The Creative Brief That Actually Works
A great creative brief is the most underrated competitive advantage in marketing. Here's the exact template we use at Blastoff.
A bad creative brief is a waste of everyone's time. It's vague, it's long, and it gives the creative team so much room to interpret that they end up making something that pleases no one.
A great creative brief is a precision instrument. It gives the creative team everything they need and nothing they don't.
Here's the exact template we use at Blastoff for every project.
The One-Sentence Brief
Before anything else, we write one sentence: "We're making [thing] for [person] so they feel [emotion] and do [action]."
If you can't write that sentence, you're not ready to brief yet.
The 5 Non-Negotiables
- 1The single message: What is the one thing this piece of creative must communicate? Not three things. One.
- 2The audience truth: What does your target customer believe right now that you need to change, reinforce, or redirect?
- 3The proof point: What specific, credible evidence supports your message?
- 4The tone: Three adjectives. If you can't limit it to three, you don't have clarity yet.
- 5The success metric: How will you know this creative worked? Be specific.
What to Leave Out
Leave out the company history. Leave out the brand guidelines (send those separately). Leave out the long list of "must-haves." The more constraints you put in a brief, the less creative room you leave, and the more generic the output.