# The creative brief, the notes What each section of [the template](/course/business-of-design/handout/creative-brief-template) is for, where it comes from, and what the books say. Read this once; fill the template many times. The spine is Workhorse's own brief, as written for Resume Place (2022) and the PBS Innovation Team (2021). The questions under each section are Jon Steel's at Goodby, Silverstein, the brief Davis quotes in chapter 10. Know, feel, do, mandatories and channels come from the Ogilvy DO brief. Competitors, tone and people come from Terry Lee Stone's design brief in Communication Arts. The one line on top is BBDO's, adopted as the first line of every Workhorse brief in 2026. Three rules. Sentences, not bullets: Davis, "bullet points won't work at all in a brief." Mark every guess: a line that ends in `?` is allowed, an unmarked guess is not; Brown, "they reflect your best understanding at the moment." Two pages: an unread brief is an unused one. --- ## The one line BBDO's one-line brief. It is not the problem statement, which is written from the audience's side and names no answer; it is the strategy in one sentence, the audience and the message made to agree. If the four slots do not agree, the pages under them are not finished. ## 1. Project overview Workhorse's header. Davis Q1. "What it really sells" is the need underneath, in Maslow's terms: Davis, "In our factory, we make lipstick. In our advertising, we sell hope." ## 2. Why are we doing this at all Steel's first question. Workhorse's "History." Davis Q3. Steel asks for "a succinct description of the client's current business situation, and the problem" the work has to overcome; for the course, a working product with no market. The problem statement comes in verbatim from the problem statement hand-in, with the cause underneath where the five whys landed. ## 3. What the work has to achieve Steel's second question; the PBS brief's "Goals (top three)"; Brown's project objective. Steel: list only the effects the work itself can produce, and prioritize. ## 4. Who is this project talking to? Workhorse's audience section, numbered, with examples under each ("someone seeking to change careers, making ~$40K in private industry"). Davis Q4 and Q7. Hall, chapter 6: "the hardest competitor to beat is the one your potential customers are using right now." Hall, chapter 9: a number arrives with what it counts, out of how many, what year, whose count. This section is the audience hand-in, carried forward. ## 5. What we know about them that will help Steel's fourth question. Davis, chapter 1: "first the observation of an existing truth and then the crafting of the conclusion or conclusions that follow." Not a statistic; the thing the statistic means. ## 6. Who's the competition? Workhorse's competitor section, grouped by category: big corporations, small business, non-profit, the free thing, doing nothing. Hall, chapter 6, the audit: how they position themselves, who they target, what they do well and badly. The opening: "opportunities to offer something clearly superior." ## 7. What are we trying to say? Workhorse's message; Steel's "main idea"; Ogilvy's single-minded proposition. Davis Q5, Q6, Q8. One sentence: Resume Place, "helps people write new chapters in their story of service and commitment to America." If there are two, the brief is not done. The benefit is what the product does for this audience, not what it is. Reasons to believe come from what people already say about the category, not the makers' press release. The takeaway is the PBS brief's "audience takeaway." ## 8. The position Davis Q9. Durable, unlike the proposition, which can change per campaign. ## 9. We want to be seen as Workhorse's aspirations: Resume Place chose originators, non-conformists, innovators. Brown, chapter 3: the concept ("only a concept can establish a vision"), the principles ("done right, principles should make you squirm a little"), each an implication of something learned. This is the pitch studio's work, carried in after the crit. ## 10. Tone Workhorse's "adjectives that best describe the feeling or approach." Ogilvy: tone of voice, with examples, which is why the template asks for a line the brand would say and one it never would. ## 11. Where we will reach them Steel's "best way of planting that idea." Davis, chapter 1: target, channel, messages, and the purchase funnel. Name the channel; "social" is not one. ## 12. What they should do, and how we will know Davis Q10: "Call, click, visit, or all three?" Hall, chapter 9: the conversion, and the number to beat against the category average. Brown: a hypothesis. It will be wrong, and it has to exist. ## 13. Mandatories and constraints Ogilvy's mandatories. Workhorse's deliverables and milestones. Davis Q2 and Q11. Brown's objective: so concrete every noun can be argued with. ## 14. What is still a question Hall: every unmarked assumption is a research question you have not asked. --- ## Where the sections come from | Section | Workhorse | Steel / Goodby | Ogilvy | Davis