each piece of content you create, run a search of your site for your keyword to see what pages reference that topic.

You can do that using your own on-site search, or just through Google by typing your domain followed by the topic.

Make sure you include a sentence or two about how the people working from the briefs are supposed to apply the information in each section.

That’s all.

Optional sections: Title suggestions, KPIs and distribution channels

Title options.

It’s generally advisable to include an exact match keyword in your title (if you’re creating content for SEO purposes). However, you may find some long-tail keywords limiting.

In these cases, you might help whoever you want to write your post – whether that’s a freelancer, a content marketing agency or someone on your team – by coming up with a few example titles.

We say this is optional because title ideation is more part of the creative process than the creative-brief process. You could just as easily make a note instructing the writer to use the exact keyword in the title, and let them do the creating from there. It’s really up to you.

Your creative team doesn’t need to understand key performance indicators to make awesome content.

And if you suspect that adding KPIs will cause confusion, then by all means, leave them out.

That said, we typically include them in our creative briefs because we like to make sure writers and designers have full context into the campaign they’re contributing to, and the end goals of their work. Some creatives really value knowing what kind of impact their work will have, and we respect that.

Distribution channels

Again, unless the same person creating a piece of content will be the one to promote it on social media, email, etc, there’s little reason for why they should worry about distribution.

This is another one of those things that we like to include for extra context into the campaign and to make sure that creatives always understand both the why and the how of marketing.

That said, you can technically deliver great creative work without knowing whether a blog post will be shared on Facebook or promoted through a PPC campaign.

Putting it all together

Add it all up, and you get a creative brief template that looks something like this:

• Directions on how to read the brief.
• Target keyword.
• Asset type.
• Title options (optional)
• Asset summary.
• Design recommendations.
• Topics to discuss.
• Related keywords.
• Questions to answer.
• Links to internal pages.
• KPIs (optional).
• Distribution channels (optional).

It may seem like a lot at first glance, but this guidance will help ensure that all of your content creation efforts are strategy-fueled and data-driven.

Because at the end of the day, the greatest marketing content is the content that yields the greatest results.

Dominick Sorrentino

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• How to write a creative brief

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Originally published August 10, 2018.  Updated May 21, 2024

Are you ready to finally understand what makes up an awesome creative brief and how to create your own?

In this post, we'll cover:

• Exactly what a creative brief is (and what it is not)
• Great examples of creative briefs
• Our step-by-step process for writing a creative brief

The creative brief is the foundation of any successful creative campaign . It outlines the client’s vision and ensures that everyone is on the same page. So let's get started!

Communication - including the creative brief- is the cornerstone of success for any marketing campaign. And yes, it's more important than creativity. 

As Will Burns of Ideasicle says, the creative brief is the “most sacred of all sacred ad documents.”

Everything stems from the creative brief, from the choice of font in a print ad to the overall theme of the campaign.

CREATIVE BRIEFS, EXPLAINED IN DETAIL

The creative brief is the foundation of a creative campaign. Despite its importance, it is poorly understood, mostly because of its open-ended nature.

This section will help you understand creative briefs and their purpose better.

What is a Creative Brief?

A creative brief is a short 1-2 page document outlining the strategy for a creative project.

Think of it as a map that guides its target audience—the creative team—on how to best achieve the campaign’s stated goals.

The account manager usually creates the creative brief in close consultation with the client.

It interprets the client’s ideas and vision for the brand and the product.

Since this brief is usually created by and for the agency, it is open-ended in nature. You can and should include anything and everything that will help the creative team understand the brand and product better.

Most creative briefs include the following:

• A short brand statement.
• A brief overview of the campaign’s background and objectives .
• Key challenges that the campaign aims to resolve.
• Target audience for the campaign.
• Chief competitors.
• A primary message describing the brand’s values and market positioning.
• Communication channels on which the campaign will run.

For example, here’s a creative brief for Gray’s Cookies :

Essentially, the creative brief describes the “what” of the project (i.e., its objectives) and “how” to achieve them (i.e., the creative approach).

Why Do You Need a Creative Brief?

There is a long list of reasons to create a creative brief.

The most important reason is also the simplest: it is standard agency practice.

Your clients will expect a creative brief before they sign off on a project. And your creative team will expect it before they can start working.

For better or for worse, you can’t start a campaign without it.

