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This page is both the brief and the reasoning behind it. You fill in each section, and every section carries a “Concept review” dropdown that explains what the field is for and leaves the decision to you. You can complete the whole thing without opening a single dropdown, or expand any one when you want the thinking first. The greyed E.g. lines are examples to delete. They all follow one invented company, Doughnut Labs, a SaaS business that sells disruptive Doughnut Technology, so you can see a single brief taking shape rather than scattered fragments.
Fill in the required core first (sections 1 to 12). Add the conditional sections only where they change the work. Link your brand documents in Part 3 rather than retyping brand rules inside the brief.
1

Complete the required core

Complete setup and sections 1 to 12.
2

Add conditional sections that apply

Budget, competitive context, distribution, accessibility, and prior research each earn a place only when they change a creative decision.
3

Attach and link supporting material

In Part 3, link out to the brand voice workbook, brand assets, positioning, messaging, logo usage, visual identity, and brand guidelines. Attach anything else whoever does the work needs.

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Setup

Fill in the fields that identify the test and who owns it. Keep the rows that fit, add any your team relies on:
These fields answer “what creative this is, and who’s accountable for it.” The owner field tends to work best as one named person rather than a team, because a test with shared ownership can become the test nobody analyzes once results land. Where your team lands on the rest is yours to decide, but the general aim is that anyone opening the brief can tell at a glance which test this is and who to ask about it.

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Part 1: Required strategic core

Fill in every section here. This is the strategic foundation whoever does the work should receive.

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1. Project overview

In one or two sentences, describe what you are creating, why it is needed now, and what larger campaign, product, or initiative it supports: E.g. A three-video paid social set to launch Doughnut Labs’ new self-serve tier, timed to the September pricing change, supporting the wider “Ship in a day” acquisition campaign.
This is the orientation line that lets a reader place the assignment before they read anything else. It answers what the work is, why it exists, and why it is happening now, so every later decision has a frame.The common failure here is length. A project overview that turns into a company history buries the one or two facts that actually change a creative choice. The test for whether a piece of background belongs is simple: if it could change what the creator makes, it belongs, and if it only sets the scene, it can go in the attachments instead.

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2. Problem or opportunity

What is the underlying problem or opportunity this work responds to? State it as a problem, not as a goal: E.g. First-time buyers assume Doughnut Technology takes weeks to set up, so they never start a trial.
The problem is not the objective, and keeping them separate is what makes both useful. The problem is the real-world situation you are reacting to. The objective is the change you want. A brief that only states the objective (“increase trials”) leaves the creator guessing at what is actually in the way.Naming the problem in the audience’s terms, what they currently believe or do, is what gives the creative something to push against. When this section is skipped, teams often solve the wrong thing well, producing polished work aimed at an obstacle that was never the real barrier.

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3. Objective

Fill in all three levels so a vague goal never gets handed straight to a creator:
A single objective line usually collapses three different things into one and loses the part a creator can act on. The business goal is the commercial result. The communication objective is what this specific piece of work has to change. The audience response is what someone should think, feel, or do after seeing it.Separating them stops a number like “increase sales” from landing on a designer’s desk as if it were creative direction. The layer a creator can actually build toward is the audience response, and it only exists if you write it down. Guidance from BetterBriefs and the IPA points the same way: focus on the few shifts in awareness, preference, or behaviour that feed the commercial outcome, rather than the outcome alone.

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4. Target audience and insight

Describe the primary audience, what they currently believe or do, and the one insight about how they think that should steer the work: E.g. Solo founders and small-team leads evaluating Doughnut Technology. They have been burned by tools that promised “easy” and then needed a week of onboarding, so they discount any speed claim until they see it happen.
Almost every brief has an audience section, and most of them stop at demographics. Age, region, and job title help media targeting, but they rarely tell a creator anything about how a person decides, which is what actually shapes the work.The useful version names who the audience is, what they currently believe or do, and the specific need, motivation, or barrier in play. WARC calls for an illuminating audience definition rather than a descriptive one, and the BetterBriefs guidance warns against broad demographic labels that never explain how people think. An insight is the sentence a creator can build against, not the one that only files the audience into a bucket.

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5. Desired audience response

Complete the sentence. After seeing this, the audience should: E.g. Believe they can have Doughnut Technology running the same day, with no call and no contract, and start a trial to prove it.
This field is missing from a surprising number of templates, and it is one of the most directly useful things in the whole brief. It names the single reaction the work exists to produce, which gives designers, writers, creators, and AI systems a decision-making target to aim every choice at.It differs from the objective on purpose. The objective can be commercial and abstract. This is concrete and lives in the audience’s head: what they now understand, feel, remember, or do. When two people disagree about whether a draft “works,” this is often the line that settles it, because it is the thing the work was supposed to move.

