creative brief presentation examples

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The complete guide to writing creative briefs

Just like any other task, creative work deserves a clear plan and measurable goals before work begins. That’s where a creative brief comes in. Developing a creative brief allows you to take a proactive approach and outline requirements while planning out your creative work. Among other important elements, your creative brief is your opportunity to define the scope, deadlines, and deliverables specific to the creative part of your project.

Overall, a creative brief helps keep everyone on the same page—reducing feelings of frustration or confusion—while making sure no part of the design process is bottlenecked.

What is a creative brief?

A creative brief is used to define any relevant creative requirements, including messaging, audience, and outlining how success will be measured. Once the brief is created, plan to host a  kickoff meeting  to discuss conflicts or restrictions. That way, you have time to revise and update your creative brief before the work begins.

Remember this—creative briefs aren’t meant to be written and then left stagnant. Before your work begins, your creative brief should be an ever-evolving document that may change as the creative requirements continue to be scoped or tweaked. However, by the time the work starts, your creative brief should be a  clear plan  and have specific goals that your design, content, and creative teams can refer back to throughout the process, making sure everyone is aligned and making the right decisions.

Essential elements of a creative brief

Understanding what a creative brief is and why you need one is important. However, knowing what to actually put in one will save you significant time and reduce back and forths with your creative team. You can avoid having to circle back to questions and conflicts down the road by putting the appropriate information in your creative brief up front.

Take a look at these “must-haves” for every creative brief. Whether you’re planning a marketing campaign, writing a creative brief for an advertising agency, or preparing a creative brief for your internal team, these nine steps will help you clarify the key information your team needs for success. Keep in mind that your brief may contain more elements—and you can certainly add them as they relate to your work—but the criteria mentioned below should be part of nearly every creative brief.

Title and description

Goals and objectives, messaging and tone, assets and deliverables.

Stakeholders

Distribution process

First, give your creative brief a title. Provide a short description of the creative work so team members understand why they are a part of it. Let them know the intention of the creative work.

Title:  Advertising campaign for new product launch

Description:  As we prepare to launch Apollo Enterprises newest product, we’ll be putting together a series of advertisements to introduce it to the market.

Why are you working on this? At this point in your creative brief, you want to define the specific business need and what the work will accomplish. What does success look like for this particular body of work? As you’re writing down your goals, make sure they are measurable. At the end of the project, you’ll want to look back on them and clearly know if you’ve met your objectives.

Goals and objectives:  Reach 500,000 potential customers via paid search over a one-month period and add 5,000 new subscribers to our email list.

Outlining your target audience will help better tailor your creative to them. Look for specific insights, as those become your gems of valuable information. Get clear on who will be consuming your deliverable (video, ad, etc.). Try your best to define what that person looks like by outlining demographics such as age, gender, income level, marital status, or education level.

Also note what your audience values, along with their interests, wants, and needs. State if you’re trying to reach current customers or potential ones. Answering as many questions as possible about what your audience looks like will help you and your team along the way.

Audience:  Men, 30-65, mid-high income, at least a high school diploma. They value time outdoors, working with their hands, tools, and gadgets. They’re not current Apollo Enterprises’ customers.

Now that you know who your audience is, you need to clearly establish what messaging you want to put in front of them. Also, when your target market receives that message, what should they think, feel, want, and do? Are you asking them to take an action?

If you already have brand guidelines be sure to include them in your creative brief, or direct stakeholders on where to find them. Following brand guidelines ensures the tone and voice of your messaging matches that of your overall brand, and keeps your messaging consistent across marketing initiatives.

If you don’t have established brand guidelines, work with the right team members to put together some information about the tone and voice that this particular creative work should follow. Think of your message as a person. It should have a voice (a personality) and a tone (a mood or attitude).

Messaging and tone:  We want to empower our audience to be creators and use Apollo Enterprises’ new product as part of their most valued suite of tools. We should celebrate the target audience for working with their hands and make them feel proud of their creations.

Since your team’s work will produce some sort of creative asset (or many), this part of your brief should describe what those assets and deliverables are. For example, if you’re creating an advertisement, the final deliverable would be the actual ad. Make sure you specify asset requirements such as dimensions, number of versions, and design elements.

Assets and deliverables:  Three different advertisements, each with a different tagline and image (one version for each of the following sizes: 250x250, 728x90, 120x600).

Creative work usually requires cross-functional  team collaboration . Marketing and design are almost always involved, and oftentimes other departments will also play a part. This means several individuals from different teams working together on the same desired outcome.

This is why it’s so important to identify all important stakeholders upfront. Each team member should know who is involved and what they’re responsible for. You’ll save yourself a lot of time fielding questions down the line if you add this to your creative brief.

Stakeholders:

Creative team: Larry (ad copy), Emma (ad design)

Marketing team: Hannah (team lead), Caleb (email marketing setup for campaign), Terry (ad distribution)

Product team: Zach (Product Manager)

Establishing your budget from the start will help you actually stay in line financially and guide your decision-making. Be sure you write down actual numbers and identify costs where you can. Conducting some quick research ahead of time will help. Are there ways you can cut some costs? Giving yourself some time to play with the numbers before you even begin the work will keep you in good graces with your boss!

Budget:  The overall budget is $8,000 with $5,000 going to ad spend, $1,500 to design, and $1,500 to copywriting.

Establishing a  timeline for your work  early on will keep you and your team on track. Decide on a start date and end date, and then fill in as many important dates as you can in between. Knowing the important deadlines from the beginning gives all stakeholders an idea of how long their part of the work will take. They can plan accordingly and let you know of any conflicts. Be as specific as you can with dates and deadlines, and keep in mind that adjustments may need to be made as the work progresses.

Kickoff meeting: May 5

Final creative brief due: May 10

Ad copy due: May 30

Ad designs due: June 10

Ad buy plans due: June 15

Ads are live: July 1 - July 31

Measure ad success: Ongoing

Wrap-up: August 15

Identifying how your media assets will actually get to your audience is a part of your creative brief that can’t be skipped. All the hard work you put into every other step of your creative process culminates with an effective distribution strategy. In other words, how will you communicate your message? Social media, email, blog posts, and paid advertisements are just a few ways to distribute your media.

Distribution process:  Google Adwords platform to deploy ads.

Creative brief example

Seeing examples of what great creative briefs actually look like can help you formulate your own. Check out this stellar example and pay close attention to the details. You can tell that the project manager took time and thought to develop this creative brief, and help their team work together smoothly.

Creative brief template

Get started with this creative brief template to outline your campaign goals, creative deliverables, due date, marketing strategy, and more.

Title and description:

A clear name that your stakeholders can easily identify, and a short summary that conveys the intention of your creative brief.

Goals and objectives:

Define the metrics of success for your creative brief.

Who are you targeting in your campaign and what are their values, interests, and needs? This section should include any relevant demographics.

Messaging and tone:

What type of tone are you trying to strike? How do you want your audience to feel when they see your creative assets?

Assets and deliverables:

Asset and deliverable 1

Asset and deliverable 2

Asset and deliverable 3

Stakeholder 1

Stakeholder 2

Stakeholder 3

What is your overall budget? Are there any specific details to how the budget should be spent?

Date:  Description

Date: Description

Distribution process:

Specify how you will reach your audience once your assets and deliverables are ready.

Using a creative brief when working with agencies

Sometimes internal stakeholders aren’t the only people you’ll be collaborating with on creative work. Companies may choose to hire an agency to help. If you find yourself  working with an agency , here’s how you can use a creative brief to make the most out of the partnership.

Make your creative brief a starting point

When you deliver the creative brief to your agency contacts, take the opportunity to discuss your goals with them and refine the creative brief if necessary. Ask for their input. They are there to help and getting their buy-in will make every part of the overall process easier. Allow your agency partners to educate you on what will work and what won’t.

Create a robust final version of your creative brief

The more valuable information you put it in, the less questions will come your way later. And, remember, while the agency is a partner of yours, they are working with other companies as well. Giving them as much information as you can will make you and your creative brief stick out (in a good way). For example, you’ll want to include any applicable style guides, tone of voice recommendations, relevant internal messaging information, and any brand guidelines the agency should keep in mind while working.

Be open to change

Creative work moves quickly, and some project leaders make the mistake of thinking their creative brief has to be rigid in order to support fast-moving teams. In reality it’s a living document. Until you start executing on the work, it should always be open to conversations and edits.

Write your best creative brief

You’re feeling good, right? Hopefully developing your own creative brief doesn’t seem so daunting after all and you’re ready to get moving on building your next one. After you’ve written your creative brief, manage the next steps in your creative process in a work management tool, like  Asana . Not only will it help keep you organized—it will actually help you run the show.

Build a creative brief that makes your life (and those of your stakeholders) easier to execute your creative work successfully.

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How to Write a Creative Brief with Examples and Templates

By Joe Weller | March 5, 2024

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A  creative brief  is a roadmap for teams planning a marketing or advertising campaign, including the objectives, deliverables, and target audience. Strong creative briefs keep team members and external stakeholders aligned as the campaign develops.

  Inside this article, you’ll discover how to write a creative brief , the main elements to include, and downloadable example briefs and templates . Plus, you’ll learn how to use generative AI to help draft a creative brief .

Main Elements of a Creative Brief

Creative briefs should include sections detailing the campaign’s goals, deliverables, style, and target audience. The brief will also have information about the brand and competition in the marketplace.

A project manager for the team requesting the content or a  member of the marketing or advertising team will write a creative brief. The specific sections of a creative brief might vary depending on the project and its stakeholders, but keep these eight main elements in mind:  

• Brand Identity and Project Overview: The first section of the creative brief provides relevant background information about the brand’s mission and the campaign’s purpose, whether it is responding to pain points or advertising a new product. Summarizing these key details at the outset gives the creative team a focused direction and ensures the campaign fits into the overarching brand identity. 
• Objectives:  Clearly define goals and be sure to link them to  key performance indicators (KPIs) . Using  SMART  (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound) goals when crafting objectives help you focus on the project and key metrics. 
• Competitive Analysis: Reviewing examples of recent campaigns from rival brands is a valuable strategy when seeking insight for a creative brief. Analyzing competitors’ strengths and weaknesses sheds light on what resonates with consumers and how to make a campaign stand out in the market.
• Target Audience:  Creative briefs should boil down which segment of the brand’s audience the campaign will target. Specific demographic profiles help the creative team understand customer behaviors and deliver the most effective and appealing assets.
• Tone and Style:  Whether defining a personality, listing adjectives that correspond with the core message, or designating a color palette, the creative brief clarifies the attitude and visual identity of the campaign. Designers need direction on the desired voice and style to ensure a unified final project that speaks to the target audience.
• Content Format and Deliverables:  Every creative brief must outline the specific content that the creative team needs to produce, such as social media assets, print advertisements, graphics, video content, online copy, or other elements of the campaign strategy. Include any format requirements or other specifications, so that the creative team can align their output with the campaign objectives.
• Timeline and Budget:  Stipulating key deadlines, checkpoints, and budget requirements enables the creative team to deliver on target. This information is crucial when working with external agencies, for whom the brief can function like a contract. Concrete schedule parameters give project managers details that they can follow up, warding off scope creep. Learn  how to manage scope creep  and keep projects on track.
• Stakeholders:  Briefs should include the contact details and roles for all the team members who will be involved in the project. Establishing individual responsibilities and review processes ensures internal and external stakeholders can communicate seamlessly throughout the process.

How to Write a Creative Brief

Writing a creative brief starts with gathering the information that will guide a campaign’s direction. Begin with a focused overview of the project and include concrete details on your objectives, audience, and deliverables.

A strong creative brief is clear, specific, and short. Think of it as a blueprint to inspire creativity and keep your team on track from ideation through delivery and execution. Consider using  creative brief templates  to save time and maintain consistency across multiple projects.  For branding campaigns or launches, a more specialized  brand brief  might be necessary. 

1. Gather Information and Resources  

Before you start writing, do the prep work for your brief. This might include researching competitors, analyzing pain points, meeting with stakeholders, and referencing past campaigns. Use this information to finalize your core message, target audience, and objectives.  

Once you have a clear idea of the campaign, gather the necessary supporting documents. Compile links to important resources, such as a brand style guide, digital asset library, and any example content for the creative team to reference.  

2. Decide What to Include  

The details of the campaign, stakeholders, and objectives will determine which elements of the creative brief are necessary. For example, internal team members might not need comprehensive information about your brand mission. Or you might include a budget for advertising campaigns, but not for designing a new website banner.

Keep in mind that the creative brief should be concise and focus on the creative direction of the campaign. If you need to determine a comprehensive marketing and distribution strategy, consider completing a  marketing strategy brief first.   

3. Name the Campaign and Write an Overview   

Naming the project is a simple first step to streamline communication. The campaign name should point to its core message — the idea, consumer benefit, or call to action (CTA) — the creative team needs to get across with their assets.  

Start by writing an overview that defines the core message in a few sentences. Consider including relevant brand identity aspects or drafting a short section with brand and product background. Establish why you are launching this campaign, the opportunities or challenges, and the takeaways for your audience. 

“For example, in our creative brief for a new rug collection launch, we highlighted our rugs’ unique designs inspired by Southwestern traditions and their high-quality sustainable materials. Conveying these key points up front allows designers and copywriters to center their creativity around the communication of these distinguishing factors,” offers  Connor Butterworth , CEO and Owner of  Southwestern Rugs Depot . 

4. Set Clear Objectives

Highlight one or two goals for the campaign that align with its core message. Be sure to define the KPIs you will use to measure success. Common campaign objectives include boosting engagement, increasing conversions, and communicating a specific call to action or desired consumer behavior.   

5. Analyze the Competition

Survey the competitive landscape for real-world models. Focus on a few major competitors and provide examples of their recent campaigns for similar products. Highlight key successes and failures to learn from, and create a list of the ways in which your brand or product differs.  

Elaine Chen , Founder of marketing consultancy Excogita, advises, “Creatives understand that not every project will immediately hit the mark, but they need feedback to get to the right place. Spend time looking at competing campaigns so that you have concrete ideas about what you feel will and won't work, and share some of these insights in your brief.”

6. Define the Demographic

Determine a primary target audience for the campaign. Are you trying to reach a segment of the current brand audience or potential new customers? Break down your target audience with demographic data — such as age, gender, and geographic location — as well as buying behaviors and psychographic information, such as preferences and interests. 

Instead of listing all the aspects of your target audience, use profiles or personas to draw a precise portrait of your customer in a couple sentences. Learn  how to create customer profiles  to better understand your audience with individualized buyer personas.  

7. Explain the Tone

Choose several adjectives that describe an attitude or personality for the campaign. Align this personality with the key message, cater it to your target audience, and fit it within your brand identity. Include links to any brand style guidelines or designated fonts and color palettes.

Should graphics feel sophisticated and minimalistic or playful and energetic? Is the tone authentic and empowering or confident and provocative? The adjectives you choose will guide both the visual direction and voice of your campaign, keeping all the elements of the project cohesive.

8. Designate Deliverables

Determine what assets or content the creative team needs to produce to meet the campaign objectives. Specify the content format, the number of deliverables, and any requirements or specifications, such as image dimensions or character limits. You might mention your distribution strategy if modified versions of the assets will be needed for different platforms.

