Document
Creative briefs
The document a project is measured against: every decision in the work is checked against it, and if an idea does not serve the brief it does not ship. What one is, how it is used, three ways the trade writes it, and the templates to take away.
What a brief is
A brief exists to make the work better than it would be without one, and it fails without a target. Davis tells the story in chapter 10: a rich media campaign for an arthritis drug, and no target information in the brief. He built an insight from his grandmother, who said "Ol' Arthur's acting up again" a day before rain. Good work, no target, and the client rejected both directions.
Steel's three, whom Davis quotes: a realistic view of what the work needs to, and is likely to, achieve; a clear understanding of the people it must address; clear direction on the message. Goal, target, message. Everything in a brief is one of those.
Steel calls the brief a fisherman's guide. It points out the spots and the tackle; it does not fish. Ogilvy's version is tight, exact and clear, and still open and inspiring. Stone's rule for design studios: an unread creative brief is an unused one, so just enough to be thorough.
A brief exists to make the work better than it would be without one, and it fails without a target.
Davis, chapter 10Answer this with prose. Bullet points won't work at all in a brief.
Davis, chapter 10An unread creative brief is an unused one.
Terry Lee Stone, Communication Arts
How it is used
It comes after the research, not before.
Page one is the situation: the audience, the problem statement, the competition, the insight. Those are found, not invented. The brief writes them down once so the whole team argues from the same facts.
It is written in sentences.
A sentence has to commit to a cause. Davis: bullet points won't work at all in a brief. Mark every guess with a question mark; an unmarked guess is not allowed.
One line on top, written last.
GET the audience WHO the insight TO the response BY the idea. BBDO's one-line brief, the strategy in one sentence. If the four slots do not agree, the pages under it are not finished.
Two pages.
Page one, the situation. Page two, the answer: the proposition, the position, the tone, where it reaches them, what they should do and the number that will say so, the mandatories, and what is still a question.
It judges the work afterward.
The same page that briefs the work is the page the work is checked against at every review. If an idea does not serve the brief, it does not ship.
The brief in one line
The whole brief in one sentence, in four slots. Written last, put first. It is not a problem statement, which is written from the audience's side and names no answer; it is the strategy, the audience and the message made to agree. If the four slots do not agree, the pages under it are not finished.
GETthe audienceWHOthe insightTOthe one responseBYthe one idea
- GET
- Names a person you could point at. "Millennials" fails. "Couch-dwellers who keep meaning to work out" passes.
- WHO
- An observed truth, not a wish. Something they would recognize about themselves.
- TO
- A verb they can do tonight. If it is "feel confident," keep going until it is an action.
- BY
- One idea. If you need "and," you have two briefs.
GET comfortable couch-dwellers who keep meaning to work out WHO sink into the sofa after work and let the evening quietly swallow the plan again TO get off the sofa and go out for a run tonight BY casting the sofa as the villain literally trying to drag them down.
Reebok, Selfstorming's worked exampleGET logged-in members who need a job posting or an event WHO open Google in the next tab because the Guild's search shows them stale results TO search the Guild first BY a search that knows who they are.
Brown's association search engine, Practical Design Discovery, chapter 2
BBDO New York, credited to Martyn Straw, about 2004. The first line of every Workhorse brief since 2026.
Three approaches
The agency asks questions, the DO brief asks for behavior, the studio asks for the whole job. Each is one page and can be used as it is; the course template below the downloads is assembled from the three.
The agency brief
The Goodby, Silverstein brief
Jon Steel, 1998
One page, seven questions, as Jon Steel wrote it for Goodby, Silverstein and Partners. Steel calls the brief a fisherman's guide: it points out the spots and the tackle, it does not fish. The questions are questions on purpose. A heading can be left blank and nobody notices; a question cannot.
- 1
Why are we advertising at all?
The client's current business situation, and the problem the work has to overcome, in a few sentences. With a clear sense that this work can help.
- 2
What is the advertising trying to achieve?
The objective. If there are several, rank them, and list only the effects the work itself can produce.
- 3
Who are we talking to?
The audience, as people, not as a demographic.
