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.
All fields are required.
.png)
Click this link to access this resource at any time.
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.
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.
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:
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:
Three customizable templates designed to serve as the blueprint for your next campaign.