9. Walk Through the Timeline and Budget

Working backward from the campaign launch date, determine when assets need to be delivered in order to be reviewed by key stakeholders and released on schedule. Fill in important due dates, review periods, meetings, and final approval deadlines leading up to the release date. If the creative team will be producing video content or multichannel advertising campaigns, establish a budget.

10. Present to Stakeholders

Share the completed brief with all the stakeholders involved, from the creatives who will be producing the content to the executives who will approve final designs. The creative team might consist of in-house designers and marketers, or it could be an external agency. Consider including a project manager to track deadlines and deliverables. Project managers can create a separate  project brief  to summarize high-level details.

Whether you present the brief at a  project kickoff meeting or distribute it electronically, be open to feedback. The creative team might have questions on the timeline, resources, tone, or approval process. The marketing director could help you fine-tune the target audience and core message. Refine the brief if necessary before you share the final version. Make sure everyone understands the direction of the project and their responsibilities.

Examples of Creative Briefs

These creative brief examples use variations on the basic creative brief template to communicate specific project details to stakeholders. These downloadable and customizable templates include example copy for a variety of creative brief scenarios.

Simple Creative Brief Example Template

Download the Simple Creative Brief Example Template for Microsoft Word

Download the Simple Creative Brief Blank Template for Microsoft Word

Here’s an example of a creative brief for a marketing campaign designed in-house. This short creative brief template keeps a tight focus on the project itself — and doesn’t waste time providing unnecessary context.

Client Creative Brief Example Template

Download the Client Creative Brief Example Template for Microsoft Word

Download the Client Creative Brief Blank Template for Microsoft Word

This example shows how a creative brief might be completed for implementing a marketing campaign with an agency. There is more information about the client — the brand, project message, and call to action — while leaving room for the creative team to innovate. 

Graphic Design Creative Brief Example Template

Download the Graphic Design Creative Brief Example Template for Microsoft Word

Download the Graphic Design Creative Brief Blank Template for Microsoft Word

Here’s an example of a creative brief for a graphic design project that is perfect for solo graphic designers or graphic design firms planning projects in collaboration with their clients. The simple, adaptable layout has room for details on image requirements and design elements, as well as direction about the project. 

For more elaborate design projects — such as a logo design or product design — consider using a specific  design brief .

Advertising Creative Brief Example Template

Download the Advertising Creative Brief Example Template for Microsoft Word

Download the Advertising Creative Brief Blank Template for Microsoft Word

This creative brief example uses a straightforward advertising campaign template to cover objective, tone, messaging, target audience, and non-negotiables. There are also key advertising elements needed for the campaign. 

What to Keep in Mind When Writing a Creative Brief for Internal Use vs. an Agency

Creative briefs are a campaign’s starting point for both in-house teams and agencies. The project’s stakeholders will determine the brief’s content. Both internal and external creative teams need information about the campaign’s message, but agencies might need more brand details.

Internal creative briefs are often short and direct, since the stakeholders will bring their understanding of the brand and its identity to the project. Internal creative teams might already be familiar with style guidelines, recent campaigns, and customer personas. It’s still important to include focused direction specific to the campaign objectives, but the brief can be more informal and flexible.

Creative briefs shared with external agencies, on the other hand, are often more extensive. CEO and Founder of  Awning.com Shri Ganeshram recommends crafting a “more detailed and structured brief” when working with an agency. “It has to convey the essence of your brand and project requirements without any assumed knowledge,” he continues. “When I worked with an external design agency for our marketing campaign, the detailed brief we provided helped them grasp our brand ethos quickly, resulting in a highly successful campaign.”

As a marketing executive with both in-house and agency experience, Chen points out that projects that are contracted out might also require more comprehensive briefs. “Many companies are only working with agencies on high-profile or very strategic assignments such as major advertising campaigns, creating new brands, or significant rebrands. Accordingly, the briefs will need to include lots of insights about the product and audience, while avoiding being too prescriptive to give the agency room to innovate.”

Additionally, while both internal and agency creative briefs typically include deliverables and deadlines, these stipulations might carry more weight externally. In his experience working with agencies, Ganeshram explains, “The creative brief acts as a contract of sorts that outlines what the client expects, providing a clear framework within which the agency operates. This distinction is crucial for ensuring both parties have aligned expectations.” 

Pitfalls to Avoid When Writing a Creative Brief

An effective creative brief empowers designers, advertisers, or marketers to deliver original and compelling content. On the other hand, vague or complicated briefs make it impossible for creative teams to meet expectations. Avoiding these pitfalls streamlines the creative process.  

There are five common pitfalls to keep in mind when writing creative briefs:  

Ambiguity:   

A vague direction can make it impossible for the creative team to understand the vision for the campaign. Provide specific information about the tone and message, as well as clear guidelines for the format of the final product. “If you leave anything up for interpretation, then you risk the result not being what you expected,” advises Kristien Matelski, Content/PR Manager at  Vizion Interactive . “I’ve found that a few good examples are much more valuable than just describing what I’m looking for.”

• Overprescription: Conversely, including too much detail can limit creativity and overwhelm the core message. Designers, copywriters, and other creatives need freedom to bring their own expertise and imagination to the project. “While detailed background information is always helpful, realize that you can only convey so much in a single communication,” Chen notes. “Avoid requiring your creative team to fold in too many messages or else you could end up with a garbled mess.”
• Broad or Unspecified Audience: It’s crucial to define a target audience with as much detail as possible. Large campaigns might have primary and secondary markets, but to create effective assets, the team needs to have a specific audience in mind and understand their behaviors. “Too often companies are so focused on what they have to say that they end up failing to incorporate customer perspectives and create a message that just falls flat,” cautions Chen.
• Unrealistic Expectations:  The purpose of a creative brief is to keep stakeholders’ expectations and responsibilities aligned throughout the project’s development. However, if the brief sets impossibly tight deadlines or unattainable objectives, creatives won’t be able to deliver compelling results.
• Complicated CTA:  Campaigns work best with a simple and clear core message or desired outcome. Creative briefs that fail to develop a clear call to action result in campaigns that can’t meet their objectives. Chen adds, “It's most realistic to ask consumers to do just one easy thing after seeing your ads. A complicated, multistep process or a confusing mix of options is doomed to fail.”

How to Use Generative AI to Write a More Effective Brief

Recent advancements in generative AI have made it a powerful tool for crafting creative briefs. AI can analyze pain points and customer data, suggest relevant core messages, and elevate directions on tone and style. Think of the AI as a partner or assistant when drafting your prompts, and be prepared to finetune the results.

“Generative AI can be a game-changer for crafting creative briefs in marketing and advertising,” observes Peter Wood, CTO at  Spectrum Search . “It's essential to leverage AI for initial idea generation. By feeding the AI system with your campaign’s objectives and target audience demographics, you can get a diverse range of creative concepts and narratives, which might not be immediately obvious to a human team.”

You can also use AI to assist in data analysis when researching your competitors and establishing customer personas. Wood continues, “This analysis can inform the tone, style, and content of your brief, ensuring it is aligned with what resonates with your audience.”  

“As a content manager, I’ve found that creative briefs have been a primary use for AI,” reveals Kristien Matelski. To get the best results from the AI, she recommends providing it with background information about your brand and objectives, as well as detailed instructions for the content you want it to generate. Keep revising and updating your prompts as you work, and make sure to verify any facts or data in your results. 

Here are four tips to keep in mind when utilizing AI to draft your creative brief:  

• Pretend the AI Is Your Assistant:  AI is not a search engine, and it can handle more complex directions. “Be as detailed as possible with what you want, like you’re giving instructions to an assistant to write a brief or outline for you,” suggests Matelski.
• Provide Background:  Feed the AI relevant information about the brand, product, or campaign objectives. Matelski says, “I generally start by giving the AI some context about the who, or the company we are generating a creative brief for, including a link to their website. Then I tell it the what that we’re creating, a creative brief or outline for a new product page.”
• Include Specifics:  If you are using a template, make sure to list the fields you want the AI to generate. Establish any requirements and important campaign directives to include in the brief. As an example, Matelski offers, “Be sure to mention X, Y, Z brand names, color choices, and keywords.”
• Edit, Edit, Edit:  Once the AI has generated the brief, read through the results and determine next steps. “You’ll need to edit yourself or go back and forth with the AI a few times to get it how you want it,” Matelski acknowledges. You might ask the AI to condense the overview, suggest a more playful core message, narrow the objectives, or tailor the deliverables for a specific social media platform. Consider whether you need to provide additional information with your instructions.

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Home Blog Business Quick Guide to Write and Present a Creative Brief

Quick Guide to Write and Present a Creative Brief

If you’ve ever done a project where a creative team is involved, probably from the get-go, the term creative brief became familiar to you quickly. Commonly, any project requiring some creative input will need this document to be a roadmap that minimizes mistakes and accelerates plans. 

However, there are 2 moments when building the creative brief is quite tricky: first, aligning the team to define the requirements needs prudent project management. Second, afterward, presenting and following through with the creative brief can be challenging. If you are a project manager, read on as we discuss the key elements of a creative brief and how you can create one that your partners will love.

Table of Contents

• Who writes the Creative Brief
• Why is the Creative Brief important

Parts of a Creative Brief

How to write a creative brief.

• How to Present a Creative Brief

Use of Templates for Creative Briefs

Key insights for a creative brief presentation.

• Final Words

What is a Creative Brief 

Let’s begin by framing this term because it’s possible you and your team have never heard of it, and you have just logged off a Zoom call and are Googling it for the first time. 

A creative brief summarizes a project’s brand background, the audience it’s meant to reach, and the campaign goals to be achieved. Of course, this is a textbook simplified response to the question, and we must not think that the creative brief is so essential and unimportant. On the contrary, regardless of how short it can be, this document will be the roadmap of guidelines and expectations for any project or campaign you and your team are launching.  

The components of creative briefs are relatively similar, although the structure and specific detail may vary depending on the project, industry, and organization. They typically include the following.

• Company Background
• Deliverables
• Objectives and Goals
• Target Audience
• Messaging/ Call to Action
• Competitors
• Timeline and Budget

By itself, the creative brief should be the guiding light to all the teams involved and should provide enough information so that every person involved in the project can advance their tasks without having to over and over again come back to the source. 

Who Writes the Creative Brief

If you seek the answer to this question, it’s not an easy one. Because actually, the creative brief is a complex summary of the complete project, whoever writes it should be the person with better access across the organization.  

Let’s go a bit deeper into this. Generally, if you are working with an agency, a client manager will collect data from creative and executive teams and include background info from the client. Then will revise with any groups that manage budgets, and it’s all set to go. However, if you are working with an internal team, the stakeholders will be quite different and the challenges. Whoever is writing the brief should collaborate with the internal client and local creative teams to reach agreements. If they belong to the organization, this person can even be a project manager looking to understand the plan’s scope better. 

Even though the creative brief tends to be quite structured, whoever is writing the document is a bit more lenient. What matters is that the person in charge can collect all the information necessary efficiently. Something essential to consider is that not necessarily who writes the creative brief will present or follow up. 

Why is the Creative Brief Important 

In recent years, the creative brief has taken a role in project guidelines and roadmaps . This is very relevant because it allows both sides -client and creative- to be aligned from the beginning. 

The most important reason it’s necessary to create a brief is that it’s an industry standard, clients will be looking to take it to begin a project, and an agency team might need it to start as well. 

Having a structured creative brief will allow for several improvements along the way, including:

Establishing Clear Direction for Teams

We can all agree that working with a boss that gives vague instructions is frustrating. When instructions are vague, it can lead to confusion, inefficiency, and a lack of confidence in your ability to fulfill the assigned tasks. The same could happen if you allow your team to work on a creative project without sharing a brief.

Regardless of how short it can be, a creative brief can give your team a clear direction on the steps to take during the project lifecycle. It ensures that everyone involved shares a common understanding of the project’s purpose and desired results and aligns their creative efforts toward achieving them.

Making Resource Allocation Efficient

The team can allocate resources more efficiently with a comprehensive understanding of the project’s needs. This includes assigning the right people with the appropriate skills to specific tasks and ensuring that resources are utilized effectively. The brief acts as a guide in determining the optimal distribution of time, budget, and manpower, minimizing waste, and maximizing productivity.

Furthermore, the brief serves as a reference point for evaluating resource availability and potential gaps. It helps identify any additional resources or support needed to execute the project successfully.

Let’s say a marketing team is tasked with creating a promotional campaign for a new product launch. Using the brief provided by the client or manager, they will need a graphic designer to create visual assets, a copywriter to craft compelling messaging, and a social media manager to execute the campaign across various platforms.

Saving Time and Cost

Revision is the Thanos of any creative work – it is inevitable. A revision or two is good, but you might lose the time and cost you can’t afford when your team has to do it too many times. You must establish a clear direction and expectations upfront through a creative brief.

The reduction in guesswork leads to several benefits. It and effort, saving it from trial and error or exploring different paths. It increases productivity as team members can proceed confidently, knowing they are working towards the intended outcome. It minimizes the risk of misunderstandings or misaligned creative outputs, as everyone works based on a shared understanding.

Maintaining Accountability

A creative brief sets a project’s key performance indicators (KPIs). KPIs are measurable goals or metrics that help evaluate the success and effectiveness of the creative work.

When goals are measurable, it becomes easier to hold oneself or team members accountable for their progress. Team members can refer to the brief throughout the project to stay on track and fulfill their obligations. It serves as a reference point to remind individuals of their tasks and the expected outcomes.

Higher Quality Final Product

A study published by the Design Society proves a correlation between a well-crafted brief and a creative output. The findings highlight that the quality of the content brief greatly affects the quality of results that teams produce. It provides a framework for the creative team to channel their talent and energy, ensuring they are aligned with the project’s goals and objectives. 

So, whether you’re embarking on a marketing campaign, designing a product, or creating captivating content, investing time and effort in crafting a robust creative brief is an investment in success.

As we mentioned before, the creative brief is, as its name states, a short explanation of a creative project. However, to make sure it is efficient and provides all the info all the people involved will need, it’s important to make sure it has all of the following parts. 

Company and Product Background 

In this context, we need to frame the company’s background, meaning what the company does, what products will be involved in the campaign, and the overall vision. It is possible this campaign targets explicitly one product or vertical, so it’s essential to focus on that one specifically to avoid misunderstandings. Also, take some time to ad the main problem that this campaign or project will fix; this will also help all the stakeholders be on the same page. 

Project Scope 

This section will discuss the campaign’s expectations: is it a launch for a new project, is it an awareness campaign and is the company opening a new social media channel ? Whatever the campaign will push forward, it must be stated in this document. This section is one of the most important ones, as it also includes the goals that must be completed in this campaign and the overall strategic structure.  

Audience and Target 

Including both demographic and psychographic aspects, it’s essential to ad all relevant information about the potential user or buyer. For this scenario, it’s always great to add an avatar or buyer persona that will clearly define who the campaign is for. 

The “big idea”

Generally, this is what in the field they call the concept of the campaign. Here we will integrate critical messages that will allow the creative teams to execute on that idea. Also, it will provide a teaser to all the other teams to start getting familiar with the message going out to the public. 

Voice of the brand

Every campaign might have a different voice is used, especially if the campaign to be put in place is exploring a new space of audiences or even a rebrand. However, the brief most explore the tone that the project will have and provide a clear messaging voice to the brand. 

Competitors 

The creative brief must explore briefly who and what the competition is. It’s crucial in this section to include any related challenges that might arise to be ready beforehand to act upon them. 

