creative-brief

Creative Brief (what must be fixed before creative work starts)

The brief fixes decisions, not craft

A brief locks what creatives must not have to guess and leaves everything else open. Prescribe the execution and it is a script; leave the message open and it is a wish list. Nine things must be settled before anyone opens a design file:

1 Objective         the business change wanted + the KPI that proves it moved
2 Audience          who, behaviourally — not demographics alone
3 Insight           the tension in that audience's life the work speaks to
4 Single message    ONE proposition, one sentence, per asset
5 Reason to believe the evidence that makes the message credible
6 Mandatories       logo, legal, claims, disclaimers, brand and platform rules
7 Deliverables      exact list: format, ratio, duration, language, placement, master + cutdowns
8 Timeline          briefing, review dates, capped revision rounds, final handover
9 Budget + approval production budget, one named decision-maker, sign-off order

Everything else is the creative team's territory: a brief that also supplies the headline, palette and shot list has replaced the work it commissioned. The brief states problem and constraints; the script or storyboard is one proposed answer to it, authored by the creative side and judged against the brief. Keep them in separate documents — merged, every review argues execution and the strategy is never tested.

One message per asset

Messages compete for the same few seconds. Two propositions in one film do not double recall; they split it and usually leave neither. Five stakeholder messages means five assets or a ranked funnel sequence, not one crowded film. Write it as a plain declarative sentence a stranger could repeat after one viewing.

Writing the insight

An insight is not a fact, a feature, or a restatement of the target — it is a tension the product can resolve. Test it: does the audience recognise itself, and does the product genuinely answer it? Source from research, reviews, support tickets, playtests or sales calls, and cite each source.