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Learning how to write a creative brief might sound tedious, but it’s one of the most important aspects of creative collaboration. If you want to jump ahead and learn more about what a creative brief is, click here. If you want to understand the relationship between writing a brief and a finished project, follow us for a moment.
We’re all familiar with Italy’s Tower of Pisa. Did you know that a faulty foundation on soft ground resulted in the tower beginning its famous “lean” during the construction phase? The higher they built the tower, the more egregious the problems became.
This phenomenon isn’t limited to ancient structures. San Francisco’s tallest residential building, the Millenium Tower, was constructed in 2009 and has been sinking ever since. What’s making this $350 million dollar luxury property tilt like a modern-day Tower of Pisa? Once again, the culprit is an inadequate foundation on unstable ground.
When a project is fundamentally flawed from the onset, there is little you can do to correct it. You can add band-aids, such as the braces that were used in the past to limit the Tower of Pisa’s tilting. But the issues will likely persist, and you’ll never be able to get back the time and effort dedicated to your salvage mission.
Creative briefs are the foundation of every project. When your creative leadership is committed to putting in the resources to create strong briefs, you’ll experience more efficient timelines and better results. Problems might still arise, but they can be realigned thanks to the stability provided by the brief, rather than exacerbated by its fragility.
Creative briefs are one of the most effective tools available for creative management and keeping projects organized. More than just a set of instructions, they’re the measuring stick upon which all aspects of a project are evaluated. Here’s our full definition:
A creative brief is a concise document that outlines the key elements of a creative project. It defines the project's objectives, target audience, key messages, desired outcomes, and more, ensuring alignment among designers, writers, marketing teams, and clients. It helps creative professionals navigate the creative process, aligning the visions of both the client and the creative team.
Here are some reasons why many businesses use creative briefs:
The good news is that once you’ve developed an effective creative brief template, you can use it for all your briefs moving forward.
You typically need a creative brief when starting a project that requires creative input from multiple parties. Here is a list of projects that might require creative briefs:
There has long been debate regarding the amount of detail to include when writing a brief. Some people in creative leadership favor multipage tomes, while others promote the power of a two-paragraph brief.
When it comes to detail, we recommend erring on the side of precision rather than abundance.
Even when team members have questions regarding a lean brief, they can be addressed with productive conversations. The more conversations and professional boundaries you set throughout the process, the better the results. So, if your brief serves as a catalyst for a few chats, then it has served its purpose.
Too much detail, on the other hand, floods the brief and dilutes the essential points. After all, it’s difficult to identify a single-minded proposition or key objective in a 600-word brief.
Everyone who will be involved with the project should be involved in writing a brief too. This could include project managers, producers, program managers, account managers, designers, strategists, copywriters, graphic designers, and videographers.
The level of collaboration can take a few different forms:
What matters is that those who will be involved in the project have a chance to weigh in before the creative brief is set in stone. Presenting the brief cold turkey makes for less effective dialogue and can potentially leave people feeling disconnected from the project.
To write a creative brief, you need to keep information clear, objectives strong, and collaboration solid. Here are the elements you’ll need:
To ensure everyone is on the same page, your creative brief must, at minimum, contain the Five Journalistic Ws. These questions have been used for centuries to capture the core details of a story. They are:
Some readers might think the question “How?” is missing from this list. But, the “How?” of a creative brief comes when your team uses creative problem-solving to complete the project. The brief doesn’t tell creative teams how to solve the problem at hand, but instead gives them everything they need for them to come up with an innovative “How?”
This is your chance to provide context and background info for your team. Here’s what you should include about your problem so your team of creative experts can come up with a solution:
Begin by stating the issue in the simplest terms possible. Avoid industry jargon that might cloud understanding. You should aim to make the problem as accessible as possible to everyone involved in the project.
Give background information to help your team understand how the problem has evolved. This might include market trends, previous attempts to solve the issue, and any internal or external factors contributing to the problem.
Detail how this problem affects your business or target audience. Understanding the problem's impact can ignite a sense of urgency and purpose, driving the creative team to invest fully in finding a solution.
Every exceptional project is tailored to a specific group of people. In this section, you’ll describe the target audience and share insights that will make it easier for your creative team to come up with solutions that resonate. Here are a few examples:
In the creative brief, include what your project aims to achieve. This is the driving force behind all creative endeavors and ensures that the team's efforts are focused and aligned toward a common goal. Here’s how to effectively communicate the objective in your creative brief:
Objectives should be clear and concise, with measurable outcomes. Instead of saying "increase brand awareness," specify "increase brand awareness by 20% among the target demographic within the next quarter." This clarity provides a tangible target for the team to aim for.
The objective should focus on what you want to accomplish as a result of the project, whether it's driving sales, generating leads, improving customer satisfaction, or enhancing brand perception. Keep the focus on the end result rather than the process of getting there.
In short, a single-minded proposition (SMP) is a distilled, compelling core message that encapsulates the essence of a brand, campaign, project, or product in a way that is both unique and persuasive.
In truth, it’s the one thing you want your audience to internalize. It’s the message that gets straight to the heart of the entire project or campaign.
You’re probably asking “How is a single-minded proposition different from a tagline, slogan, or mission statement?”
The answer is, they’re not different.
Each of these examples fits within the category of a single-minded proposition. They support the core message of a brand while being distinct from everything else out there.
If you don’t have an SMP yet, realize that coming up with one can be a part of the creative execution. Not every brand will have one from the jump: they may only have an idea of why their customers choose them over competitors—which is the first step in distilling your SMP.
This is where you can include the most relevant information about the project when writing a brief, including:
It’s crucial to establish decision-makers early on. This includes who on the client side will manage approvals, who on your team will manage communication, who will be leading the creative team, who will be dealing with feedback from the client, and which members of your team will be working hands-on with the project.
Finally, you need to make your brief actionable by including a timeline. It’s important to update the brief to reflect the start date, various milestones throughout, and the final due date.
If you’re unsure which of these sections are most important for your team, start by talking with them. Ask what information they need to make their jobs easier and which sections would only cause confusion.
For a small internal team, a creative brief might only be half a sheet of paper long. However, the brief for a multi-team project would likely require more real estate to hold all the necessary details and analysis.
Here is a creative brief example for a hypothetical client, Sollumnia Technologies, a groundbreaking company specializing in solar-powered lighting solutions.
This creative brief includes everything Sollumnia’s creative team needs to get started, including the background of the problem down to the specs for the project.
If you like that creative brief example, here is a sample creative brief you can use for your own projects.
Now that you’ve seen a couple of creative brief examples and have a clearer sense of the purpose of these documents, it’s time to begin writing a brief for yourself. Be sure to collaborate with your team on the creative brief as they’ll be able to offer insights you never would’ve otherwise considered.
If you need a platform that makes creative brief collaboration easy, you can use Punchlist!
Punchlist is a creative collaboration tool that streamlines feedback, revisions, and the QA process. Just upload your creative brief and invite your team to leave their thoughts.
You’ll get all of their feedback in one place so you don’t have to go searching through dozens of different Slack threads and email chains.
To get started, sign up for a 30-day free trial. If you don’t like it, that’s fine.
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