Logistics 

One of the most important sections of the brief is the logistical details because all the departments must be aligned. This section will include budgets and timeframes that need to be observed by all members of the team. 

1. Provide the Company Background

One section of the creative brief should describe your company – what you do, your mission , your position in the marketplace, and possibly a brief company history. You may skip this section if you are working with an internal team. But if you outsource the services to an agency or work with external partners, providing a comprehensive description of your company becomes even more crucial.

This helps the agency or creative team get acquainted with your business and the overall context within which they will work. It allows them to align their work with your company’s objectives and deliver creative solutions that accurately represent your brand.

2. Describe the Project/ Work Scope

What do you want to accomplish with the project you are launching? In this section, you have to describe the deliverable you need, with a detailed list of requirements and relevant background information that may help the creative team understand the context and significance of the project. Our guide on Project Scope can give you guidance about the steps to follow.

For example, are you looking to develop a new website or redesign an existing one? Whatever the work will accomplish should be clearly stated in the document.

3. Share the “Big Idea”/ Objectives

Your team needs to know the “what is” and the “why’s” of the project. The “big idea” refers to the overarching objective or central concept you aim to achieve with the creative deliverables. It represents the core message or theme guiding the creative team’s work.

For example, if you launch a search ad campaign, your objective could be “Increase website conversion rate by 15% within the next three months.” 

Remember, your objectives should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound).

4. Identify the Audience

Personalization will be vital in developing a new product or launching a marketing campaign. When your team knows exactly who the receivers are of the final product, they can tailor their work to engage and carry meaning for that specific audience effectively.

Identifying the audience means understanding their demographics (quantifiable social categories like age), psychographics (interests, lifestyles, values), and pain points. From this information, you can create your customer persona so your team can visualize and humanize your audience.

5. Set the Message and Voice

Do you need a copy with an authoritative tone, or do you want to sound friendly? The creative brief should highlight the key messages that must be conveyed through the project and the tone you want to use. You may have brand guidelines to ensure they have a cohesive voice across different campaigns. However, you may need to adapt this when exploring new markets or touchpoints.

In this case, you need to go back to the type of audience you are targeting and adapt your messaging. Human beings make decisions based on emotions, and creating an emotional connection with your target market can significantly impact their response to your message. By tailoring your messaging to address these aspects, you can effectively engage and resonate with your audience.

6. Identify the Competition

Competition is a valuable source of learning and experience. When you include a section that defines your competitors in the creative brief, your team gains a clear understanding of the landscape you are in and enables them to develop effective strategies that highlight your competitive advantages.

For example, if you’re launching a new mobile app, including information about similar apps in the creative brief allows the team to evaluate their features, design, and user experience. This analysis can guide the team in creating a unique value proposition and highlighting the app’s distinctive features to attract users.

7. Set the Timeline and Budget

For complex projects, it’s important to specify in the brief the time allotted and the delivery schedule of the output. A budget may also be included. With this information, the creative team can plan their logistics and better align their decision-making process with the client’s resources.

In an advertising project, for example, you can set milestones or significant stages within the project timeline that mark the progress of important deliverables. These milestones help track the project’s progress and ensure that it stays on track.

How to Present a Creative Brief 

If your team comes from an agency background or presents it to an agency, a simplified document will do. You can go to any documents app and create a brief. However, being a standard for the creative industry, something more may be expected from it aesthetically. So we will provide some recommendations to step up your game, convince your team, and have an extremely professional presentation that will impress them all. 

Creative Brief Formats 

The classic 1 pager.

Most old-school creative practitioners are used to a simplified document that can even be written by hand, where one-liners are used to talk about the product, ideas, and problems. However, modern problems need modern solutions, and now that advertising and marketing have become much more complex, a simple Word 1 pager may fall very short.

The one pager presentation can be enriched with additional information, like key metrics. Let’s say that you are preparing a creative brief for an advertising campaign, the slide can include key metrics such as CPM, CAC, or information about the marketing funnel. If you don’t know all the metrics, there are some useful tools like a CPM calculator that will help to calculate these values knowing one of the parameters. If you need this to be very portable, you can create a one Google Slide presentation and include all the info in there adding a bit of color and format. 

The 2 Page Version 

A bit more extensive than the 1 pager, 2 pages allows you to produce a longer document where you can even include design like infographics or charts that might be useful to the team. It’s ok to make the brief a little more unrestricted, as long as you clearly state all the required information for the campaign. You can even extend a tad more if you need to; make sure you maintain the brief essence. 

Alternative formats 

Powerpoint presentation .

If you plan to collaborate with the rest of the team, go the extra mile and create something with more design elements. A great way to go is a simple PowerPoint presentation where you can add phrases or information about each slide in each of the slides one of the steps. A significant advantage of using a PowerPoint template is that you can also include any company (either your client’s or yours) style elements. If you currently don’t have any you’d like to use, don’t worry; we have your back.

To make sure your presentation has everything you need, it’s important that when you’re looking for a template, you plan out and outline all the information you will add to the brief. Make sure you don’t jam your slides with text and make good use of the white space. Include any brand data you need to include, and don’t be shy of having charts or visual references that will get the message across.  

Pitch Deck 

The creative brief in structure can be pretty similar to a pitch deck, so an exciting approach can be to use a pitch deck and substitute some elements. 

The pitch deck usually begins with an introduction where you can include brand or company basics. Afterward, the next slide would generally have the problem, which is an excellent way to frame the project’s scope. Moving forward, you would see a solution or project which can be exchanged for the big idea. From then on, the pitch deck generally explores KPIs related to achievable goals, market sizes, and demographics, including buyer personas or targets. Therefore, you can easily turn a pitch deck template into a creative brief deck with a couple of tweaks. 

Trello to PowerPoint 

If you want to supercharge your brief and earn some automation points, you can also create a Trello board where every column is one of the elements of the creative brief. From then on, you can create cards with the specifics, include tasks, and add timelines for better visibility. You can even make this brief-Trello into a collaborative tool so all your team can get ad information relevant to the project. 

For the last step, you can use our tutorial on converting Trello Boards into PowerPoint presentations and sending this out to all the stakeholders as an easy to verify PDF that can evolve with the project. 

Using templates for creative briefs can be a helpful practice to streamline the process and save time. They provide a standardized structure for creative briefs, ensuring that all necessary information is in a consistent format that the creative team and the client can easily understand. Templates eliminate the need to start from scratch for every new project, allowing you to focus more on the content and specific details of the brief rather than spending time on formatting and structuring.

Generally, the creative brief will be discussed between the client and creative teams to ensure that it includes all the crucial points. However, the way this meeting goes depends on what both parties need. Traditionally, reviewing the creative brief is a regular sit-down session, and a simple document is shared between the parts. However, after 2020 we have gotten more and more used to virtual meetings and new ways of doing things. 

Presenting the creative brief is an excellent opportunity to showcase your client in an innovative format all the work you will be doing from them based on your understanding. Depending on the media you chose to work your creative brief, 1-2 pagers, PowerPoint presentation, or even a bold Trello board, it is a great idea to take into account these tips. 

Schedule the time

This way, you will know your client will be providing you with their full attention to revise and approve the brief; often, this is the document that kicks off a campaign or creative project. 

Make an impactful presentation

In many cases, this meeting will be the first time you share the overall strategy or “big idea” with your client. Sometimes brief creative sessions include presenting slogans or brand claims that can be inspiring and emotional. Don’t underestimate this opportunity, and start building this excitement with your client. 

Leave time for questions

If your client is not the creative type or has little experience with the process like this, they might have many questions. Ensure you don’t rush through the presentation and leave some space for interaction. Some of the client questions might come in handy afterward when developing the plan. 

Final Words 

Having a creative brief is not only an industry standard for many but also a common language. The advantages of having and building a well-structured one can take time in the beginning but shave time off afterward. 

Hopefully, with this guide and some extra inventive tips, you and your team will build a simple yet cohesive creative brief that will make your next project uber-successful. 

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See why the world’s best creative teams run on Workamajig

How to write a compelling creative brief (with examples & free templates).

• Creative briefs, explained
• The 5 elements of an effective creative brief
• How to write a creative brief

Browse more blogs

Are you ready to finally understand what makes up an awesome creative brief and how to create your own?

In this post, we'll cover:

• Exactly what a creative brief is (and what it is not)
• Great examples of creative briefs
• Our step-by-step process for writing a creative brief

The creative brief is the foundation of any successful creative campaign. It outlines the client’s vision and ensures that everyone is on the same page. So let's get started!

Communication - including the creative brief- is the cornerstone of success for any marketing campaign. And yes, it's more important than creativity. 

As Will Burns of Ideasicle says, the creative brief is the “most sacred of all sacred ad documents”.

From the choice of font in a print ad to the overall theme of the campaign, everything springs from the creative brief.

Creative Briefs, Explained in Detail

The creative brief is the foundation of a creative campaign. Despite its importance, it is poorly understood, mostly because of its open-ended nature.

This section will help you understand creative briefs and their purpose better.

What is a Creative Brief?

A creative brief is a short 1-2 page document outlining the strategy for a creative project.

Think of it as a map that guides its target audience - the creative team - on how to best reach the campaign’s stated goals.

The creative brief is usually created by the account manager in close consultation with the client.

To that effect, it’s an interpretation of the client’s ideas and vision for the brand and the product.

Since this brief is usually created by and for the agency, it is open-ended in nature. You can, and should, include anything and everything that will help the creative team understand the brand and product better.

Most creative briefs include the following:

• A short brand statement.
• A brief overview of the campaign’s background and objectives.
• Key challenges that the campaign aims to resolve.
• Target audience for the campaign.
• Chief competitors.
• Primary message describing the brand’s values and market positioning.
• Communication channels on which the campaign will run.

For example, here’s a creative brief for Hush Puppies :

Essentially, the creative brief describes the “what” of the project (i.e. its objectives) and “how” to achieve it (i.e. the creative approach).

Why Do You Need a Creative Brief?

There is a long list of reasons to create a creative brief.

The most important reason is also the simplest: it is standard agency practice.

Your clients will expect a creative brief before they sign off on a project. And your creative team will expect it before they can start working.

For better or for worse, you can’t start a campaign without it.

But there are other reasons to create a creative brief:

• Ensure that all creative messages are on-brand.
• Give the creative team a broad vision of the brand, the business, and the product.
• Offer inspiration and give your team a starting point to brainstorm ideas.
• Give third-party contributors a quick understanding of the brand and its background.
• Reduce client-creative conflict by ensuring they're on the same page
• Align the client's budget and expectations with your creative media strategy

Who Creates the Creative Brief?

Nominally, the person responsible for managing the client relationship makes the creative brief. Usually, this is the account manager or the project manager.

This person works closely with the client to understand their requirements, their current situation, and the desired future outcomes.

Actually putting together the brief, however, isn’t a one-person job. You usually need input from a range of people such as:

• Creative team: to analyze whether the client’s vision is viable and to brainstorm creative ideas.
• Marketing team: gather customer data, analyze competitors, and develop a viable media strategy.
• Accounts team: to analyze budgets.

Who is the Creative Brief Made for?

It might surprise you to learn that the end-user of the creative brief isn’t the client.

Rather, it’s the creative team .

While you’ll certainly need the client’s approval on the brief to get the go-ahead, the people who’ll actually use it are your creative team.

Your job, thus, is to interpret the client’s vision in such a way that it is accessible to the creative team.

This means no jargon, no fluff, and no “marketer-speak”. Create the brief in such a way that a designer or developer can understand it.

At the same time, the creative brief is not the answer to the client’s problem; it’s a starting point to inspire your team. It should have just enough insight to challenge your team and get them to think creatively about the problem.

As one commentator points out, it’s always good to ask yourself:

“Are you confident that this brief will inspire a solution to our problem?”

If the answer is a “no” or a “maybe”, it’s time to go back to the drawing board.

 What Are Some Creative Brief Examples?

The best way to understand a creative brief is to see a few real-life examples.

Here’s a creative brief for Reebok shoes.

This brief focuses extensively on the audience. In a competitive, brand-focused market, understanding the audience is crucial for creating better-targeted marketing.

Here’s a more visual creative brief for Quaker Oats . This one has an unorthodox structure. If you look closer, however, you’ll notice that it has the same fundamentals as Reebok’s brief above.

For another example of an unorthodox creative brief, take a look at this one for PayPal . It eschews conventional sections and uses a bold visual design instead.

This just goes to show that creative briefs are flexible in their content and design. You can use whatever format you need as long as it works for both the client and the creative team.

In the next section, I’ll walk you through the ideation process for making a creative brief.

The 5 Components of an Effective Creative Brief

When it's wrapped up, the creative brief doesn't look like much.

It's at most 2 pages long. A good one will usually be free of jargon and marketer-speak. Many will also be visual.

The effort that goes into creating this simple document, however, is immense.

You have to have an acute understanding of the brand, the product, its target audience, and the message.

To write a good creative brief, you need to know five aspects of the campaign:

1. The Product

A creative campaign starts and ends with the product. After all, this is what you're tasked with selling. If you don't understand it well, you can't expect your creative team to do a good job of it.

Start by asking the client some fundamental questions about the product:

• What product are you advertising?
• What category does it belong to?
• Where is the product currently being sold? Where is it being advertised? Where will it be advertised in the future?
• What is the product's current status in the market?
• What are the product's existing brand values?
• What is the product's price point? How many variants are currently available?

Your goal is to map the product's current brand perception. This will be a combination of factors - price, quality, perceived quality, etc.

Use the client's existing records, market surveys, and customer data to understand the product and its brand better.

You'll use it later when you write the creative brief.

2. The Business

The business and the product can often have a complex relationship. In some cases, the business brand might be completely independent of the product. In most other cases, they might affect each other in a symbiotic relationship.

For example, Toyota (the company) and Toyota Camry (the car) have different brand perceptions.

A customer might see Toyota as "reliable" and "efficient". But he might see Camry as "unreliable" after a spate of recalls.

Business and product brand perceptions often bleed into each other. If a customer has repeated bad experiences with a product, he might associate that with the business itself.

The exception is when the business is "invisible" to the customer. This usually happens with B2B brands, holding companies, etc.

For example, Luxottica manufactures several iconic eyewear brands such as Ray-Ban, Oakley, etc. But the Luxottica brand itself is invisible to customers. Poor performance from one of its products is unlikely to affect its brand perception.

Your goal should be to:

• Analyze the business' brand perception.
• Understand the business relationship to the product brand.
• Map the factors affecting the business' brand perception.

In the creative brief, this information will be a core part of the campaign’s “background” section.

For example, this brief for Red Bull introduces the problem by framing it in the context of the business:

3. The Market

The 'market' is a combination of the “Three C’s”:

• Competitors , their strengths, weaknesses, market position, and media strategy.
• Context for the campaign - political, social, and technological movements.
• Category , i.e. how people see the product category.

All these have a marked influence on the campaign.

For example, the popular "Mac vs PC" campaign wouldn't be successful if Apple was the market leader.

Similarly, an overly positive, upbeat campaign wouldn't work in a down economy.

Your goal should be to analyze the following aspects of the market:

Competitors:

• What are the products and the brand's chief competitors? What is their market share compared to the product?
• What is the competition's marketing strategy? Where do they advertise?
• What kind of messaging and tone does the competition use?
• What kind of customers buys the competitor's products?
• How does the market currently see the product or its category?
• Is there a cultural moment you can tap into to promote the product?
• What cultural values, ideas, or events can you align the product with?
• How is the economy doing? Is it a time for optimism? Or are people concerned with saving?

