Whether charged with designing a new website, developing an iPhone app or creating a multichannel marketing campaign – the creative brief must align client and agency expectations. This helps creative teams conceptualise ideas that achieve client business objectives and satisfy user needs.
What should be in a creative brief?
The creative brief needs to consist of the following elements:
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Background – this should not be an essay but just enough to communicate the context of the brief, the client business and broader industry context
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Brief objectives which should be SMART i.e., Specific, Measurable Attainable, Relevant and Timely
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The key challenges to achieving the objectives
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Target audience personas are very useful as they help the creative team understand and visualise the people for whom they are creating user experiences
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Examples of similar work to take inspiration from, what elements to be influenced by and most importantly why to be inspired by the work
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Competitors. Don’t just list direct competitors from a product or industry context but identify competitors that compete with your client from a brand identity context – there is a lot that can be learned from indirect competitors
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What the deliverables resulting from fulfilling the brief are. This needs to be clear and explicit
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Look and feel considerations that outline colour palettes, fonts and photography goals and constraints
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Tone of voice that outlines if copy should stylistically be formal, irreverent, scientific, fun, relaxed, emotive or any other style
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Client contact details. Maintaining an open dialogue between client and creative teams is essential to the creative process and fosters closer client relationships which can only be a good thing
Creative brief writing do’s and don’ts
Whilst compiling the creative brief, keep the following in mind:
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Avoid contradictions unless you want to get a wry smile from your creative team. For example, can something really be “excited yet relaxed “?
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Be specific and get to the point
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Be objective and avoid subjective language
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Don’t use clichés or state the obvious. Who doesn’t want a usable and modern website with clear goal-driven call-to-actions?
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Use as few words as needed
This post was written by Jeremy Anderson - Client Services Director at creative & digital marketing agency - Obergine. He can be found on Twitter and Google+.
