A brief ensures your next project is a success. A well considered brief is vital to help you achieve the outcome you are aiming for, making sure all stakeholders and team members are aligned with a clear understanding. The purpose of a brief is so a creative team, agency, designer (etc) can understand and interpret your vision effectively. The most successful, creative briefs are easy to interpret, meaning they are free of jargon and marketing terminology.
Lets begin to build your brief
1. Describe Your Brand
Create a clear understanding of the business, who you are, and the product/services you offer. Describe your brand including background information relevant to the business, product, brand tone of voice and competitors where possible.
2. Project Overview
There are many types of projects. It is important you clarify the reason behind you campaign/content; include the purpose of your project. What product or service are you selling, and the status of the product or service. Is it a hero product or service, a new launch, relaunch, rebrand, an existing product or service, or something you want to drive brand awareness.
3. Objective and Outcomes
This is a key part of the project and the brief. Keep it clear and concise. When designing content, having a clear understanding of objectives is key to begin ideation and conceptualisation. Explain why do you need the project. Is there a problem you are trying to solve? What do you want to achieve from your campaign/content? What message do you want to share?
4. Target Audience
One piece of content does not fit all especially if you have a global brand with a service or product that appeals to multiple demographics. Describe your customer and who you want to reach; it is possible to plan a shoot to capture content for multiple demographics. With good planning it is possible to create multiple pieces of content that target different audiences from one shoot. Do you want to target a new audience? Think about inclusivity and diversity as It is important that content be relatable. This information is also necessary for the casting of talent/models and for where your content will be placed.
5. Deliverables
Also, one edit does not fit all platforms. Creating shoots, campaigns and content are a cost to the business make sure you capture all the content you need. Outline the deliverables - this will be unique to each brand, campaign or content mainly dependent on the demographic of you audience. Each platform has a unique format and ideal duration, so it is advisable to identify which platform you will be utilising and it is also important to ensure you have enough assets as you don't want to have to plan multiple shoots to create multiple assets.
6. Tone, Message, Style and Theme
This should align with your brand and what you are trying to achieve and the action you want your audience to take. Do not loose sight of you key messaging and brand tone of voice. Here is where visuals may be useful. As this is where the aesthetics will come into play and influence ideation and conceptualisation. Share relevant previous campaigns that have been successful and not so successful. This will give a good insight into your vision.
7. Timing
Specify your deadline and the timeline in mind. During your initial conversations discuss the process to establish if it is realistic and achievable. Also, this is the point you will need to establish the post production process such how many rounds of edits are possible/included.
8. Communication
Include stakeholders for the project who need to be included with their specific area of responsibility, who will be attending on shoot day and who will be included for the review process. Establish lines of communication; the point of contact, contacts for each specific area and so forth.
Download your FREE COPY of "The Ultimate Checklist"
Plus a chance for a non obligation 1:1 complimentary consultation to discuss your individual content needs.
Pinar Necati