For example, to celebrate its 100th anniversary, Oreo aligned itself with a bunch of cultural and historical events:

In a time of "activist brands", businesses are increasingly aligning their products with social and cultural movements. Think of how you can tap into the zeitgeist to create a better brand message.

• How do people perceive this product category? What factors affect this perception?
• Is there a change in people’s perception of the category? Is this change positive or negative? What is leading this change?
• Are there any category conventions you can use in the campaign?

4. The Customers

Your customers are important, more so than anything else on this list.

( Image source )

A deep understanding of the target audience, its wants, desires, and tastes is crucial for writing a creative brief.

To do this, start by describing the following:

• Demographics data (age, sex, income, marital status).
• Psychographics data (interests, aspirations, lifestyles, habits).
• What they think about the product and the brand right now ("boring", "fun", "not for me", etc.).
• What you want them to think about the brand ("change perception", "shift frame of reference", etc.).
• Frustrations, aspirations, life need, and shared belief you can tap into.
• The purpose of all this data is to find a trigger that will motivate them. This trigger should align with the campaign's objectives.

For example, Toyota sells an MPV - Toyota Sienna - that had a shrinking market share. Part of the reason for this decline was the general unpopularity of MPVs among young parents. For a lot of young people, MPVs are "boring" and "old school".

To get these customers to consider Sienna as an alternative, Toyota had to change their perceptions.

To do this, Toyota created a YouTube campaign highlighting the inherent “coolness” of the Sienna, such as this music video:

5. The Campaign

Every campaign has a specific goal, message, and audience. It's not uncommon for brands to run several campaigns at the same time with different messages.

Your job is to understand the goals of your campaign and find a way to get there. That is, to define the campaign's strategy and approach.

To do this, answer the following questions:

• What is this campaign trying to do? Increase awareness? Increase traffic? Get more shares? Be as specific as possible.
• What customer action would make the campaign "successful"? Fill out a form? Click a link? Call the business?
• What specific challenge is the campaign trying to address? State this in a single sentence. Example: "We want to advertise new features to get more trials".
• What is your media strategy? Where will the campaign run?
• What is the chief message for the entire campaign?

Your goal is to find the "driving idea" for the campaign and where to run it.

For example, the driving idea for the Toyota Sienna campaign I shared earlier was:

"Awesome parents drive the Toyota Sienna "

This campaign didn't highlight the car. Instead, it highlighted the customers and how their aspirations align with the car. Since the target audience was young parents, all print ads specifically highlighted them.

 ( Image source )

This approach was specific to only this campaign. Toyota had other ongoing campaigns for the Sienna. These campaigns targeted a completely new audience with a different message.

This might seem like a lot of research - and it is - but it is crucial for writing creative briefs. Without understanding the campaign, customers, and product, your briefs will be off-brand.

And if the brief is off-brand, the results will suffer.

This is why I recommend getting input from several people. Ask your marketers for data and your creative team for ideas. The more information you have, the better the final brief.

In the next section, I’ll walk you through the actual process of writing a creative brief.

How to Write a Creative Brief

Creative briefs don't have a fixed format. That said, if you need a template, we’ve got you covered. You can  download free creative brief templates HERE - or read on to learn how to build your own. Most agencies have their own templates. Some have a simple text document, while others use more visual designs.

Regardless of its format, your creative brief must revolve around the five elements we covered earlier.

To write the creative brief, use the following template:

1. The Project

Start your creative brief by writing a broad overview of the project. Establish the identity of the client, talk about the product, and list the goals of the campaign.

2. Key Challenge

Every campaign has a key challenge. This is the "what" of the project.

Describe this challenge in a few short sentences.

You might have something like this:

• "[Client] wants to leverage a new feature to get new trials."
• "[Client] wants to reposition the product so a new user will consider it."
• "[Client] wants existing users to consume more of the product."

For example, here’s the key challenge in the Quaker Oats creative brief I shared earlier:

 3. Purpose of Communication

A successful campaign needs a clear and distinct purpose. This purpose should ideally be trackable and measurable. It should also be tied to the key challenge you described above.

Use this section to describe the action you want to inspire in your customers.

Try something like this:

• "[Client] wants to increase awareness of [Product]'s new feature."
• "[Client] wants to change opinion about [Product category]."
• "[Client] wants to mobilize existing customers of [Product] to visit its website."

4. Competitors

The client's competitors, as we learned above, have a big impact on the campaign. Use this section to briefly describe the key competitors and their media strategies.

Some things you can include about the competition here are:

• Market share
• Media strategy
• SWOT analysis

5. Target Audience

Refer to the audience research you did earlier to describe the following:

• Demographics
• Psychographics
• Current perception/belief about the brand
• Target perception/belief about the brand
• Approach for motivating them to take action

6. Background or Context

Briefly describe the background and context of the campaign. Include specific details for the following:

• Cultural context, i.e. current events and ideas you could leverage to achieve campaign goals.
• Category context, i.e. how customers currently see the product category and how you can change it.
• Brand context, i.e. how customers currently see the product and its brand.

For example, this creative brief for TOMS shoes gives readers a detailed overview of the company’s background and its customers’ aspirations:

7. Tone and Brand Voice

Use adjectives to describe the tone, brand voice, and key qualities you want customers to associate with the:

• Product ("fun, reliable, efficient")
• Brand ("mature, trustworthy, cost-effective")

8. Media Strategy

Briefly describe how you plan to spread the message. Include the following

• Channel(s) you'll use for the promotion.
• Why this channel will help you reach your target audience.
• How can you use the channel's own form and audience expectations to make the idea more shareable (such as adding "tag a friend" on Facebook)?

Include details about the estimated budget for the campaign. If possible, break down budget requirements by creative type and promotion.

10. Chief Message

This is the "driving idea" behind the campaign. Usually, it's a short, pithy statement that condenses the campaign into a slogan.

Think of something like this from Reebok:

Or this one from PayPal:

One way to write a better creative brief is to create a press release that you might send journalists at the end of the campaign. You don’t have to actually use it, but it helps you think of the campaign’s goals and the approach you used to get there.

These are only guidelines, of course. You can change the creative brief as per your requirements. As long as your creative team can understand it, you are free to include or exclude anything you want.

Workamajig has built-in support for creative briefs to make the process seamless, and of course, these can be customized according to your needs. 

Click the link below to get your free Workamajig Demo.

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How to Write a Creative Brief (+ Examples and 7 Templates)

Table of Contents

Have your creative projects been chaotic? 

Has there been confusion among the team members about what the final product should look like? 

Maybe you wasted a lot of time making sure that everyone has all the necessary information. 

All these problems can be avoided with one simple document — a creative brief. 

In this article, we will go over:

• What a creative brief is, 
• What it should include, 
• How to write a creative brief,
• Tips for writing a high-quality creative brief, and 
• Benefits of a creative brief.

We will also provide you with 7 different types of free creative brief templates .

So, let’s begin! 

What is a creative brief?

A creative brief is a document that functions as a guide for creative teams, helping everyone keep in touch with the project’s objectives and guidelines.

It should be, as the name suggests — brief. Ideally, it should fit on 1 to 2 A4 pages, contain the gist of the project, and serve as a guideline for everyone involved in the project. 

What must a creative brief include?

Not all creative briefs have to look the same. 

There are many ways to organize a creative brief depending on the type of creative project it’s made for — marketing, social media, brand definition, logo creation, etc.

 Still, there are some elements of a creative brief that are always included:

• Project title — indicates what the project is about,
• Company background — information about the company that can be relevant to the project,
• Objectives — what you are trying to accomplish with the project,
• Target audience — who you are trying to reach,
• Tone of voice — the way you speak to your target audience, 
• Distribution — the channels by which your message will reach the target audience (such as social media or TV commercials),
• Budget — the amount of money reserved for the project,
• Competition — companies offering similar services or products as you, and
• Timeline — all relevant time points in the project from the start to the due date.

Of course, you aren’t limited to just these elements. What’s important is that the creative brief contains all the relevant information for your project. 

For example, when creating a website or a logo for a business, instead of using the term “tone of voice”, “style” might be more appropriate. And you could add another element like “color scheme” since that is an important part of creating a good design.

10 Steps to writing a creative brief

In the following text, we will explain all the steps you need to go through to produce a high-quality creative brief.

Step #1: Choose the name for the project and provide a short overview 

The name of the project should be short and reflect the essence of the creative brief. 

For example, the name “Creative brief for a TastyFood restaurant marketing campaign” clearly shows the purpose of the brief and the name of the client. 

A short overview of the project should follow the title — just a sentence or two to summarize what the project is about.

Step #2: Summarize the company’s background

Outline the company background. There is no need to go into detail about the company. It’s enough to mention its core values and the information relevant to the project, such as what problems the company is currently facing and what kind of image they are trying to portray. 

What you write in this section depends on whether your company hired an external agency for the job (for example, a video production company to make a promotional video for a new product) or if the creative team is employed at the said company. 

If it’s the latter, you can omit general information about the company since it’s already known to all involved. 

Step #3: List the objectives

Take the time to precisely state the objectives of the creative project, i.e. what you are trying to achieve with this project. Some of the more general objectives can be:

• Rise in brand awareness,
• Increase in sales,
• Change of company image, etc.

For example, a marketing strategy for an app may have an objective “increase the number of new sign-ups by 10% in the next 3 months” .

💡 Plaky Pro Tip

If you want to make this step easier, learn more about objectives and key results in projects:

• A guide to using OKRs in project management

Step #4: Define your target audience

It’s essential to know who your marketing campaign or your advert is aimed at. Who are the people who will buy your product? You must have a clear vision of them when creating the brief.

Depending on the aim of the campaign and the company’s product, different information can be relevant. Some of the information you can include is the audience’s:

• Social status,
• Employment status,
• Habits, 
• Beliefs, and

Step #5: Choose the tone of voice

After establishing your target audience, the next question is how to get through to them. 

You should determine what emotions you are trying to evoke and what picture you are conveying to the minds of the audience.

For example, a commercial for a bank should have a more serious tone that makes them look dependable and serious. 

On the other hand, a commercial for a soft drink company can have a more relaxed tone, attempting to connect the drink with the idea of having fun and being happy.

Step #6: Research the competition

If you want to conquer a market, you have to be aware of the competition. Or, in the words of Sun Tsu: “ Know thy enemy” . 

Do thorough research on your competitors. Who is currently popular? Who offers products similar to yours? List their positive and negative traits. 

Knowing what your competitors are offering means you can find a way to offer something better. 

Step #7: Set the budget

It’s a good idea to set the budget at the very beginning of the creative project. This enables the team to organize their work accordingly. 

Instead of just defining the total budget, it’s better to allocate your funds at the beginning. 

For example, if you are making an advertising campaign for new sportswear, you can divide the budget between social media ads, TV commercials, and hiring a sportsperson to be the face of your brand. 

If you want to learn about different budgeting methods, take a look at this article:

• Best project management budgeting methods to try

Step #8: Ask for feedback

Once you have completed the brief, you should ask for feedback from project stakeholders , such as your client or company executives, as well as your project team members . 

You can organize a project kickoff meeting where people could express their opinions and ideas together or just send everyone a copy of the brief and have them send the feedback back to you. 

Step #9: Review and edit 

After you have received feedback, consider the suggestions and make changes if necessary. 

You can go back and forth between these 2 steps until both you and the stakeholders are satisfied with the brief.

Step #10: Distribute the brief 

Once the creative brief is finished, distribute it to everyone working on the project. 

Free product management tool

Simplify your product’s journey and bring more agility to your team, with Plaky.

3 Tips on how to write a creative brief 

To help you create a top-notch creative brief, we asked professionals with experience in writing them to share some tips with us. 

Here’s what they had to say.

Tip #1: Think about the aim of the project before starting on the brief

We talked to James Parkinson , Head of Marketing Content at Personnel Checks, and he emphasizes the importance of understanding the goal of the project:

“You need to understand what the end goal or aim for the project or task is before you try to create a brief. Many people get this wrong and end up producing a large document with contradicting information. When, in reality, if you fully understand the desired outcome, then the brief can be very to-the-point and efficient.”

If you become better at setting goals, make sure to read our article on the topic:

• How to define S.M.A.R.T. goals in project management

Tip #2: Include success metrics

We asked Gene Caballero , Co-Founder of lawn care business GreenPal, to share his thoughts on making creative briefs. He points out you have to decide on the success metrics for your project:

“Determine in advance how you will measure the success of the campaign. We usually focus on metrics like sign-up rates, website traffic, and social media engagement.”

You use the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to collect performance data and measure the success of your project. 

Tip#3: Take your time

Don’t be tempted to just rush through the brief so you can start the project as soon as possible. Dedicate enough time to in-depth research. 

Caballero emphasizes how important it is to dedicate enough time to the creation of the creative brief:

“ Remember, the creative brief is a guiding document that helps ensure everyone is on the same page. It’s the roadmap for your project , so taking the time to do it well is critical. ”

7 Creative brief templates

There are many types of creative briefs you can make for different creative projects.

We have singled out some of the most popular ones here and created free editable templates that you can use for your projects.

Simple creative brief template

When creating your first creative brief, it’s best to start with the basics. Here’s a simple creative brief template:

🔽 Simple creative brief template

It has all the key elements necessary for a creative brief, and it can be edited to your preference, so you can use it for any kind of creative project, both in-house and external. 

Marketing creative brief template 

Creating a high-quality marketing campaign requires creativity. But it’s also important to stay organized and not let that creativity lead to chaos. 

According to CoSchedule’s 2022 Trend Report on Marketing Strategy , organized marketers are a whopping 674% more likely to be successful. This is why you need a well-made marketing creative brief.  

Here is a free template to help you create a creative brief for your marketing campaign.

🔽 Marketing creative brief template  

This template can be useful to anyone managing a marketing project . 

It presents all the elements in the form of a table. You can adjust the space dedicated to each element to fit your project’s needs. 

For example, you will probably want to describe the target audience and the tone of voice in more detail than the other elements since these 2 are crucial in organizing a good marketing campaign. 

Advertising creative brief template 

Although marketing and advertising are similar, the focus of advertising is a bit different, so the creative briefs will differ as well. You can use the template below to write a creative brief that would fit your advertising project. 

🔽 Advertising creative brief template

The most important part of this brief is deciding on the distribution model — how the ad is going to reach the audience. 

You can dedicate a substantial amount of the brief to clearly stating how you want your advertising campaign to reach your target audience. 

Video creative brief template 

The process of video production is complex, requiring people from different areas of the business to work together through 3 different phases in their video management software : 

• Pre-Production,
• Production, and 
• Post-Production. 

That’s why creating a creative brief is a step you mustn’t overlook. You can use the template below to create a well-organized creative brief for video projects without difficulty.

🔽 Video creative brief

Whether it’s a promotional video, a tutorial on how to use a product, an interview with a customer, or a commercial, creating a video is often part of a bigger project. 

But the video production team (or an agency you hired) likely won’t be familiar with the details of that project. So, the video creative brief will serve as a guide to help them create a video that meets all the requirements. 

Having good project management software for video production can be a great help in your work. Check out the following list of the best such tools on the market: 

• Top 10 project management software for video production 

Logo creative brief template 

A logo is the first thing a customer notices about your product or service. 

So, making a logo that will stand out and attract the attention of your target audience is a crucial part of getting your product recognized.