- 4
What do we know about them that will help?
The insight. Not everything the research found; the one thing that will move the work.
- 5
What is the main idea we need to communicate?
The proposition, in one sentence. The resonant truth most likely to shift what they think or do.
- 6
What is the best way of planting that idea?
Tone, channel, the moment. How the idea reaches them.
- 7
Why should they believe it?
The support. The facts, the proof, the reasons the proposition is true.
The DO brief
The Ogilvy DO brief
Ogilvy
One page, eleven questions. "Do" is the point: the brief asks what the audience must do as a result of the work, not what they should think or feel about it. Ogilvy's own line on it: a great brief is tight, exact and clear, and still open and inspiring. A brief that asks for "awareness" is a bad brief.
- 1
Why is this brief here?
What is the client's business goal for the brand? How do we sell more?
- 2
Who do we need to influence?
Which customer or market segment offers the best opportunity for growth?
- 3
What do they need to do as a result of this communication?
"Do" means do. What change in actual behavior are we bringing about?
- 4
How will the communication achieve this?
A call to action, a desire for information, a shift in perception: which, and how?
- 5
What do we need to convey?
The core thought that will lead to a highly creative solution. The single-minded proposition.
- 6
What do they need to know?
The product facts that support the choice.
- 7
What do they need to feel?
The emotion that makes the choice. Emotional campaigns sell harder.
- 8
Why should they care?
What is in it for them: something useful, or something worth passing on.
- 9
How will success be measured?
More buyers, more frequent buying, switching, higher spend per buyer: which?
- 10
Mandatories
What must appear, and what cannot. The client's non-negotiables.
- 11
Channels
Where the audience is reached and influenced.
The design studio's brief
The design studio's brief
Terry Lee Stone, Communication Arts
Ten sections, the version design studios write rather than ad agencies: it carries competitors, visuals and people, which the agency briefs leave to other documents. Behind the ten sections are seven questions: what is this project, why are we doing it, who is it really for and why should they care, where and when will it be used, who engages with it, how will it be remembered and retold, what needs doing by whom by when. The rule: an unread creative brief is an unused one.
- 1
Background summary
Who is the client? What is the product or service?
- 2
Overview
What is the project? What are we creating, and why?
- 3
Drivers
What is our goal for this project? What are we trying to achieve?
- 4
Audience
Who are we talking to? What do they think of the client?
- 5
Competitors
Who is the competition? A SWOT on them.
- 6
Tone
How should we be communicating? What adjectives describe the desired feeling?
- 7
Message
What are we saying with this piece, exactly?
- 8
Visuals
Are we developing new images or using existing ones?
- 9
Details
Mandatory information. The list of deliverables. Any pre-conceived ideas.
- 10
People
Who are we reporting to? Who will approve this work?
Further reading
- Douglas DavisCreative Strategy and the Business of Designchapter 10, the eleven questions a creative brief should answerRead it as a form. Davis's eleven questions sort into Steel's three: goal, target, message.
- Jon SteelTruth, Lies and Advertising: The Art of Account PlanningWiley, 1998, the chapter "The Fisherman's Guide"The Goodby, Silverstein brief and the seven questions. The brief Davis quotes.
- OgilvyThe DO briefas circulatedEleven questions built around what the audience must do as a result.
- Terry Lee StoneCreative Briefs in Shifting TimesCommunication ArtsThe design studio's brief: competitors, visuals and people.
- BBH LabsKill your ego or kill your brief: 10 rules to nailing a creative briefingbbh-labs.com
- SelfstormingGET / WHO / TO / BYthe one-line brief, credited to Martyn Straw at BBDO New YorkWith the Reebok, Volvo and Headspace worked examples.
- Dan BrownPractical Design Discoverychapters 2 and 3The problem statement and the objective that feed page one; the concept, principles and boards that feed page two.
- Erika HallJust Enough Researchchapters 6 and 9The competitive audit, and a number that arrives with its denominator and its year.
Templates to download
Plain text files. Copy one into your project and write under its headings. The course template's fourteen sections each say which of the three above they came from.