Craft

What a creative brief actually contains

A brief is useful when someone can start work from it without a second meeting to decode it. Many documents that are labelled "brief" do not reach that point.

Two documents often share a name. A client brief records what the advertiser wants: the product or service, a business problem, a budget range, a deadline, and any legal or brand limits that already exist. A creative brief is written from that material for the people who will make the work. It is shorter. It states the audience, the job the work has to do, and a single proposition the work should leave behind.

A usable creative brief usually includes some version of the following, in language that can be read aloud:

• Background, limited to what changes the assignment. A company history is rarely useful here.
• The audience, described by situation and current behaviour, rather than by age range alone.
• The problem in the market, written as something the work can affect. "Raise awareness" is a hope, not a problem.
• One proposition. If the brief lists four, the work will usually try to carry all four and become vague.
• Mandatories: legal lines, logos, offers that must appear, and media formats that are already booked.
• A timeline that names the first review, the final artwork date, and the first insertion or ship date.

A brief that only restates a slogan, or that buries the proposition under a long brand manifesto, is hard to use. A practical test is simple. Can a writer draft a first headline from the proposition and the audience as written? If the answer is no, the brief still needs work.

This article does not reprint anyone's confidential brief. The list above is a skeleton for reading the document in front of you, not a claim about a particular campaign.