That’s why the creation of the logo is a separate project that requires its own creative brief. You can find a well-designed logo creative brief template on this link:  

🔽 Logo creative brief template

Unlike some other creative briefs, the logo creative brief doesn’t include “tone of voice”, but instead has elements such as:

• “Color scheme”, 
• “Logo style” and
• “Font type”. 

This is because the visual element is highly important when creating a logo, so it deserves to be divided into several categories. 

Social media creative brief template

According to Kepios’ 2023 report on global Internet use , there are 4.80 billion social media user identities in the world. So the quality of your social media campaign can be the difference between a successful product and an unsuccessful one. 

Make sure to use a creative brief to guarantee a well-organized social media campaign. You can use the template below to make your first social media creative brief.

🔽 Social media creative brief template  

Aside from the basic categories a creative brief should have, you should also specify which social media channels you are focusing on in the social media brief. 

For example, if your target audience are teenagers and people in their early 20s, you will probably focus on TikTok and Instagram. But if you are targeting business people in their 30s and 40s, your main focus should be LinkedIn. 

💡 Plaky Pro Tip 

If you want to learn how to create a social media calendar, check out the links below: 

• Social media content calendar guide + 60 ideas
• Social media calendar template 

Website creative brief template 

Since designing a website often involves a web design company and an external client, a well-written creative brief is a necessary part of the project. 

Make sure to try the website creative brief template we created for you. 

🔽 Website creative brief template

Almost any business today needs a website, so it’s very common for various businesses to employ a web design company to create it for them. 

This brief helps companies and web designers be on the same page and work together without problems.

7 Creative brief examples 

To help you see what a filled-out creative brief looks like, we have prepared an example for each type of the above-presented types. 

Simple creative brief example

In this simple creative brief, a construction company needs a marketing strategy for their new estates. 

Since their target audience are upper-class and business people, the tone they’re aiming for is confident. They want to look exclusive so their customers should feel privileged to own the property they’re selling. 

CREATIVE BRIEF FOR SKY HOUSES PROJECT

Paradise Estate needs to develop a marketing strategy for their new project “Sky Building”

Company background

Paradise Estate is a company building modern and exclusive buildings on the outskirts of cities. They have recently started a new project called “Sky Building”, which will have 48 apartments (12 stories with 4 apartments each). 

Objectives 

• Sell 50% of apartments before the building is completely built.
• Confirm Paradise Estate apartments as high-quality and exclusive housing.

Target audience

• Upper-middle and upper class
• Business people in their 40s and 50s 
• People with families

Tone of voice

Confident tone with an air of exclusivity, making people feel privileged to own apartments in this building. 

Stakeholders

Company CEO: Michael S.

Sales Director: George N.

Marketing Team Director: Diana C.

Design Team Director: Priya K.

Distribution

Social media (Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook)

TV commercials

Budget 

Social media advertising: $10,000

TV commercials: $25,000

Project start: July 7, 2023

Advertisement due date: July 28, 2023

Social media campaign: From August 4, 2023, to October 13, 2023

TV campaign: From August 11, 2023, to October 13, 2023

Marketing creative brief example

In this example, a restaurant owner hired a marketing agency to organize their marketing campaign for their restaurant in a new location. 

CREATIVE BRIEF FOR A RESTAURANT MARKETING CAMPAIGN

Company  

TastyFood restaurant 

TastyFood is a family restaurant on the outskirts of town. They are opening a restaurant in a new location. Their customers are mostly people in their 50s and 60s from the same neighborhood. 

• Show that TastyFood is a good restaurant for families with children.
• Have a full restaurant on the day of the opening.
• Middle-class people in their 30s and 40s who go to restaurants for late lunch or dinner after work
• Young families with children 

Friendly tone to paint a picture of a warm atmosphere: happy families enjoying their time together, friends eating dinner and laughing, etc. 

Competition

• Italian restaurant on the same street
• Two other small family restaurants in the neighborhood

Restaurant owner: John R.

Marketing agency owner: Tom A.

Marketing team lead: Dev C.

Project start: August 1, 2023 

Project due date: September 19, 2023 

Website launch: September 25, 2023

Billboards in the neighborhood

Youtube ads

Facebook and Instagram ads

Total: $20,000

Marketing agency: $7,000

Billboards: $5,000

Social media ads: 7,500

Additional expenses: $500

Advertising creative brief example

Here, a chocolate factory wants to increase sales numbers of their hot chocolate drink. They want to reach children and adults through TV commercials and YouTube ads. 

ADVERTISING CREATIVE BRIEF FOR A CHOCOLATE FACTORY

Project overview

A chocolate company wants to make a Christmas advertisement for their hot chocolate drink.

Company name

WeLoveChocolate

The company produces chocolate bars, chocolate cookies, and hot chocolate drinks. While bars and cookies have high sales numbers, chocolate drinks are not as popular. They want to advertise their product as an indulgent treat customers would want to buy.

• Connect this brand of hot chocolate with feelings of contentment and happiness during Christmas time in the minds of the customer. 
• Increase the sales of hot chocolate by 20% by the end of 2023. 
• Children aged 5-14
• Adults feeling nostalgic about their childhood

Happy, relaxed tone of voice that paints a picture of an idyllic family atmosphere during the Christmas holidays. 

• TV commercials on children’s channels, and on regular channels in the evenings
• Youtube ads 

Total budget: $45,000

Advertisement creation: $25,000

Advertising on TV: $20,000

Youtube ads: $5,000

Video creative brief example

This video creative brief is created by a supermarket working with a video production company to create a video that will promote online shopping.

VIDEO PRODUCTION CREATIVE BRIEF FOR A TUTORIAL

Video production project name

“How to order online” tutorial video creation

Easy Shop Supermarket

The popularity of the supermarket is increasing constantly. There are too many customers for the supermarket’s facilities to handle, and the rows at the cash register are long. The supermarket launched online shopping on their site, but the majority of the customers are not using it. This is why they hired a video production company to create a video that would promote online orders. 

Objectives  

• Increase online sales by 40% in the next 4 months.
• Decrease the time people have to wait at the cash register.
• Eliminate crowds in the supermarkets.
• Busy people with full-time jobs and families with children
• People who are struggling to achieve everything and who have too many errands in a day

The tone should be informative and friendly, with simple explanations, without unnecessary tech jargon to confuse the customers. 

The video will be posted on the supermarket’s homepage.

There will be a post on all the supermarket’s social media accounts, notifying customers there is a new tutorial video.

There will be a TV at the entrance to the supermarket playing the video. 

Budget  

Video production team: $3,000

Speaker for the video: $400

Pre-production due date: July 17, 2023

Production due date: August 28, 2023

Post-production due date: October 9, 2023

Stakeholders  

Video production company, represented by: Andrew C.

Supermarket’s marketing manager: Christina L.

Supermarket’s IT department head: Fiona N.

Logo creative brief example

In this example, a design agency is hired by a soft drink company to create a logo for their new drink. 

BRIEF FOR SOFT DRINK COMPANY LOGO CREATION PROJECT

Company name  

Sparkle Inc. 

Overview  

A soft drink company wants a new logo to represent their new cherry-flavored fizzy drink.

They produce soft drinks which are sold in most supermarkets and stores in the country. But the sales are quite low. They want to attract young customers.  

Create a logo that would appeal to a young audience. 

Pre-teens, teenagers, and young adults with the average income 

Vibrant and modern style that looks fun and lively. 

Color scheme

Cherry Red #D2042D

Cadmium Red #D22B2B

Jet Black #343434

Almond #EADDCA

Indie Flower

Soft drink companies:

• Fanta 

Client: Sparkle, Inc.

Represented by: Andrew R.

Design team leader: Jessica B.

Design team members: Ben H, Kate E, Lee J. 

Timeline  

Start of the project: June 16, 2023 

First draft due: August 16, 2023 

Final version due: September 9, 2023 

Social media creative brief example

Here, a company making face masks wants to raise brand awareness by promoting its products on social media.

SOCIAL MEDIA CREATIVE BRIEF FOR FORCE OF NATURE

Force of Nature

Force of Nature is a small business that produces organic face masks with minimal impact on the climate. They are a new company on the market, and they are trying to raise brand awareness with social media campaigns.

Platforms  

The campaign will cover 3 social media platforms:

• Instagram 
• TikTok 
• Facebook 

Raising brand awareness with: 

• Short videos with skincare tips,
• Articles offering free gift cards to new subscribers, and 
• Stories with satisfied customers.

Women in their 20s and 30s in college or working with busy schedules who don’t have time for long and complex skincare routines. 

People who pay attention to the environment and try to make eco-friendly decisions 

Bright and joyful  

First posts on Instagram and Facebook: July 3, 2023

Videos on TikTok: July 5, 2023

Youtube ads: July 10, 2023 

$15,000 ($5,000 each for Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok)

Company CEO: Sarrah C.

Social media team: Jenny L. (Instagram and Facebook), Mark A. (TikTok) 

Design team: Kate R, Lisa N, 

Video production team: Ben T, Taylor E.

Website creative brief example 

In this website creative brief, a company selling organic vegetables hired a website design company to create a website where their customers can place orders and have the vegetables delivered to them.  

ORGANIC FOOD WEBSITE CREATIVE BRIEF

Organic Food needs a functional easy-to-use website for their customers to place orders

Organic Food has been selling their products to supermarkets and stores for 6 years. Now, they are looking to expand and enable their customers to buy directly from them instead of going to the store. 

• Create a functional website for people to place orders and book deliveries. 
• Expand to a new market. 
• Increase overall sales by 15% by the end of November.

Middle and upper-middle-class people who pay attention to their health and want supreme-quality produce. 

People in their 20s to 50s who are used to ordering online.  

Style 

• Simplistic and modern style
• Website should look professional without any unnecessary bling
• All Organic Food — offer a great variety of fruit and vegetables to order online, but the prices are quite high
• Natural Food — affordable organic vegetables, but they don’t offer delivery 
• Sunny Valley — the most serious competitor. They offer organic vegetables to order online, and if you spend more than $100 the delivery is free. 

Website design company 

Head of web design: Claire A. 

Organic Food CEO: Mark S.

Organic Food sales team leader: Helen L.

Introductory meeting: June 30, 2023 

Website idea presentation: July 14, 2023

Project due date: July 31, 2023

Website launch: August 3, 2023

Why do you need a creative brief?

Composing a creative brief at the beginning of your project is something you should never skip.

Some of the biggest benefits of having a creative brief include:

• Eliminating confusion and saving time,
• Saving money, and
• Encouraging creative thinking.

Benefit #1: Eliminates confusion and saves time

Caballero explains how the creative brief helps his team be on the same page and save time:

“We all know what it feels like to be lost in a swirl of emails and meetings. The brief keeps everyone aligned, cutting through the confusion. We’ve all got our copy, and it’s like we’re singing from the same hymn sheet. It’s a real time-saver.”

Benefit #2: Saves money

Creating a brief with everything planned at the very beginning of the project will save you money in the long run. 

Having a creative brief means that everyone will know the objectives and expectations right at the start of the project, so there is a higher chance that the creative team will succeed in creating what the stakeholders want. 

This way, the project resources won’t be wasted on the trial-and-error stage of the project. 

Benefit #3: Encourages creative thinking 

Caballero points out how having a creative brief actually helps boost creativity:

“A clear brief sets boundaries but also grants the freedom to explore within those boundaries. It’s like having a sandbox where our creatives can build the most magnificent castles, resulting in unique and effective solutions.”

When should you use a creative brief?

The easy answer is — whenever you have to manage a creative project . No matter the type of creative project, having a creative brief can come in handy.

But, specifically, you should never skip a creative brief when you are working on a complex project that has a large number of stakeholders and requires smooth cross-team collaboration. 

For example, an advertising campaign that includes the sales team, the marketing team, and the video production team would definitely benefit from having a creative brief. 

All of these teams probably work on several different projects simultaneously and aren’t familiar with the details of the advertising campaign, so it’s important to have a document with all the information in one place.

Who can fill out a creative brief?

Who will fill out a creative brief depends on whether it’s an in-house project or if a company hired an external contractor.

If it’s an in-house project, the creative brief will most likely be written by the team manager. 

If a company is working with an agency, the creative brief can be written by someone from the company who is familiar with the project, like a marketing manager or a product manager . The brief would then be delivered to the agency. Of course, the people in the agency can give their input and the brief can be revised if necessary. 

The creative brief might also be written by someone from the creative agency who would work closely with the representative of the company to understand all their demands and wishes. 

Creative briefs eliminate confusion and save time

No matter the type of your creative project, a creative brief is a must. 

Hopefully, after reading this article you have come to appreciate how significant creative briefs are and how much of a difference they can make. 

If you haven’t yet, make sure to incorporate them into your future projects.

After all, as Caballero says:

 “ A creative brief is the unsung hero behind every successful project ”.

Creative projects can easily become hectic, so it’s important to have a project management tool like Plaky to help you stay organized and on the right track. In Plaky, you can create a board for each project containing all your tasks, along with their due dates, statuses, assignees, and so much more. Sign up for a free Plaky account today and introduce structure to your creative projects.

Galina is a project management author and researcher at Plaky. She combines her interest in team collaboration and her natural knack for organization into writing informative and engaging texts to help people better understand project management. When she is not working, she can be found relaxing with a cup of coffee and a TV series or trying out new recipes from Asian cuisine.

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10 Free Creative Brief Templates & Examples

Praburam Srinivasan

Growth Marketing Manager

February 13, 2024

No matter your business, it’s tough for creative projects to keep the balance. You need to make sure they stay on track but don’t want to structure them so much that they become formulaic. ⚖️

On the one hand, less structure leaves more room for creativity—AKA, the fun part! Emphasizing ideas first leads to beautiful designs, engaging content, and thoughtful collaboration. But on the other, the lack of process, accountability, and guidance often leads to missing deadlines and a lack of consistency throughout your work.

Plus, the structure behind your creative projects is what props them up for success! Without a sturdy and standardized operating procedure to l ay the foundation, it may be unclear to the team what your project is actually trying to accomplish.

That’s why a creative brief is essential to every creative project, no matter its complexity or size! With an equal focus on creativity and structure, your creative brief is the compromise your design and marketing teams have been searching for!

These documents help you think about and solidify the who , what , where , when , and why of your project. They keep your team aligned on goals and establish your next steps! Plus, they often go through a hefty approval process from every key player, so you know the finished product will meet (or exceed) all expectations.

But there’s no need to start from scratch on your creative brief for every new project. Instead, invest your time more productively—with a creative brief template! These resources are easy to use, collaborative, and best of all, customizable!

And lucky for you, we’ve already done the work to bring you the 10 best creative brief templates for any use case! Follow along for more creative brief FAQs, key features, template breakdowns, and more. 🎨

What is a Creative Brief Template?

1. creative brief template by clickup, 2. creative brief whiteboard template by clickup, 3. creative brief demand planning template by clickup, 4. product brief template by clickup, 5. campaign brief template by clickup, 6. event brief template by clickup, 7. seo content brief template by clickup, 8. design brief template by clickup, 9. marketing campaign brief template by clickup, 10. marketing project brief by clickup, what makes a good creative brief template.

A creative brief template is a pre-built document defining the key information, parameters, and goals for an upcoming creative project. These documents are typically created for stakeholders and project members to stay aligned on the project objectives throughout its lifecycle and kept by the project managers for easy reference.