Q | |---|---|---|---|---| | One line | The brief in one line (adopted 2026) | | | GET / WHO / TO / BY, BBDO | | 1 Overview | Overview, team, timeline | | | 1 | | 2 Why at all | History | Why are we advertising at all | Problem | 3 | | 3 Achieve | Goals (PBS) | What is it trying to achieve | Objective | | | 4 Audience | Who is this project talking to? | Who are we talking to | Audience | 4, 7 | | 5 Insight | | What do we know about them that will help | Audience insight | | | 6 Competition | Who's the competition? | | Category truth | | | 7 Say | What are we trying to say? | The main idea; why believe it | Single-minded proposition; reasons to believe | 5, 6, 8 | | 8 Position | | | | 9 | | 9 Seen as | We want to be seen as | | | | | 10 Tone | Adjectives | | Tone of voice | | | 11 Reach | | Best way of planting the idea | | | | 12 Do, know | | | Desired response | 10 | | 13 Mandatories | Deliverables, milestones | Practical considerations | Mandatories | 2, 11 | | 14 Questions | | | | | --- --- ## The same brief, sketched on Brown's example Brown never wrote a brief for the industry association's search engine; his chapter 2 stops at the problem statement and the objective. What follows fills the sections from the facts he gives. Where the book says nothing, the line ends in `?`. **One line.** GET 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. **1. Overview.** A search engine across an industry association's websites. What it really sells: the feeling that the association knows who you are and what you came for `?`. Team: the association's web team, its executives, the appliance vendor; who decides `?`. **2. Why at all.** The search runs on a vendor's appliance that "functioned just fine" and satisfied nobody. Different parts of the organization manage content differently because they run on different revenue models. The problem, verbatim: "Association members are frustrated with the site's search results, because they display out-of-date information and promote irrelevant matches from a narrow slice of the site's content." **3. Achieve.** Members find the thing on the first try; every Guild site is indexed; results anticipate "their needs, interests, and geographical area." **4. Audience.** "Members unfamiliar with the inner workings of the organization," logged in, looking for a job posting or an industry event. How we know: complaints from members, employees and executives; a count from analytics `?`. What they use instead: Google. What it costs: the time to search twice, and the content they never find because it is in a PDF `?`. In their way: Google is already open in the next tab. **5. Insight.** Observed: members are logged in when they search, and Google does not know that. Conclusion: the one thing Google cannot do is the one thing the Guild can. **6. Competition.** Google; other associations' search `?`; the vendor's default. The opening: a search that ranks by membership, region and role. **7. Say.** The Guild knows you. Benefit: you find it on the first try. Believe it because: results ranked by your membership and region; every site indexed `?`. Takeaway: search here first. **8. Position.** For logged-in members, the Guild's search is the only search that knows who you are, because it ranks by membership, region and role `?`. **9. Seen as.** Knowing, current, ours `?`. Concept, principles: chapter 3's work, and the book does not do them for this project `?`. **10. Tone.** `?` **11. Reach.** The search box itself, on every logged-in page; the member newsletter `?`. **12. Do, know.** Search here first. "Site analytics will show 50% less 'pogo-sticking' between search results and site content," against the current rate `?`. **13. Mandatories.** The existing intranet style guide, per his objective; content trapped in PDF is a constraint until the content changes. Deliverables: the objective sentence; the discovery document; the chapter 4 plan `?`. **14. Questions.** Every `?` above. --- --- ## Sources - Jon Steel, *Truth, Lies and Advertising: The Art of Account Planning* (Wiley, 1998), the chapter "The Fisherman's Guide." The Goodby, Silverstein brief and the seven questions. This is the brief Davis quotes in chapter 10. - The Ogilvy brief, as circulated: https://www.scribd.com/document/475407107/ogilvy-DO-Brief-template-doc - GET / WHO / TO / BY: https://strategyfinishingschool.com/how-to-use-the-creative-brief-get-who-to-by/ and https://www.selfstorming.com/tools/frameworks/Get-Who-To-By (origin credited to Martyn Straw at BBDO New York, around 2004; the Reebok, Volvo and Headspace worked examples are there). - Terry Lee Stone, "Creative Briefs in Shifting Times," *Communication Arts*: https://www.commarts.com/columns/creative-briefs-in-shifting-times - BBH Labs, "Kill your ego or kill your brief: 10 rules to nailing a creative briefing": https://www.bbh-labs.com/kill-your-ego-or-kill-your-brief-10-rules-to-nailing-a-creative-briefing - Workhorse, the Resume Place creative brief (2022) and the PBS Innovation Team creative brief (2021), studio archive.