But there are other reasons to create a creative brief:

• Ensure that all creative messages are on-brand.
• Give the creative team a broad vision of the brand, the business, and the product.
• Offer inspiration and give your team a starting point to brainstorm ideas.
• Give third-party contributors a quick understanding of the brand and its background.
• Reduce client-creative conflict by ensuring they're on the same page
• Align the client's budget and expectations with your creative media strategy

Who Creates the Creative Brief?

Nominally, the person responsible for managing the client relationship makes the creative brief. Usually, this is the account manager or the project manager.

This person works closely with the client to understand their requirements, their current situation, and the desired future outcomes.

Actually, putting together the brief, however, isn’t a one-person job. You usually need input from a range of people, such as:

• Creative team: analyze whether the client’s vision is viable and brainstorm creative ideas.
• Marketing team: gather customer data, analyze competitors, and develop a viable media strategy.
• Accounts team: to analyze budgets .

Who is the Creative Brief Made for?

It might surprise you that the creative brief's end-user isn’t the client.

Rather, it’s the creative team.

While you’ll certainly need the client’s approval on the brief to get the go-ahead, your creative team will actually use it.

Your job, thus, is to interpret the client’s vision in such a way that it is accessible to the creative team.

This means no jargon, no fluff, and no “marketer-speak.” Create the brief so that a designer or developer can understand it.

At the same time, the creative brief is not the answer to the client’s problem; it’s a starting point to inspire your team. It should have just enough insight to challenge your team and get them to think creatively about the problem.

As one commentator points out, it’s always good to ask yourself: “Are you confident that this brief will inspire a solution to our problem?”

If the answer is a “no” or a “maybe,” it’s time to return to the drawing board.

 What Are Some Creative Brief Examples?

The best way to understand a creative brief is to see a few real-life examples.

Here’s a more creative brief for Quaker Oats . This one has an unorthodox structure, but it contains several pieces of information to help the creative team generate execution ideas. The problem is clearly stated, along with insights into the audience and the main message that the brand wants to convey for the campaign.

Here’s another example of a campaign to promote Netflix during the Covid-19 pandemic. Some of the additional pieces of information indicated here are the competitors and budget, which are also important considerations for the creative team when brainstorming for executions.

Finally, let’s look at a creative brief for Nike . This campaign addresses the rumors that Nike doesn’t treat its workers well. 

A creative brief like this provides robust guidelines for creative teams to work with so they can ensure that their output significantly contributes to the success of the business.

THE 5 COMPONENTS OF AN EFFECTIVE CREATIVE BRIEF

The creative brief doesn't look like much when it's wrapped up. It's at most 2 pages long. A good one will usually be free of jargon and marketer-speak. Many will also be visual. The effort that goes into creating this simple document, however, is immense. You have to have an acute understanding of the brand, the product, its target audience, and the message.

To write a good creative brief, you need to know five aspects of the campaign:

1. The Product

A creative campaign starts and ends with the product. After all, this is what you're tasked with selling. If you don't understand it well, you can't expect your creative team to do a good job of it.

Start by asking the client some fundamental questions about the product:

• What product are you advertising?
• What category does it belong to?
• Where is the product currently being sold? Where is it being advertised? Where will it be advertised in the future?
• What is the product's current status in the market?
• What are the product's existing brand values?
• What is the product's price point? How many variants are currently available?

Your goal is to map the product's current brand perception. This will be a combination of factors—price, quality, perceived quality, etc. Use the client's existing records, market surveys, and customer data to better understand the product and its brand. You'll use this information later when you write the creative brief.

2. The Business

The business and the product can often have a complex relationship. Sometimes, the business brand might be completely independent of the product. In most other cases, they might affect each other symbiotic.

For example, Toyota (the company) and Toyota Camry (the car) have different brand perceptions. A customer might see Toyota as "reliable" and "efficient". But he might see Camry as "unreliable" after a spate of recalls.

Business and product brand perceptions often bleed into each other. If a customer has repeated bad experiences with a product, he might associate that with the business itself. The exception is when the business is "invisible" to the customer. This usually happens with B2B brands, holding companies, etc.

For example, Luxottica manufactures several iconic eyewear brands, such as Ray-Ban and Oakley. However, the Luxottica brand itself is invisible to customers, so poor performance from one of its products is unlikely to affect its brand perception.

Your goal should be to:

• Analyze the business' brand perception.
• Understand the business relationship to the product brand.
• Map the factors affecting the business' brand perception.

In the creative brief, this information will be a core part of the campaign’s “background” section.

For example, this brief for Red Bull introduces the problem by framing it in the context of the business:

3. The Market

The 'market' is a combination of the “Three C’s”:

• Competitors, their strengths, weaknesses, market position, and media strategy .
• Context for the campaign - political, social, and technological movements.
• Category, i.e., how people see the product category.