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6. Single most important message

State the one idea the audience should take away. This is strategic direction, not final copy: E.g. Doughnut Labs is the doughnut platform you can set up and ship on in a single day. Optional structure: For [audience], [brand] is the [category] that [primary benefit] because [supporting reason]. E.g. For solo founders, Doughnut Labs is the doughnut platform that gets you live in a day because setup is self-serve with no onboarding call.
This goes by many names (key message, proposition, key thought, creative springboard, main takeaway, communication promise), and they all point at the same discipline: choosing one idea instead of listing every true thing you could say. WARC frames it as a key thought or creative springboard, and the IPA guidance recommends concentrating the position into something memorable rather than a pile of unrelated claims.The reason to hold to one message is that audiences remember one thing, not seven. The optional sentence structure is a way to pressure-test whether you actually have a single claim with a reason behind it. The final work does not have to use those words. It has to carry that idea.

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7. Supporting proof

List the reasons the audience should believe the message. Features, evidence, demonstrations, data, testimonials, or mechanisms: E.g. Setup is a guided 4-step flow; no sales call required; median time-to-first-ship is under 3 hours; 2,000+ teams live; a 30-second in-product demo.
Supporting proof is why the message is believable rather than just asserted. It can be product features, customer evidence, research, demonstrations, certifications, pricing, testimonials, performance data, or a specific mechanism that explains how the benefit is delivered.This section is common in classic advertising briefs and often thin in modern project-management templates, which is a real gap. Without proof, a creator receives a claim and nothing to build credibility from, and the work ends up asserting a benefit the audience has no reason to accept. The proof is the raw material the creative turns into something persuasive.

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8. Deliverables and scope

List exactly what must be produced. Add a row per deliverable and fill every attribute that applies:
This is where the brief stops being strategy and starts being a production spec. Naming the asset is not enough. The attributes (format, dimensions, resolution, length, quantity, required adaptations, whether source files are needed) are what let someone produce the right thing once rather than reworking it after review.Adobe, Figma, and Smartsheet all push for this level of specificity for the same reason: an unstated dimension or missing cutdown is a predictable source of a late, avoidable redo. A table keeps repeated attributes lined up across deliverables so nothing gets filled in for one asset and forgotten on another.

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9. Brand and creative direction

Describe the intended feel of the work: voice, tone, visual principles, degree of creative freedom, and what should feel different from existing work. Link the full brand system in Part 3 rather than restating it here: E.g. Confident and plain-spoken, never hypey. Show the real product UI, not abstract illustration. Lots of white space, one idea per frame. This set should feel faster and more concrete than last year’s brand film. Full rules in the linked brand voice workbook and visual identity guide. References, each with a note on what to take and what to leave:
This section sets the feel of the work, and it is where adjectives quietly fail. “Modern,” “bold,” and “premium” mean something different to everyone who reads them, so on their own they transfer almost no direction. What carries is an explanation of what those words mean in practice, or an example that shows it.References work best when each one is annotated, because a bare link invites copying the whole thing, including the parts you did not mean. A note on what to take and what to leave turns a reference into direction instead of a template. This section also points outward: the full brand voice, colour, and identity rules live in the brand system you link in Part 3, and repeating them here only creates two versions that can drift apart.

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10. Mandatories and guardrails

Separate what must appear from what must never appear: Must include:
  • E.g. Doughnut Labs logo, cleared-space version
  • E.g. “Live in a day” offer line
  • E.g. CTA: Start free
  • E.g. Required legal line on the pricing claim
  • [add requirement]
Must not include:
  • E.g. Competitor names or trademarks
  • E.g. Any “instant” or “zero effort” claim we cannot support
  • E.g. Stock imagery of generic office teams
  • [add restriction]
Guardrails are the fixed edges of the work: the things that must appear and the things that must never appear, separated from everything that is preference. The separation is the point. When a required legal line sits in the same paragraph as a stylistic suggestion, a creator cannot tell which one is negotiable.Pulling non-negotiables into their own list does two things at once. It makes the hard requirements impossible to miss, and it makes the surrounding creative freedom visible, because everything not on the list is open. A creator who can see exactly where the walls are will use the space between them more confidently.

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11. Timeline and approvals

Map the workflow, not just the final deadline: Revision rounds included: E.g. Two rounds of changes; further rounds re-scoped. Where feedback is submitted: E.g. One consolidated doc from Priya, not scattered comments.
A single launch date hides the part of the schedule that actually goes wrong. The failures cluster around approvals: who reviews, in what order, who consolidates conflicting feedback, and how many rounds of changes are included before the work is re-scoped.When those are undefined, feedback arrives late, from several directions, and sometimes contradicts itself, which is one of the most common causes of a project slipping. Naming an owner, a single point for consolidated feedback, a final approver, and a revision-round count turns “get it approved” into a sequence people can actually plan around. Modern creative-workflow guidance adds these stages to the strategic brief for exactly this reason.

