A brief is not a client meeting recap. It's a set of constraints tight enough that a creative team can start work.
What most briefs look like
Eight slides of background, five personas, a values wheel, and three competing objectives. By slide six the creative team has stopped reading.
The shape that works
One page. Five sections, in order:
- The single job. One sentence: what change should this campaign create in the audience?
- Who exactly. Not a persona an actual behavior. "People who bought a Peloton in 2020 and haven't opened the app in 90 days."
- The one insight. Something true about the audience the creative can build on. Not a stat a felt truth.
- The one message. What must land, in the audience's own vocabulary.
- The must / must-not list. Brand guardrails, legal, mandatory disclosures.
The tone
A brief that reads like a client wrote it will produce work that looks like a client made it. Write like the smartest strategist you know is briefing the sharpest creative you've ever worked with. Short. Specific. Opinionated.
The failure mode
Two objectives. As soon as a brief has "drive awareness AND generate leads AND reposition the brand," you have already lost. Pick one job. Everything else is context.
The Campaign Brief tool generates this shape from the client conversation.