All these have a marked influence on the campaign.

For example, Webflow, a no-code website builder, created several YouTube ads primarily targeted to individuals and businesses who own or manage websites. Its skits exaggerate the inconveniences of relying on an IT professional for minor changes, making do with slow websites and other pain points that the market may be experiencing with its competitors. 

Now, diving into context, more businesses are being built every year, and they will likely build websites. Webflow provides a solution that would enable more people to create efficient and aesthetically pleasing pages for their ventures.

Source: Commerce Institute

Finally, evaluating the website development category, website creation is often perceived to be intimidating and highly technical. Webflow’s ads aim to change that perception by enforcing that their platform can be easily utilized even if the user can’t write a single line of code.

When crafting a creative campaign, your goal should be to analyze the following aspects of the market:

Competitors:

• What are the products and the brand's chief competitors? What is their market share compared to the product?
• What is the competition's marketing strategy? Where do they advertise?
• What kind of messaging and tone does the competition use?
• What kind of customers buy the competitor's products?
• How does the market currently see the product or its category?
• Is there a cultural moment you can tap into to promote the product?
• What cultural values, ideas, or events can you align the product with?
• How is the economy doing? Is it a time for optimism? Or are people concerned with saving?

In business, marketing, and advertising, there is an adage called “riding the wave,” which also means maximizing opportunities to further your goals and objectives. For example, in 2022, the first teaser trailer for Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie was released. Several brands from across industries rode its hype train until its release in July 2023. 

Xbox Barbie Dreamhouse Console and Controllers (Source: PCGamer )

Bumble’s Barbie-Themed Compliments to Spark Conversations (Source: Mashable )

Google, Bumble, Airbnb, Burger King, Xbox, and more created Barbie-themed versions of their products, leveraging the traction of the world’s most-loved doll and helping the movie gain even more attention. This brilliant marketing resulted in the Barbie movie becoming one of the top-grossing films of all time.  

• How do people perceive this product category? What factors affect this perception?
• Is there a change in people’s perception of the category? Is this change positive or negative? What is leading this change?
• Are there any category conventions you can use in the campaign?

From a viral video of a woman’s Stanley Cup surviving a car fire (and retaining the ice cubes inside) and a series of celebrity, influencer, and brand collaborations, Stanley Cups, which was primarily targeted at outdoor enthusiasts and blue-collar workers, became a social media cult favorite. From simply being functional insulated mugs, the company managed to transform the perception of their product into something connected to social cohesion and belonging. This built a desire for their product among many TikTok and social media consumers. 

From annual sales of $75 million a year, this change in perception catapulted Stanley’s classic Quencher tumbler to generating over $750 million in 2023. 

4. The Customers

Your customers are important, more so than anything else on this list.

( Image source )

Writing a creative brief requires a deep understanding of the target audience and its wants, desires, and tastes.

To do this, start by describing the following:

• Demographics data (age, sex, income, marital status).
• Psychographics data (interests, aspirations, lifestyles, habits).
• What they think about the product and the brand right now ("boring", "fun", "not for me", etc.).
• What you want them to think about the brand ("change perception", "shift frame of reference", etc.).
• Frustrations, aspirations, life needs, and shared beliefs you can tap into.
• The purpose of all this data is to find a trigger that will motivate them. This trigger should align with the campaign's objectives.

For example, to promote their Black Friday sale in 2023, Walmart released a Mean Girls-themed ad, which coincided with the hype for the new Mean Girls movie.

Aside from riding the wave of the movie’s release, this ad is successful because of several reasons:

• Nostalgia in millennials: Including the original cast of mean girls in the ad caught the attention of millennials, who are some of the most crucial demographic for Black Friday sales to be successful
• Hip brand perception: Walmart has been falling behind Target when it comes to having a youthful perception and has often become the subject of memes. Collaborating with Mean Girls is a good initiative to sway its current brand perception slowly

Source: Imgflip

5. The Campaign

Every campaign has a specific goal, message, and audience. It's not uncommon for brands to run several campaigns simultaneously with different messages. Your job is to understand the goals of your campaign and find a way to achieve them—that is, to define the campaign's strategy and approach.

To do this, answer the following questions:

• What is this campaign trying to do? Increase awareness? Increase traffic? Get more shares? Be as specific as possible.
• What customer action would make the campaign "successful"? Would you fill out a form? Click a link? Call the business?
• What specific challenge is the campaign trying to address? State this in a single sentence. For example, "We want to advertise new features to get more trials."
• What is your media strategy? Where will the campaign run?
• What is the chief message for the entire campaign?