Creative briefs are also, well, brief. We’re not looking for pages of research, we’re looking for a high-level rundown of what you’re going to deliver. If any additional resources are needed for context, hyperlink to it. 🙂

Creative briefs come in many forms, especially depending on your specific project type and complexity, but each brief consistently follows a standard set of categories to ensure your ducks are in a row before the kickoff meeting. Think of your creative brief kind of like a coloring book—it sets the boundaries for your creative team to work within to the best of their abilities!

Bonus: Creative Brief Examples!

10 Creative Brief Templates

Your creative brief is most useful when it integrates seamlessly with your other work tools. And since ClickUp is the only creative project management software flexible enough to bring all of your work together across apps into one centralized platform, that’s where we’re starting. ✅

Check out the top 10 creative brief templates for virtually any use case in ClickUp! Access collaborative and pre-built Docs, Whiteboards , workflows, Lists, and more—all at no cost!

We’ll start with what might be the most easily modified and comprehensive creative brief template you can find. The Creative Brief Template by ClickUp ensures your creative team is on the same page and working toward the same goals from the jump. This beginner-friendly ClickUp Doc template comes pre-formatted to support tables, media, and checklists. Plus, designated sections to clearly organize and quickly locate project information. These sections include:

• Target audience
• Deliverables
• Timeline and milestones
• Key stakeholders and sign-offs

ClickUp Docs is the ideal document editor for your creative brief template for its many collaboration features like live editing , assigned comments , and URL sharing. Its intuitive formatting, styling, and rich text editing also help you create highly visual and engaging briefs that stakeholders can read without needing a walk-through from the project manager!

And since ClickUp Docs live within your Workspace, you can convert text into actionable tasks, add tags to your Docs for easy referencing, and keep your work automatically updated without ever having to press “save.”

While creative brief templates are often pre-made documents—they don’t have to be! A key part of building your creative brief begins in the brainstorming process. And what better way to implement your best ideation techniques than on a dynamic digital whiteboard software ? 🤓

The Creative Brief Whiteboard Template by ClickUp takes your typical brief a step further, applying a pre-built List of creative project tasks to your Workspace and brainstorming diagram using its collaborative Whiteboards feature.

Whiteboards are ideal for capturing and acting on your ideas the moment they happen. Use this diagram as the framework to explore your creative project’s goals, audience demographics, research plans , and potential workflows. And when you’re ready to take things to the next phase, simply convert your text, shape, or note directly into a ClickUp task!

While the previous template was comprehensive in Doc sections and formatting, this Whiteboards template is rich in features and functionality to convey the same information visually! In this template you’ll find:

• Seven custom task statuses to oversee all progress
• Nine Custom Fields to bring more context into every view and within each task
• Four project views including Timeline, List, and Doc view
• Workflow automations to keep your project moving forward (without the pesky busywork in between tasks)

And it doesn’t end there. This template ensures your creative team, stakeholders, and clients always have access to the information they need as your project takes shape.

The creative process starts long before your brief takes shape. You have to be able to set clear goals that align everyone on where the project should go, along with a roadmap on how to get there. You’ll also likely be juggling multiple project ideas at a time—how do you decide which projects are developed first?

Project prioritization may depend on current resources, the amount of work required, and complexity. But ultimately, it comes down to the projects that resonate best with your clients or audience. AKA, there needs to be a demand for the project before you can justify acting on it. That’s where the Creative Brief Demand Planning Template by ClickUp comes into play.

This List template is designed for teams managing several creative campaigns at a time. With five custom statuses arranged on an interactive Kanban board using ClickUp’s Board view , you’re able to visually manage every small step in progress across multiple projects using the whopping 20 Custom Fields included in this template.

For a smooth product development process, it is crucial that everyone is on the same page. The Product Brief Template by ClickUp provides a solution to this challenge with a detailed Doc to foster cross-functional collaboration, reference high-level research, and work toward a successful product launch.

With this creative brief template, product managers can easily work with members, stakeholders, or clients to organize product specifications, review feedback, and act on their next steps—all from the same Doc.

At its core, this formatted template prioritizes the key information your teams will need to get to work. That includes a simple overview, functional specs, a detailed release plan, a description of the problem to be solved, and a list of key team members.

Ready to learn more about the product development process? Start with an intuitive product management template to guide your workflow!

Creative campaign briefs take a little more elbow grease to put together than your average project. Similar to product briefs, they require input, action, and collaboration from other departments to carry out successfully. That’s because campaigns are typically made up of several smaller projects to drive a larger result. The Campaign Brief Template by ClickUp outlines these key parameters and makes it easier for project managers to oversee a campaign’s many moving parts.

This five-page ClickUp Doc breaks down your campaign elements from a high level to ensure alignment on messaging and goals from the top down. Starting with the overall campaign brief, this template establishes your goal, target audience, budget, deliverables , resources, and more. Within those sections, you’ll be prompted to dive into greater detail to guide the other elements of your campaign.

From there, pre-built subpages will help you create briefs for your smaller creative campaign elements and assets.

Hosting an event is no easy feat! But the Event Brief Template by ClickUp is the ideal resource to ensure you’re kicking off your event project management process in the best way possible.

This Doc serves as a detailed checklist to refer back to throughout the planning and execution phase to manage the event logistics, resources, and ultimately, its success.

The summary section not only lists the event title, date, and location but also allows you to link your ClickUp project template and message channel for the event. Other sections include an outline of goals and objectives, your target audience, the project team working on the event planning and execution, and a specific event schedule.

This is a great template to have on hand when presenting progress to stakeholders and clients to ensure the larger event needs are being met before contracts are sent out and vendors are solidified.

It’s not just about having a steady flow of blogs planned on your content calendar —it’s about making sure they reach the right audiences! Proper search engine optimization (SEO) reviews and strategies are key to achieving this and should be a critical part of your content creation workflow to ensure your writing is ranking well.

While there are many tools you’ll consult throughout your SEO project management processes, having a reliable starting point like the SEO Content Brief Template by ClickUp can provide writers with everything they need to create content that is both engaging and search-optimized. 

In addition to a project overview, this Doc template includes the SEO title, meta description, and intended word count. An OKR section leaves space for objectives and key results, target audience, and keyword info to focus the content, and an outline gets writers started in structuring their content.

Bonus: Outline generators !

If you’re looking to add images to a blog or create posts for social media channels, you’ll likely need to submit a design request first. These requests gather basic information about the image or graphic you need, and will ultimately help shape the design brief .

Since these requests are often a small piece of a larger project, your design team will likely be managing multiple briefs at a time—sometimes several each day! This makes having an organized framework like the Design Brief Template by ClickUp a must for keeping all requests, progress, and feedback together.

Use it to outline the goals, scope, and timeline of your project with multiple views to manage your work from every angle—even assign responsibilities, delegate action items, and set task priorities from a single List view.

Then, track the execution of the design project using custom task statuses and a pre-built Kanban board to make sure that the deliverable timeline stays on track and every stakeholder stays in the loop on where it stands at any given time.

The Marketing Campaign Brief Template by ClickUp shines not just in its usability, but also in its presentation. A presentation-ready cover page makes it easy to get your core information across visually, while sections for the target audience, the proposed budget, and your significant dates help with planning.

As you build out the brief, you can also add context through embedding extra marketing materials and references, simply put, it’s the perfect overview for any team working on the planning and execution of a marketing campaign.

Believe it or not, not every marketing project is a campaign! For smaller projects or individual asks, the Marketing Project Brief Template by ClickUp is your go-to. This pre-built task keeps things simple and structured, so you can focus on the good part—being creative!

This task and its subtasks ensure you’re supplied with all the key information you need to get the project off the ground, including the audience, overview, next steps, and key players. 

Need help choosing a creative brief template? The best creative brief templates have to be standardized enough to fill out quickly every time there’s a new project, while also being general enough to leave room for unique development.

That’s a tough line to walk, especially considering the many types of creative briefs you might need. But it’s possible! Look for briefs that include the following elements:

• A quick summary of the project . That way, everyone will grasp the gist of the project—especially stakeholders and cross-functional team members
• A section for the target audience , with space to explain some of the nuances about that audience and the problems they face
• The goals of the project . It always helps when a designer or writer knows exactly  why  they’re doing what they’re doing
• Room for open-ended information . Your brief won’t include every little detail. In fact, some elements of the project may still be up for discussion—your brief will ultimately help those elements take shape
• The project timeline . This sets hard and fast expectations for what will be produced in the project and when it will be completed

And of course, it needs to be easy to complete. The less time the project manager has to spend filling it out each time they need to, the more time there is to focus on the project deliverables.

Streamline Your Creative Projects With a Creative Brief Template

Building creative products, campaigns, and deliverables is hard work. So why make it any more difficult than it has to be? When you use the right creative brief template, much of the organization is already done for you.

ClickUp’s vast Template Library is filled with thousands of templates for every use case! Access any of the 10 templates listed above for free to start crafting the perfect creative briefs in no time. And when you’re ready to take your creative project off the ground, ClickUp has the perfect set of features to help you do it.

Find hundreds of project management features , over 1,000 integrations , a built-in Whiteboards feature, a collaborative document editor, and more when you sign up for ClickUp today .

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The Creative Brief: Everything You Need to Know

Writing a full creative brief may not always be necessary — but in most cases, entering into a project without a creative brief is like flying blind. With many marketing departments producing high volumes of collateral and needing to be as agile as possible in their delivery, it’s critical that the process is as efficient as possible. And that starts with a well-written creative brief.

Download your free creative brief template

In this creative brief guide you will discover:

What is a creative brief?

• Why you need a creative brief
• How to write a creative brief?

When should you use a creative brief?

Who should fill out the creative brief.

• Creative brief template

A creative brief is a document used to outline the strategy of a creative project. A creative brief contains project details including:

• Project purpose
• Requirements
• Demographics

Usually developed in the project initiation phase, a creative brief will help a creative team better understand a project from the start, and may be presented to key stakeholders and clients.

Although not all creative briefs are created equal, they all share the same basic layout. And since some projects require more detailed planning than others, you’ll waste a lot of time and effort if you try to use one detailed creative brief template for all your work.

This is where electronic creative briefs in marketing work management tools come in handy. If it’s a quality tool, the briefs will be customizable so you can design them to only cover the information necessary for that specific type of project.

Effective creative briefs rely on good questions. Ask the right questions and you’ll write a creative brief that will make your life easier. Essentially, you have to clarify the who, what, where, when, and how of the deliverable . We describe how below.

Why you need a creative brief.

You need a plan.

Obviously, you can’t design something you don’t understand. Your project needs a reason to exist, as well as:

• expectations

In a creative brief, you articulate your vision and justify its benefits, as well as plan how you will target your audience. From the beginning, a creative brief puts everyone on the same page before launching a project.

A well-written creative brief will save you time.

Creative briefing isn’t just cobbling together a document, it’s wielding a tool that facilitates clear and thorough communication from the beginning of the design process. A clear brief can prevent:

• Last-minute changes
• Misunderstandings
• Conflicting objectives

All of which will cost your team valuable time and money.

You’ll maintain accountability and communication.

Agreeing on your scope , deliverables, objectives, the persona and execution of a project will help anchor your team and your stakeholders . Establishing parameters and, perhaps most importantly, building trust at the outset will go a long way toward smoother processes.

Requests and approvals will be processed faster.

Ambiguous goals are difficult to achieve. Consider vague requests such as, ‘I just want a really clean-looking design.’ While some of this is simply a fact of life for design professionals, a creative brief forces clarity upstream, minimizing difficult confrontations during the review and approval cycle.

The creative briefing process is as much about anticipating obstacles as understanding and aligning objectives. Better to get clarification during the planning phase than when you’re in the middle of proofing.

The final product will be higher quality.

This is a direct result of setting clear objectives, aligning with business objectives, and vetting expectations up front. When everyone’s time is valued and expectations are made clear, it’s easier for the team to hit their mark, remain invested, motivated, and proud of their work.

“The brief was always supposed to be a springboard for great work. Not a straitjacket.”

David Trott

author of Creative Mischief

So let the design brief act as your guiding instrument and understand that time spent on a well-designed brief is an investment that pays off in the end with:

• Greatly improved process
• Higher quality of output

And, ultimately, a more trusting relationship between your team and client.

Whitepaper: Agile Marketing for Creative Teams

Elements in a creative brief.

Before writing a creative brief, be sure to ask these 10 questions. Some are left out of briefs too often. Believe it or not, covering these bases can make the difference between a struggling content project and highly effective one.

1. Why are we doing this?

Anyone that’s going to create anything worthy of publishing needs to know some context to the assigned project. They need to know:

• The ‘why’ of the project — what’s the need?
• What’s the pain?
• What’s the opportunity or challenge?

Your team may not need to know every nitty-gritty historical detail of the project, so don’t waste time trying to pin down every little thing — only divulge what’s most important to your team doing great work.

2. Who is our target audience?

How will you know how to target your deliverables unless you know who’s going to see, handle, watch, or read what you’re creating? Make sure you know the ‘who’ of the project before beginning. And I don’t just mean writing ‘potential customers.’ What about these potential customers?

• How old are they?
• Where are they from?
• What's their average salary?
• What are their self-interests?

This type of information could be the difference between a successful campaign and huge waste of time and money.

3. Who are our competitors?

After you’ve identified your target audience, include a list of your main business rivals on the brief. Add links to review what they offer and any similar projects to yours they have attempted. Consider:

• How did they do?
• What can you learn from them?
• Did they do a good job?

Finally, consider how can you differentiate yourself from them with your creative content.

4. What do you want us to deliver?

This is the client’s chance to tell you the ‘what’ of the project — what they actually want your team to deliver. This is where the client unveils their overall vision for the project. This can require a little digging, however, because often clients have a picture in their head of what they want.

If you can't get them to describe that picture, the work your team completes, no matter how fabulous, can disappoint clients if it differs from their vision. This is the time to ask questions, get clarifications and manage expectations by communicating what expectations can or cannot be met and why.

5. What’s the big idea?

If this deliverable or campaign could be boiled down to a handful or less of key messages, what would they be? Some agencies call this the ‘big idea.’ What does this project most need to convey to, or evoke from, its audience?

6. How do we want it to look?

This section is especially important for external agencies that may have to learn a whole new brand with every project. This is where the ‘how’ gets answered, where you clarify the:

And any other guidelines related to the project.

7. What is our core business objective?

Before we get into the work of shaping content, we need clarity on its reason for being. Unless it’s meeting a business objective, even the most dazzling projects risks failing at its ultimate goal of creating value.

Discuss this thoroughly with your team and stakeholders at the outset, ensuring that creative projects aren’t just window dressing, but high-contributing parts of a larger strategy . Ultimately, when a creative asset is produced with the business objective top of mind, defending aesthetic choices becomes easier.

8. Who are the stakeholders?

This also addresses the ‘who,’ but from the working side. Who will work on the project from the creative team? Who are the client’s decision-makers? Who should you go to for approval on drafts and in what order?

9. When is the deadline?

This is the ‘when’ of the project. Some of the key timings to ensure you confirm are:

• When is the start date?
• When is the final version due?
• What are the milestones?
• When are subtasks due?
• How many iterations are expected and by when?

When gathering this information, it’s important to determine what actions and dates are required of the client to keep the project on track. For example, do they only have two days to provide feedback without pushing back the deadline? This must be clearly defined from the beginning so the client will understand that any delays on their part will cause overall delays for the project.

