Overview
Marketing & Creative Brief Templates
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IN THIS GUIDE
Different types of marketing briefsMarketing brief template (the all rounder)Creative brief templateLooking for the perfect briefing template?
Well, you're in the right place. Briefs are about directing and inspiring your agency. And brief templates allow you to structure the information you need to communicate.
We’ve analysed over a thousand briefs to bring you the simplest, most effective briefing templates. All for free, of course.
What is the difference between a marketing, creative, media, and production brief?
This can be confusing, even if you've been in the marketing industry for years.
Here are some quick definitions of each kind of brief...
Marketing brief: Sometimes called a client brief, this brief is written by the marketing team in a client organisation and used to brief their advertising or marketing agency on a new project. (Confusingly, some clients will call this a project brief 🙄)
Media brief: This is marketing brief but specifically written for a media agency. Usually it's asking the agency to produce a media plan for a campaign or product launch or for the next year.
Creative brief: This brief is usually written by the advertising agency (or in-house creative studio) to brief their creative team. It will normally be based on the marketing brief that the agency received from their client.
Production brief: This is typically a more executional brief, written by a client or agency and shared with a production studio. The creative idea and media plan will have been established and this brief will detail what assets are needed and for when.
Marketing Brief Template
The all-rounder. Great for most campaign and media briefs.
If you're a marketer who's writing a brief for an agency, this is likely the only briefing template you’ll need.
It covers:
- Brief Summary
- Business Challenge
- Objectives & KPIs
- Target Audience
- Key Messages
- Opportunities & Inspo
- Considerations
- Deliverables
- Budget
- Stakeholders
- Next Steps
- Key Resources
Some things to bear in mind when writing a campaign brief:
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Try to focus on a problem to solve, rather than spoon feeding someone the solution. Problems are inherently motivating for the person receiving the brief, so you’re likely to get better work out of them.
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Describe your target audience richly. Don’t just provide demographic data (age, gender, income). How does this audience think and feel and behave? Who do they buy from? When?
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The devil is in the details. Be clear on what you’re expecting and when. And include who will need to review it at what stage. This will save you a tonne of back-and-forth down the line.
Adapting for your use case
If you're writing a smaller Social or Digital brief, you can afford to be lighter on some of the sections, but you may want to include platform-specific insights in your considerations.
If you're writing an Influencer brief, be very clear on what they can and can't say (otherwise, we promise, they'll mess it up).
If you're writing a Design or Production brief, your deliverables should be well specified.
Now you've got your template... want to write the perfect brief? Check out our no-nonsense guide to brief writing, starting with 'How to write the perfect brief'.
Creative Brief Template
A brief template for marketers or agencies who are briefing creatives directly.
If you're agency that has received a client brief and now needs to brief your creative team or if you're a marketer that is briefing in-house creatives directly, this template is for you.
It covers:
- Communications Objective
- Problem Definition
- Brand/ Product Truth
- Audience Insight
- Strategic Proposition
- Key Messages & RTBs
- Category Truth
- Cultural Lever
- Deliverables
- Considerations
Some things to bear in mind when writing a creative brief:
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Try to be as single-minded as you can. Don't hedge your bets with options or lots of ways in when it comes to your audience insight or your strategic proposition. Be as selective as you can with the information you include in this brief - it's the job of your creative team to take anything you include in the brief and run with it.
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Add richness with tension. Great creativity can come from holding two contradictory things close to each other. For example, that might be setting your cultural insight in opposition to a truth about the category. The point is to help your creative team get to fresh, new territories.
📍
Your brief is not your strategy on a page. You need to be crystal clear on the strategic landmarks of this campaign, but this brief needs to be about how creativity will help you achieve your objectives. Overwhelming creative teams with strategy can derail them, even if it feels like you're providing useful context.
Really want to nail your creative brief? Check out our collection of articles designed to get you writing great briefs at Briefing 101.
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