Your goal is to find the "driving idea" for the campaign and where to run it.

For example, Stanley Cups leveraged social media influencers. So, from being functional insulated cups, the perception was changed to the Quencher being a symbol of coolness and belonging. 

Source: Stanley_brand Instagram

Stanley’s social media content features aesthetic lifestyle images that attract empowered and carefree women across different age groups.

Writing creative briefs for successful campaigns might seem like a lot of research - and it is - but it is crucial. Your briefs will be off-brand without understanding the campaign, customers, and product. And if the brief is off-brand, the results will suffer. This is why I recommend getting input from several people. Ask your marketers for data and your creative team for ideas. The more information you have, the better the final brief.

In the next section, I’ll walk you through the actual process of writing a creative brief.

HOW TO WRITE A CREATIVE BRIEF

Creative briefs don't have a fixed format. That said, if you need a template, we’ve got you covered. You can download free creative brief templates HERE - or read on to learn how to build your own. Most agencies have their own templates. Some have a simple text document, while others use more visual designs.

Regardless of its format, your creative brief must revolve around the five elements we covered earlier.

To write the creative brief, use the following template:

1. The Project

Start your creative brief by writing a broad overview of the project. Establish the client's identity, talk about the product, and list the campaign's goals.

2. Key Challenge

Every campaign has a key challenge. This is the "what" of the project.

Describe this challenge in a few short sentences.

You might have something like this:

• "[Client] wants to leverage a new feature to get new trials."
• "[Client] wants to reposition the product so a new user will consider it."
• "[Client] wants existing users to consume more of the product."

For example, here’s the key challenge in the Quaker Oats creative brief I shared earlier:

 3. Purpose of Communication

A successful campaign needs a clear and distinct purpose. This purpose should ideally be trackable and measurable and tied to the key challenge you described above.

Use this section to describe the action you want to inspire in your customers.

Try something like this:

• "[Client] wants to increase awareness of [Product]'s new feature."
• "[Client] wants to change opinion about [Product category]."
• "[Client] wants to mobilize existing customers of [Product] to visit its website."

4. Competitors

As we learned above, the client's competitors have a big impact on the campaign. Use this section to describe the key competitors and their media strategies briefly.

Some things you can include about the competition here are:

• Market share
• Media strategy
• SWOT analysis

5. Target Audience

Refer to the audience research you did earlier to describe the following:

• Demographics
• Psychographics
• Current perception/belief about the brand
• Target perception/belief about the brand
• Approach for motivating them to take action

6. Background or Context

Briefly describe the background and context of the campaign. Include specific details for the following:

• Cultural context, i.e., current events and ideas you could leverage to achieve campaign goals.
• Category context, i.e., how customers currently see the product category and how you can change it.
• Brand context, i.e., how customers currently see the product and its brand.

For example, this creative brief for TOMS shoes gives readers a detailed overview of the company’s background and its customers’ aspirations:

7. Tone and Brand Voice

Use adjectives to describe the tone, brand voice, and key qualities you want customers to associate with the:

• Product ("fun, reliable, efficient")
• Brand ("mature, trustworthy, cost-effective")

8. Media Strategy

Briefly describe how you plan to spread the message. Include the following

• Channel(s) you'll use for the promotion.
• Why this channel will help you reach your target audience.
• How can you use the channel's own form and audience expectations to make the idea more shareable (such as adding "tag a friend" on Facebook)?

Include details about the estimated budget for the campaign. If possible, break down budget requirements by creative type and promotion.

10. Chief Message

This is the "driving idea" behind the campaign. Usually, it's a short, pithy statement that condenses the campaign into a slogan.

Think of something like this from Reebok:

Or this one from PayPal:

One way to write a better creative brief is to create a press release that you might send to journalists at the end of the campaign. You don’t have to actually use it, but it helps you consider the campaign’s goals and the approach you used to achieve them.

These are only guidelines, of course. You can change the creative brief according to your requirements. As long as your creative team understands it, you are free to include or exclude anything you want.

Workamajig has built-in support for creative briefs to make the process seamless, and of course, these can be customized according to your needs. 

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Free creative brief templates.

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How to write an inspiring creative brief

A strong creative brief outlines the problem to solve and the path to get there. It gives your team the ingredients to do their most creative work without prescribing the solution.

Read our step-by-step guide on how to write a creative brief

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