You would be surprised how many creative briefs leave out these critical pieces of information, whether because the team is focused entirely on the deliverables or because they’re not asking.

Create an example timeline.

Create a timeline that looks something like this, working backwards from when the content needs to be deliverable if possible.

• Kick-off meeting: Day 1
• Final creative brief due: Day 10
• Content due to client: Day 30
• Content due back from client to action amends: Day 37
• Second review process: Day 40
• Upload online (or see proof in print): Day 42
• Publish: Day 45
• Measure success, govern and maintain: Day 45 onwards.

Remember, the content you’re creating ties into a campaign with concrete launch dates and your delivery date will become a critical component of its success. You need to know and be able to work with this project constraint , setting it out in the creative brief.

10. Where will this content appear?

Context is crucial in content. Different venues carry unique audience expectations and ways of engagement. You’d never, for example, write a print ad the same way you write a social post.

Where your content appears will determine its:

• Size and scale

And how it moves users to the next point on the customer journey. Be sure to hone in on where your end user will engage with your final product.

Learn more: Workfront for Project Management Whitepaper: Process, Creativity, and the Need for Speed

Creative briefs cover projects of different shapes, sizes, and styles. Because of this a tiering system is applied to projects to show what level of briefing is required. We explain Tier 1, 2 and 3 below:

• Tier 1: Non-standard, non-iterative, highly conceptual work — This work is the most prone to being ambiguous, which means creative briefs are a must. Otherwise, team members may not know where to start, or get started with a high risk of going in the wrong direction. Think about a full advertising campaign — you'll want a lot of direction from the client before your team begins work.
• Tier 2: Execution of previous work across deliverables — Deals with already defined and completed work, so doesn't need the detail of a Tier 1 creative brief. But your team will still run a risk if they don’t use one. This could be a website landing page for an internal client. Chances are, you’ve already created dozens of these, so you have a general idea of the expectations. But it’s always good to make sure you have all the information you need before you start.
• Tier 3: Edits, revisions, templated work — This requires the briefest brief of all, but even though it’s simple you'll want a project description. Plus, if you let the little things through with sticky notes and hallway conversations rather than requiring some form of a creative brief, you'll quickly run into problems.

There have long been questions of who should fill out the creative brief. Is it the:

• Creative director?
• Account manager?
• Designer or writer on the job?

The answer is, it depends. If you’re an agency or an in-house agency, the best practice is to have the representative from client services, or the assigned account manager, meet the client to go through the creative brief. It may make sense to include the creative director as well to make sure everyone has a sound understanding of the project requirements .

If you’re an in-house creative services team, you will need to determine what process works best for your team’s unique workflow. Perhaps it makes the most sense for the creative director to meet with the internal client to complete the brief. Maybe your team has traffic managers or production managers that would better fill that role.

At the end of the day, the thing you want to avoid is sending a document to the client to fill out on their own. This can lead to a number of problems:

• Client takes too long to fill it out
• Client doesn’t fill it out at all and gets frustrated
• Client only fills out some of the information
• Your team reads the brief and doesn’t understand.

To save time and frustration, and whether you’re an agency or an in-house team, have an initial meeting with your client to fill out the creative brief together and clarify points as needed.

An alternative is to use a marketing work management software like Workfront with built-in creative briefs where, upon initial request, the client is required to provide certain information for the team. Even in this scenario, as a best practice it’s recommended you take the time to meet with the client and ensure everyone is on the same page before production begins.

Creative brief template.

If your creative briefings include these principles, you have effectively implemented creative briefs into your workflow. The perfect creative brief template is not built in a day. It takes continual feedback and fine-tuning to match your organization’s needs. As you write more creative briefs, determine what common fields should be included and add them to continuously improve your creative brief template. To get a head start, download our creative brief template .

Remember though, it’s called a brief for a reason, so keep it short. Only ask for what your team absolutely needs. Also, be willing to adapt your creative brief to the tier your project fits under. Now you’re all set to escape ambiguity and finally get some clarity.

Frequently asked questions about how to write a creative brief.

What is a good creative brief?

To write a good creative brief you need to make sure it’s absolutely clear what needs to be done and by when. It should clarify the objective, make clear any deadlines, and provide as much information about the product or service as possible. Ideally both the agency and the client should have input into the brief.

What is a creative brief template?

A creative brief template is exactly that: a template you can use to make completing a creative brief easier. It should give you a clear structure to follow, with fields to include key information such as objective, target audience, and deadline.

Why is a creative brief important?

A creative brief is important for many reasons. Primarily because it helps to agree expectations, deliverables, and deadlines between the client and agency. Another important reason is it ensures work is done correctly and to the right standard. Often when a client or internal agency stakeholder is unhappy with a piece of work, a poor brief is to blame.

What is a creative brief video?

A creative brief video is a filmed version of a written brief. In the context of a project, a video brief is intended to provide the recipient with information about which actions rest with them and how their work relates to project goals.

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How to Write a Creative Brief (Example & Template Included)

What Is a Creative Brief?

A creative brief is a short, one-or-two-page document that summarizes marketing and advertising projects. Creative briefs are used by marketers and creative professionals to define the goals, scope and timeline for a project and set guidelines for their teams. For this reason, a creative brief can be described as a project management document for creative teams.

Who Should Create a Creative Brief?

A creative brief may be written by an in-house marketing team, an advertising agency or a marketing consultant for internal purposes. It’s a document that should capture the requirements of a client who needs their services.

The creative brief is like a blueprint for a project that’s made to help graphic designers, writers, videographers and other members of a creative team know what they’re responsible for and how their work and deliverables fit into the larger project.

After you write a creative brief for your team, you’ll need to plan, schedule and track your creative project. To do so, you’ll need project management software like ProjectManager . ProjectManager is equipped with tools such as Gantt charts, kanban boards, project dashboards and timesheets to help you manage any creative project. Assign work to your team members, create schedules, track costs and much more. Get started for free today.

Why Are Creative Briefs Important?

The value of having a creative brief is that it sets out to ensure that the deliverables from the creative project meet the client’s expectations and business needs. Because of their clear value in managing marketing and advertising projects, creative project managers typically employ them for each project.

Yes, a creative brief is just a document, but it’s an essential one. If you have a well-made-up creative brief at the front of your project , you’re less likely to have problems as you progress through the life cycle of the work.

When Should You Use a Creative Brief?

A creative brief might be used for a variety of marketing and advertising projects such as:

• Launching a marketing campaign for a new product or brand
• Revamping your existing marketing strategy
• Rebranding an existing business
• Creating a website for your brand
• Creating a promotional video
• Starting a social media campaign
• Guiding your marketing team when working for an external client

Creative Brief Outline

A creative brief can be made in many ways, from a Word document to a PowerPoint presentation or PDF. While there’s no single way to write a creative brief, as the structure of a creative brief depends on who’s requesting the creative brief and who’s drafting it.

For example, a marketing agency working for an external client will need to gather as much information about their client as an in-house marketing team working on a project. Having said that, here’s a quick overview of the main elements most creative briefs should include.

• Company background: Include important information about your client such as its company’s core values, mission and vision as well as the name of the project , what it is and why it’s being done.
• Brand voice: The brand voice is critical to success and must be tied to the target audience and their values, so decide if it’s serious, light, humorous, etc.
• Message: Have a clear, simple and single message to tell the target audience. How will they believe that message to be true?
• Target audience: Who’s the target audience? What do they think about the product or service you’re developing, and is there anything that the creative team should avoid? Also, note the competition.
• Market insights: What are the key insights that have been learned about the market, and how does that relate to the company, brand or product?
• Project goals & objectives: Outline what needs to be accomplished, how it’ll be measured and what success will look like.
• Project scope: The scope of a project simply refers to all the tasks that will be executed.
• Project deliverables: List how to deliver the message to the audience and what the best way to do that is.
• Project timeline: Have a schedule to note when something is needed, when it must be done, how many revisions can be fit into that timeframe, etc.
• Project budget: What’s the financial commitment to developing this project?
• Approval: Who’s responsible for making approvals and decisions related to approval?

How to Write a Creative Brief

Now, let’s go over five simple steps you should follow when writing a creative brief.

1. Start by Understanding Your Client’s Requirements

Understanding the expectations and requirements of your client is key to success when writing a creative brief. This will be easier if you’re leading an in-house marketing team, as your team members will already have a good understanding of your company’s strategy, target audience and goals. If you’re working for an external client, make sure you get as much information from them as possible and make sure they approve your creative brief.

2. Conduct Market Research

Don’t neglect the work and marketing research before the creative brief is written. Some parts will be easier to develop than others. Defining the target audience and the best strategies to reach potential customers will require your team to do market research. Be sure to give those parts of the creative brief their share of time to get it done right.

3. Set the Goals for Your Creative Brief

Once you’ve understood the project requirements , it’s time to translate them into measurable and realistic goals for your team. For example, the main goal of your creative brief might be to simply increase the brand awareness of your company. Meet with your client and agree on an attainable goal, such as 30% more visitors to their website.

4. Define Your Project Scope & Deliverables

To accomplish the goals set forth in your creative brief, your marketing team will take a series of actions such as launching a social media campaign. Some deliverables will be images and promotional text created by your creative team. Once this social media campaign is live, you will track its success using digital analytics tools. Brainstorm with your team so that you don’t miss any detail.

5. Create a Budget for Your Creative Brief

Now that you’ve defined what your team should accomplish and how it’ll be accomplished, you’ll need to estimate the costs of each activity on your project scope. Once you know the costs for each task, you will be able to create a budget for the creative brief.

Creative Brief Template

Our free creative brief template is a great tool to get started with creative briefs. It’ll facilitate the process and help you make sure you don’t miss anything.

Creative Brief Example

The ad agency, Wieden & Kennedy , came up with the Happiness Factory campaign for Coke, with the tagline, “the Coke Side of Life” in 2005. It was driven by an issue that its client had, specifically that “Coke had become a forgotten friend.”

Its challenge to the creative team was to remind people what makes Coke special. The brand idea they wanted to deliver to their target audience was that Coke is the genuine taste of happiness. To support that, they listed that Coke is delicious and refreshing, but it won’t resolve world peace or restore the ozone layer.

Therefore, the tone was honest, intimate and personal, being friendly, joyful and uplifting. With these signposts to lead the creative team, they developed this eye-catching video . It’s remarkable to see how an outline can be filled in so dynamically with the right creative team and the proper direction.

Creative Brief vs. Client Brief

As stated above, a creative brief is created by marketers and creative professionals to guide the efforts of their teams. A client brief on the other hand is a similar document that’s created by a client, who uses this document to communicate his expectations to the leaders of a creative team who will then turn that client brief into a creative brief.

Creative Brief vs. Content Brief

A content brief is simply a document that’s created to guide the efforts of writers who are working on websites, social media management or other forms of copywriting. It may include guidelines such as brand voice, word count and SEO keywords.

Tips for Writing a Creative Brief

Just because they are highly effective, doesn’t mean that creative briefs are present in every instance of project planning . Surveys of ad agency executives have shown that many of the creative briefs used are not clear, and can be incomplete or inconsistent.

To avoid these shortfalls, the creative brief should be written after a client explains their expectations. Then the creative team can compile a list of questions that are answered by the requestor, usually a marketing team leader.

The answers to these questions will become the template for the creative brief and the whole creative execution of the project. As the project moves forward, the creative brief is always referred to, and any deviation can be identified and addressed.

Avoid Adding Too Many Details to Your Creative Brief

Adding too much information to a creative brief is a common mistake. While the creative team should know all there is about the product or service being developed, this is a creative brief—emphasis on the brief. The brief must be short and to the point; there are supporting documents for the details.

Know the Client Before Drafting Your Creative Brief

The client interview is critical to a successful creative brief. They are, after all, the ones who know what they want from the project. The creative team needs to have clear communications with the client, and before any creative brief is executed, it must be approved by the client.

Don’t Rush the Process of Writing the Creative Brief

While a creative brief is a short document you should take your time when researching and writing one. Also, once it’s completed, don’t just let it sit with the creative team. Yes, they can come to you with questions, but it’s best to be proactive and keep the human interaction present. Be available for the creative team to ask questions through the project life cycle .

How ProjectManager Helps You Manage Creative Briefs

While a creative brief sets guidelines for your creative team it’s just the first step when planning a creative project. Once you’ve written a creative brief, you’ll need the right project management software to plan how your team will execute the work. ProjectManager is robust project management software that offers tools that are ideal to plan, schedule and track creative projects. Here are some of its key features.

Plan With Multiple Project Planning Tools

ProjectManager’s project planning tools are perfect to plan and schedule the work that’s needed for your creative brief. You can use Gantt charts , kanban boards, task lists and project calendars to create a project schedule, assign tasks to your team members, set due dates and collaborate with them in real time.

Real-Time Project Dashboards & Reports

ProjectManager’s real-time dashboards are ideal for tracking costs, timelines, progress and workload at a glance. In addition, ProjectManager lets you create project reports in minutes so you can keep stakeholders informed.

Track Labor Costs With Timesheets

Creative briefs are executed by a diverse team of professionals, which means different rates of labor costs. ProjectManager’s timesheets and planning tools let you track the work hours of each member of your creative team so you don’t miss anything.

The creative brief is one of many essential documents that help with the planning of a winning project. ProjectManager is online project management software that helps you plan, track and report on every stage of the project’s progress. It offers kanban boards and a collaborative platform for teams to work together more productively and provides managers with real-time data, so they know exactly where the project is at any time. See how it can empower all your teams by taking this free 30-day trial.

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20+ inspiring creative brief templates

A compelling brief should inspire, inform and challenge creatives to do great work. Whether you're planning a new design, project or campaign, this template collection helps you create detailed, shareable briefs to get everyone on the same page.

Advertising Campaign Brief Template

Streamline your advertising process with a comprehensive brief that clearly communicates campaign goals, target audience, messaging, and creative direction for effective ad campaigns.

Design Brief Template

Collaborate seamlessly with designers and clients by providing a clear design brief that outlines objectives, styles, deliverables, and project timelines, resulting in a clear vision for the project.

Brand Strategy Brief Template

Develop a strong brand strategy using a comprehensive brief that clarifies brand positioning, target audience, unique value proposition, brand voice, and visual identity guidelines, ensuring a consistent and powerful brand presence.

Media Planning Brief Template

Optimize your media planning efforts by using a concise brief to define campaign goals, target audience, media channels, budgets, and scheduling for efficient and effective media placements.

Digital Campaign Brief Template

Plan and execute successful digital campaigns with a detailed brief that outlines campaign objectives, target platforms, messaging, content strategy, and performance metrics for impactful online advertising.

Illustration Brief Template

Communicate your illustration requirements effectively by providing an illustrative design brief that outlines project objectives, style preferences, subject matter, and usage context.

Logo Brief Template

Create a strong visual identity by using a detailed logo brief that specifies logo requirements, design preferences, brand values, and application guidelines, resulting in a distinctive and memorable brand mark.

Marketing Brief Template

Streamline your marketing efforts with a well-crafted marketing brief that defines campaign objectives, target audience, messaging, channels, and success metrics, driving effective and impactful marketing initiatives.

Social Media Brief Template

Strategize and execute successful social media campaigns with a clear social media campaign brief that outlines campaign goals, target platforms, content strategy, tone of voice, and key performance indicators, maximizing social media engagement.

