The Creative Brief is a planning tool widely used by advertising agencies and marketing personnel when designing or implementing a marketing program. It can be used when creating communications directed at clients, employees, shareholders, potential investors, the media, or any other target group.





The Creative Brief is a cooperative tool by which the various people and groups involved in a project focus their thoughts and analyze the best method(s) of approaching a program. When used properly it can also reduce the time and cost associated with marketing projects, as it requires all the key participants to agree on important factors at the onset of the project.

Many organizations and agencies have a very refined, occasionally bizarre, possibly even copyrighted briefing tool that is specific to how they do business. Most, though, have a few important elements in common:

Objective: What is to be accomplished by this program? Is the goal to create awareness, knowledge, preference, or purchase? One traditional tool used for this purpose is the definition of SMART objectives: Specific, Measurable, Agreed Upon, Realistic, and Time-based.
 
Primary audience: Who is this campaign meant to reach? The more specific and detailed the better. When possible, list details like title(s) of audience members, industry, size of company, revenue, number of employees, geographic details, affiliations, key behavior attributes (i.e., do they make the buying decision or influence it?). Demographics and psychographics go here.
 
Attitudes/Beliefs/Objections of audience: Another way to state this element is, “Why hasn’t the audience already done/thought what you want them to?” If you were hired to argue against the purpose of this campaign, what would your points be? What is the