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12. Success criteria

Define both kinds of success. Fill the type that applies: Creative acceptance (is the work itself right?):
  • E.g. On-brand and legible at mobile size
  • E.g. Includes the offer, CTA, and required legal line
  • E.g. Product UI shown accurately
  • E.g. Delivered in all required ratios
  • [add criterion]
Campaign performance (did the work do its job?):
  • E.g. Video completion rate above 40%
  • E.g. Trial-signup click-through above 2%
  • E.g. Cost per qualified trial under target
  • [add metric]
Success has two layers that are easy to blur. Creative acceptance asks whether the work itself is right: on-brand, legible, complete, correctly representing the product, delivered in the right formats. Campaign performance asks whether it moved the numbers once it ran.Both belong in the brief even when the creator is not accountable for the campaign result, because knowing the performance goal shapes the creative choices upstream. A creator who understands that completion rate matters will open a video differently than one who was only told to make it on-brand. Naming the acceptance criteria also gives review a checklist, so “I don’t love it” becomes a specific, answerable note.

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Part 2: Conditional sections

Add a section here only when it changes a creative decision. A section that would not alter the work adds length without direction, so leave it out.

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Budget

What budget governs this work, and what does it constrain? E.g. $25k total: covers one shoot day, a licensed track, and two weeks of paid amplification. No additional talent budget.
Budget appears in most templates by default, but it only earns its place when it changes the solution. It matters when the work involves external production, talent, photography, printing, locations, licensing, or paid amplification, because the number genuinely narrows what is possible.For a simple internal adaptation or an AI-generated first draft, a budget line often adds nothing a creator can act on. The question to ask is whether knowing the number would change what someone makes. If yes, include it and say what it covers. If no, the field is just ceremony.

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Competitive context

Which competitors matter here, and how should the work relate to them? E.g. Two rivals both run “powerful, enterprise-grade” messaging with dark, serious visuals. We differentiate by looking lighter and sounding plainer, and by showing real setup speed they only claim.
Competitors belong in a brief when the work has to do something about them: differentiate, avoid looking like a category cliché, respond to a convention, or position directly against an alternative. In those cases, knowing what the competition looks and sounds like is what lets the creative deliberately diverge.What does not help is a full competitive analysis pasted in for completeness. If a competitor fact would not change a single creative choice, it is background, not direction. Keep this to the handful of points the work actually has to react to.

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Distribution context

Where and how will the audience encounter this? Placement, device, sound, what comes before and after, and where it leads: E.g. Instagram Reels, sound-on but must also read with sound off, seen mid-scroll between entertainment clips, tapping through to the self-serve pricing page. First second has to earn the stop.
The same idea needs a different execution depending on where it lands. A concept built for an Instagram Reel, a YouTube pre-roll, a trade-show screen, a sales deck, and an email header are not interchangeable, even when the strategy behind them is identical.Placement, device, whether sound is normally on, what content sits around it, and where it leads all shape the opening, the pacing, and the level of self-containment the work needs. Naming the real context stops a creator from designing for an ideal viewing that never happens, and lets them build for the scroll, the skip, or the silent autoplay the work will actually meet.

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Existing performance or research

What prior results, tests, or audience research should inform this work? E.g. Last quarter, “live in a day” outperformed “no-code setup” by a wide margin on click-through. Support logs show setup time is the top pre-trial objection. Avoid the abstract “future of doughnuts” line, which tested poorly.
Prior evidence is worth including when it should steer the new work: messages that already won, approaches that already failed, audience research, creative-testing results, common customer objections, or previous brand-lift findings. It saves a team from re-learning something the last campaign already paid to discover.The filter is relevance to this assignment, not completeness of the archive. A past result belongs here if it should change what the creator tries or avoids. Dropping in every historical data point instead buries the two or three findings that would actually shift a decision.

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Accessibility and localization

Add this whenever the work is public-facing or runs across regions or languages.
What accessibility and localization requirements apply? E.g. Captions on all video; minimum 16px body text; AA colour contrast; alt text on every static asset. Localize copy for UK and Canada, allow 30% text expansion for the German version, and swap USD pricing per region.
Accessibility and localization requirements shape production decisions that are expensive to retrofit. Caption space, minimum text size, colour contrast, alt text, reading level, translation languages, text-expansion allowance, and regional pricing or imagery all affect layout and timing from the first draft, not the last.These matter most when the work is public-facing or crosses regions, because that is when the gaps become visible to real audiences and regulators. Naming the requirements up front lets a creator design with them built in, rather than discovering after final approval that a layout has no room for a caption or a longer translation.
Link out to your brand system here instead of retyping it inside the brief. One source of truth for brand rules means the brief and the brand documents cannot drift apart. Fill in a link for every document whoever does the work needs, and mark any that do not apply.
Brand system links: Other attachments for this assignment:
1

Core is complete

Sections 1 to 12 are filled, and the objective separates business goal, communication objective, and audience response.
2

Only relevant conditional sections are included

Each conditional section left in the brief changes a real creative decision.
3

Brand system is linked, not retyped

Part 3 links every document whoever does the work needs, with a note pointing to the part that applies.
Last modified on July 17, 2026