Website Design Brief Template

Collaborate seamlessly with web designers by providing a comprehensive website design brief that defines project goals, functionality requirements, design preferences, and user experience considerations.

SEO Brief Template

Boost your website's visibility using an effective SEO brief that outlines keyword research, on-page optimization, link-building strategies, and analytics tracking, improving search engine rankings and organic traffic.

Press Release Brief Template

Craft compelling press releases by utilizing a well-structured press release brief that outlines key messages, target audience, distribution channels, and desired media coverage, resulting in effective PR campaigns.

Event Brief Template

Plan and execute successful events with a detailed event brief that defines event objectives, target audience, budget, logistics, and branding requirements, ensuring memorable and seamless event experiences.

UX Research Brief Template

Conduct user-centered research using a comprehensive UX research brief that outlines research goals, methodology, participant profiles, and research questions that informs design decisions.

UI Design Brief Template

Collaborate seamlessly with designers using a clear UI design brief that provides design objectives, user interface requirements, style references, and interaction guidelines, resulting in visually appealing and user-friendly interfaces.

App Design Brief Template

Develop engaging and user-friendly app designs by using a comprehensive app design brief that outlines app objectives, target audience, functionality requirements, and user flow considerations, creating intuitive and delightful mobile experiences.

Video Brief Template

Create captivating video content with a well-defined video creative brief that outlines video objectives, target audience, messaging, visual style, storyboard, and key performance indicators, ensuring compelling storytelling through video.

Motion Design Brief Template

Inspire and guide motion designers using a detailed motion design brief that provides project goals, visual references, animation preferences, and desired motion effects, bringing visuals to life with dynamic and engaging motion graphics.

Animation Brief Template

Plan and execute animated projects with a concise animation brief that defines animation objectives, storytelling elements, style preferences, and technical specifications, resulting in engaging animated content.

Photoshoot Brief Template

Plan and execute a successful photo shoot with a comprehensive brief that outlines the creative concept, desired aesthetics, locations, shot list, and mood board, ensuring a cohesive and impactful visual storytelling experience.

Interior Design Brief Template

Achieve your desired interior design vision by providing a detailed brief that encompasses the project goals, functional requirements, desired ambiance, color schemes, furniture preferences, and layout considerations, resulting in a beautifully designed space that reflects your style and purpose.

Model Brief Template

Select the right model for the job by creating a concise brief that includes the project scope, look and feel, wardrobe requirements and poses, resulting in the correct casting who brings your vision to life.

How to write an inspiring creative brief

A strong creative brief outlines the problem to solve and the path to get there. It gives your team the ingredients to do their most creative work without prescribing the solution.

Read our step-by-step guide on how to write a creative brief

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7 creative brief templates you can use right now

Creative brief templates can bring structure to your marketing campaign ideas — while saving you time in the process. Use one of the creative brief templates in this guide for your next project to fully harness your creativity and channel ideas that will help you reach your goals.

If you are ready to level up with interactive creative briefs, try Aha! software — purpose-built for product and marketing teams. You can document goals, create briefs, build calendars, and coordinate go-to-market plans — all in one place.

Get started using our creative brief whiteboard template — with a free trial.

Creative briefs align creative work with business strategy — keeping everyone on-brand, on-message, and on-track so you can successfully deliver against your marketing goals. Jump ahead to any section:

• What is a creative brief?

How to write a creative brief

Creative brief components and examples, 7 creative brief templates.

A creative brief captures the creative essence of marketing and advertising campaigns. It is a foundational document that establishes important details about your approach and deliverables — such as your objectives, launch date, budget, audience, and key messages. Creative briefs help internal teams, third-party consultants, or advertising agencies understand the brand voice and message you want to deliver.

Creative briefs are particularly useful for communicating with external creative or advertising agencies, but they are helpful for internal teams too.

Writing a creative brief is a great way to kick off your next marketing campaign. In this guide, we will go over how to write your own, what to include, and provide free creative brief templates to help you get started.

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Brafton: What makes an effective creative brief (and how to create your own)

Writing a creative brief requires a deep understanding of your strategic goals , where your product or service fits in the market , customer needs, as well as the resources available to your team. With that in mind, here is how to write a creative brief:

Name your project

Choose a descriptive but concise title for your marketing campaign to include in your brief. As you share your plans with stakeholders, this will serve as a shorthand for the project's focus.

2. Refer to your marketing strategy

Writing creative briefs is part of the strategic planning process. Consult overall business goals and marketing objectives first to ensure your creative brief will support them.

3. Gather the details

Project owners, budget, and timelines are all details to consider before writing your creative brief. You may need to consult leadership to collect this information.

4. Write your creative brief

Your creative brief should include components like customer truths, key messages, brand voice, and deliverables. Use a creative brief template to capture these important elements.

5. Review with the team

Once your creative brief is drafted, solicit feedback from other members of the marketing team. Collaborating on a creative brief helps to ensure you have included all the right details — and builds excitement for new campaigns.

6. Share with stakeholders

Whether you have prepared it for internal teams or an external agency, present your creative brief to communicate what you want to achieve. Treat your creative brief as a touchstone that everyone can refer back to as your campaign gets underway.

• What is a marketing plan?
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Introduction to marketing roadmaps

HubSpot: How to Write a Creative Brief in 11 Simple Steps

Forbes Agency Council: How To Write A Killer Creative Brief

As the name suggests, creative briefs are not long or complex documents. In a page or two, you should be able to summarize your project parameters and distill your approach into key concepts. Here are the essential elements to include, questions to help you fill out each section, as well as creative brief examples:

Marketing strategy templates

Marketing messaging templates

Marketing roadmap templates

Competitor analysis templates

Market positioning templates

Marketing calendar templates

Using a creative brief template makes it easy to write a succinct and compelling overview that clearly communicates your ideas. Below you will find a whiteboard template from Aha! software as well as free Excel and Word options.

Creative brief whiteboard template

This creative brief whiteboard template in Aha! software is a great option for collaborating between marketing and creative teams. Everyone can talk through ideas in a live session, which helps to ensure you are all in sync on the creative plan.

Start using this template now

Simple creative brief template

This is a starter creative brief — it includes all of the key components in a streamlined document. You can easily adapt this template for a wide range of marketing projects, from content marketing to social media campaigns.

Campaign creative brief template

Use this template to plan your creative approach for a marketing campaign. For example, if you are working with advertising agencies or consultants, you could outline a creative treatment for an advertisement , new logo, or tagline. For internal teams, this template can kick-off a new lead generation or email campaign. Anytime you need to create a new treatment or adaptation, write a new creative brief.

Agency creative brief template

Agency creative briefs are often used within marketing agencies. An account manager can use this template to capture what a client wants to achieve and essential details about their audience, key messages, and brand voice. This helps the agency team better understand their clients' needs so they can deliver outstanding service that fits their brand.

Content creative brief template

A content creative brief is used to provide writers and designers with the information they need to successfully produce a piece of content. This type of creative brief is typically for planning larger pieces of content like ebooks, whitepapers, or case studies — but you could use them to plan more routine content like blog posts as well. It is important to include details like research, background, and examples that can help creators understand your company's point of view on the subject.

Design creative brief

This template is helpful for working with graphic design professionals. Design creative briefs set you up for success by ensuring designers understand the brand and target customer as well as elements like tone, look and feel, and desired reaction. A detailed and thorough design creative brief will help produce high-quality design for everything from a new landing page to a billboard.

Video creative brief

Video creative briefs help production teams efficiently plan video projects. Creating new videos for a product or company is a significant investment, whether it is a short digital advertisement or a full brand video. Starting with a well-defined creative brief provides the clarity needed to produce a video that speaks to the target customer's problems in a compelling way, while staying on time and on budget.

Brilliant marketing happens when entire team is centered around a clear creative brief and well-defined plan. Get started, stay open minded, and share these templates with your teams or agencies.

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Presentation design: how to write a brief

A good creative brief is the cornerstone of any successful design project. At Documents With Precision, we rely on them. For those not in the know, a creative brief is basically a document that outlines a design project’s background, scope, and objectives. This document then becomes the designer’s reference point for the duration of the project.

We know that every client and project is unique, and years of experience have taught us the right questions to ask. So, in order to develop a thorough and reliable creative brief, here are a few things we typically ask our clients about before starting a project:

A bit of background information on both your business and your project can help us really get to know you and understand your needs. Knowing what business challenges you’re currently facing also allows us to tailor our solution more specifically.

This is where those brand guidelines we mentioned earlier come into play. If you have them, are they applicable for this presentation or would you prefer us to push the boundaries a little more? If not, no problem – we’re a resourceful team! We would typically use your logo and website as brand examples, and take it from there. We’ll also be asking if your content is ready. Do you have images, or will our team source those? Do you want to use animations or have any special requests for the document or presentation?

Target Audience

A big part of effective design is catering to your audience. Knowing your target demographic allows us to create a solution that speaks to that particular audience

Sometimes it’s just a case of bringing outdated materials into the 21 st century, especially if you’ve recently rebranded. Often though, your project might have a specific goal or purpose, and we want to help you achieve that.

Perhaps an obvious one, but important nonetheless. Sometimes you just need your project finished by a certain date, but it can often be more complex. If your project has multiple parts you may want to set milestones, for example. At Documents With Precision, we take pride in our flexibility and work with our clients to make sure their project is ready before it’s needed.

As with any effort, you get out what you put in – so a detailed plan of action is important. Remember, failing to plan is planning to fail. Next week we’ll delve into brand guidelines and what they’re all about!

20 Great Examples of PowerPoint Presentation Design [+ Templates]

Published: January 17, 2024

When it comes to PowerPoint presentation design, there's no shortage of avenues you can take.

While all that choice — colors, formats, visuals, fonts — can feel liberating, it‘s important that you’re careful in your selection as not all design combinations add up to success.

In this blog post, I’m sharing some of my favorite PowerPoint tips and templates to help you nail your next presentation.

Table of Contents

What makes a good PowerPoint presentation?

Powerpoint design ideas, best powerpoint presentation slides, good examples of powerpoint presentation design.

In my opinion, a great PowerPoint presentation gets the point across succinctly while using a design that doesn't detract from it.

Here are some of the elements I like to keep in mind when I’m building my own.

1. Minimal Animations and Transitions

Believe it or not, animations and transitions can take away from your PowerPoint presentation. Why? Well, they distract from the content you worked so hard on.

A good PowerPoint presentation keeps the focus on your argument by keeping animations and transitions to a minimum. I suggest using them tastefully and sparingly to emphasize a point or bring attention to a certain part of an image.

2. Cohesive Color Palette

I like to refresh my memory on color theory when creating a new PowerPoint presentation.

A cohesive color palette uses complementary and analogous colors to draw the audience’s attention and help emphasize certain aspects at the right time.

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It‘s impossible for me to tell you the specific design ideas you should go after in your next PowerPoint, because, well, I don’t know what the goal of your presentation is.

Luckily, new versions of PowerPoint actually suggest ideas for you based on the content you're presenting. This can help you keep up with the latest trends in presentation design .

PowerPoint is filled with interesting boilerplate designs you can start with. To find these suggestions, open PowerPoint and click the “Design” tab in your top navigation bar. Then, on the far right side, you'll see the following choices:

This simplistic presentation example employs several different colors and font weights, but instead of coming off as disconnected, the varied colors work with one another to create contrast and call out specific concepts.

What I like: The big, bold numbers help set the reader's expectations, as they clearly signify how far along the viewer is in the list of tips.

10. “Pixar's 22 Rules to Phenomenal Storytelling,” Gavin McMahon

This presentation by Gavin McMahon features color in all the right places. While each of the background images boasts a bright, spotlight-like design, all the characters are intentionally blacked out.

What I like: This helps keep the focus on the tips, while still incorporating visuals. Not to mention, it's still easy for me to identify each character without the details. (I found you on slide eight, Nemo.)

11. “Facebook Engagement and Activity Report,” We Are Social

Here's another great example of data visualization in the wild.

What I like: Rather than displaying numbers and statistics straight up, this presentation calls upon interesting, colorful graphs, and charts to present the information in a way that just makes sense.

12. “The GaryVee Content Model,” Gary Vaynerchuk

This wouldn‘t be a true Gary Vaynerchuk presentation if it wasn’t a little loud, am I right?

What I like: Aside from the fact that I love the eye-catching, bright yellow background, Vaynerchuk does a great job of incorporating screenshots on each slide to create a visual tutorial that coincides with the tips. He also does a great job including a visual table of contents that shows your progress as you go .

13. “20 Tweetable Quotes to Inspire Marketing & Design Creative Genius,” IMPACT Branding & Design

We‘ve all seen our fair share of quote-chronicling presentations but that isn’t to say they were all done well. Often the background images are poor quality, the text is too small, or there isn't enough contrast.

Well, this professional presentation from IMPACT Branding & Design suffers from none of said challenges.

What I like: The colorful filters over each background image create just enough contrast for the quotes to stand out.

14. “The Great State of Design,” Stacy Kvernmo

This presentation offers up a lot of information in a way that doesn't feel overwhelming.

What I like: The contrasting colors create visual interest and “pop,” and the comic images (slides 6 through 12) are used to make the information seem less buttoned-up and overwhelming.

15. “Clickbait: A Guide To Writing Un-Ignorable Headlines,” Ethos3

Not going to lie, it was the title that convinced me to click through to this presentation but the awesome design kept me there once I arrived.

What I like: This simple design adheres to a consistent color pattern and leverages bullet points and varied fonts to break up the text nicely.

16. “Digital Transformation in 50 Soundbites,” Julie Dodd

This design highlights a great alternative to the “text-over-image” display we've grown used to seeing.

What I like: By leveraging a split-screen approach to each presentation slide, Julie Dodd was able to serve up a clean, legible quote without sacrificing the power of a strong visual.

17. “Fix Your Really Bad PowerPoint,” Slide Comet

When you‘re creating a PowerPoint about how everyone’s PowerPoints stink, yours had better be terrific. The one above, based on the ebook by Seth Godin, keeps it simple without boring its audience.

What I like: Its clever combinations of fonts, together with consistent color across each slide, ensure you're neither overwhelmed nor unengaged.

18. “How Google Works,” Eric Schmidt

Simple, clever doodles tell the story of Google in a fun and creative way. This presentation reads almost like a storybook, making it easy to move from one slide to the next.

What I like: This uncluttered approach provides viewers with an easy-to-understand explanation of a complicated topic.

19. “What Really Differentiates the Best Content Marketers From The Rest,” Ross Simmonds

Let‘s be honest: These graphics are hard not to love. I especially appreciate the author’s cartoonified self-portrait that closes out the presentation. Well played, Ross Simmonds.

What I like: Rather than employing the same old stock photos, this unique design serves as a refreshing way to present information that's both valuable and fun.

20. “Be A Great Product Leader,” Adam Nash

This presentation by Adam Nash immediately draws attention by putting the company's logo first — a great move if your company is well known.

What I like: He uses popular images, such as ones of Megatron and Pinocchio, to drive his points home. In the same way, you can take advantage of popular images and media to keep your audience engaged.

PowerPoint Presentation Examples for the Best Slide Presentation

Mastering a PowerPoint presentation begins with the design itself.

Get inspired by my ideas above to create a presentation that engages your audience, builds upon your point, and helps you generate leads for your brand.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in March 2013 and has been updated for comprehensiveness. This article was written by a human, but our team uses AI in our editorial process. Check out our full disclosure to learn more about how we use AI.

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