What should a creative brief include?

A creative brief should include the business objective, the audience, one core message, the proof that makes that message true, the tone, the mandatories, the deliverables, the budget and timing, and how the work will be judged and approved. Keep it to a page or two. If a line can't be checked, it shouldn't be in the brief.

The ten parts of a creative brief

1. Background. Two or three sentences on why this work exists now.
2. Objective. What should change, in business terms. "Increase trial among first-time buyers," not "raise awareness".
3. Audience. Who, specifically, and what they currently think or do. One primary audience is better than four.
4. Insight. The tension or truth about that audience the work will use.
5. The single message. One thing the audience should take away. If there are three, there is no brief yet.
6. Proof. The facts that make the message true: product features, data, guarantees, reviews. Every claim here should be one you could defend.
7. Tone. How it should feel, with a reference or two.
8. Mandatories. Logo, legal lines, brand codes, accessibility requirements, things to avoid.
9. Deliverables, budget and timing. Formats, channels, sizes, dates and the money available.
10. Measures and approval. How success will be judged, and who signs off on what.

The parts most briefs skip

Proof. The most common brief failure is a message the product can't support. The team writes "the most sustainable", nobody asks for the evidence, and the line reaches a customer, a regulator or a journalist before anyone checks. Put the proof in the brief, next to the claim, so the approver has something to check against.

Approval. "Who approved this?" is the question asked after a post goes wrong. A brief that names the approver and the questions every asset is checked against makes it answerable before the post goes out.

What is missing. If you don't know the price, the margin or the customer acquisition cost yet, say so in the brief. A blank is honest. An invented number gets repeated.

How to write one quickly

• Start from the objective and the audience, not the idea. The idea comes after.
• Write the single message last. It should fall out of the insight and the proof.
• Cut every adjective you can't support.
• Read it as the designer will. Could they shoot, design or write from it without calling you?

Creative brief vs design brief

A creative brief sets the strategy and the message for a piece of work. A design brief is narrower: what a designer needs to make the thing, including codes, type, colour, format and references. Many teams need both, and the design brief should follow from the creative brief, not replace it.

Where Brandium fits

Brandium is a brand strategy desk: creative first, capital after. It is built to produce a brief a designer can actually work from.

• Build the world. Brandium works from what you actually said and leaves you with a world, codes, a designer brief and a mock of the page. Not a hosted live site.
• Missing numbers stay blank. It will not invent a category, a customer, a price, an LTV or a CAC you did not give it.
• Campaign plans a territory, a sequence and at least three distinct concepts, not three tints of one idea. That is a campaign you can brief a team with, not permission to spend.
• Model works from costs you type. Empty boxes stay empty.
• Review, then Decide. You leave with GO, CONDITIONAL GO, NO-GO or insufficient data. Missing LTV or CAC is insufficient data.
• Nothing goes live from Brandium. It mocks pages on the desk; it does not host or publish them.

Write your next brief on the desk: 150 free credits, no card.

FAQ

How long should a creative brief be? One or two pages. Long enough to state the objective, audience, message, proof and constraints; short enough that the team reads all of it.

Who writes the creative brief? Usually the strategist, account lead or marketing owner, agreed with whoever approves the work. The creative team should be able to question it before work starts.

Why is a creative brief important? It gives the team one agreed objective and message, and gives the approver something to check the work against, including whether its claims are true.