i remember taking one of my creative briefs to a senior team and they tore it to shreds they said all i'd done is written a shorter version of the client brief well i never made that mistake again and in this video i'm going to take you through what goes into a creative breed and how to write one that leads to better ideas and improves your relationship with the creatives so what is a creative brief the creative brief is a document that acts as a bridge between the client's problem and the creative idea a good creative brief does two things provides direction and inspiration it captures the strategy which is the approach you're going to take to solve the client's problems it outlines the role advertising must play to achieve the client's objectives marking the end of the strategic process and the beginning of the creative process usually a creative brief follows this process through an agency one it starts with a client brief which outlines the objectives the problem or opportunity and practical things like budget and timings too the planner conducts additional research to inform the strategy like consumer groups or competitive analysis this helps uncover an insight or a new way to solve the problem three a strategic response back to the client shows how you'll solve the problem and ensures they're aligned to the approach before you brief a creative team four the planner develops a credit brief a summary of the agreed strategy and then the last part a creative briefing where the creative team are taken through the brief and the creative concepting phase begins so what goes into a creative brief every agency has their own template but all good briefs usually have the following the background on the problem or opportunity giving context like a new product launch or a competitor who's stealing market share the objectives on how the client will measure the success of the campaign such as lifts in consideration or visits to the website the target audience we're speaking to and what we know about them this might include what they're currently thinking feeling and doing and what we want them to think feel or do the strategy how we are going to change the desired behavior the single minor proposition the one sentence which captures the single most important message consumers will take away from the campaign the brand positioning including the brand platform brand personality and a link to the style guide practical things like the creative and production budget media channels if already booked when the campaign will go live when the client presentation is so how do you write a great creative brief assuming your strategy is a good one here's my four tips right for your audience the audience for a creative brief is the creative team not your client don't use jargon and don't talk like a marketer include things which help the creative team solve the problem or watch outs they should avoid like things the client doesn't like or legal issues to stay away from two keep it brief david ogilvy said give me the liberty of a tight brief it's right there in the name brief only include what's important write short briefs with long appendixes if you need three tell a story each box on the brief should connect to the next don't put in everything to show how smart you are instead find a narrative that tells the story of your strategy four the brief is not the same as the briefing the brief acts as a social contract between you and the creatives and must always be written down so everyone has something to fall back on including the client but your job as a planner is also to get the creative team excited if you're briefing a beer campaign take the creative team to the pub play a podcast that talks about the problem in an interesting way or bring in someone from the target audience creatives get dozens of briefs a year make sure your briefing's the most interesting for examples of great creative briefs a copy of my creative brief templates or lessons on writing the get who to buy summary check out the strategy finishing school thanks to zach martin for helping to create this video as well