Writing a creative brief is one of the most important steps to ensure your video project gets off on the right foot. Once you've passed the ideation stage and you're ready to get quotes from video production suppliers, you'll need a clear understanding of what you actually want.

This guide will help you prepare a great creative brief to provide your suppliers and to serve as a bible for the project ongoing which holds all key information that the entire team of creatives can continue to consult throughout the project.

Why a creative brief is important

A clear and concise creative brief ensures your internal team and your external video suppliers are aligned on the goals for the project and the deliverables.

The act of articulating what you want by preparing a creative brief, forces you to distill and clearly communicate what the video project is, and most importantly, what it's not.

What to include in a creative brief

There are many components to a creative brief, and each of them are an important step in the creative process. Some steps you may want your video team to complete in collaboration with your team, and others you will need to be complete before external suppliers can start work on the project.

Here's what we suggest you include in your creative brief:

Company Profile:

If this is your first time working with a particular external supplier, it can be useful to provide them with top-line company information to ensure the content aligns with your brand messaging. Consider:

• Company website
• Company bio
• Ideal Customer Profile (who is your customer?)
• Brand guidelines (messaging, brand voice, tone)
• Examples of any existing company video content

Contacts and roles:

Being clear from the outset as to who is involved in the project both internally and externally along with their roles and responsibilities will streamline communication channels and keeps everyone's contact details easily accessible. For example:

Name: Jane Smith
Job title: Head of Marketing
Email: jane@brand.com.au
Phone: 0400 000 000
Project Role: Campaign manager, has final approval
Notes: Out of office 12-14th, will need first preview prior to this date

Name: Jack Jones
Job title: Creative Producer
Email: jack@video.com.au
Phone: 0400 000 000
Project Role: Creative Producer at Video Team
Notes: Main point of contact at Video Team

Project Title:

Give the project a title that can be referenced in internal comms, file names, and documents. If you don't give your project a clear title, one will naturally surface anyway. Humans love nicknames.  Avoid confusion and get everyone on the same page with a clear, concise title of a few words max.

Project Overview:

This is where you'll write an overview of the entire project; your overarching concept and what you want to achieve. The project overview is a brief outline of the tone, style, messaging, and purpose of the video/s.

Audience:

Who is the intended audience for the content? Include age, demographics, job title, gender/s, and anything else useful for the creative team.

It's important to note that the audience for your content might be different from your existing customer, especially if the video is designed to attract a new audience or customer. This is why it's important to articulate the audience of this specific project.

Messaging/Copy:

If your project requires specific messaging, CTA’s, data, graphs, or copy, include that in your creative brief so your video team already have access to the necessary materials they'll need down the track anyway.

Campaign information:

Is this piece of content part of a wider marketing campaign? If so, provide details about roll out dates, overarching messaging, and other campaign content.

Deliverables:

This is a list of the actual quantities and types of finished videos you want, including orientation and duration. Your video team can help guide you, but it's helpful if you have an idea of how many pieces of content you're expecting as a starting point.

A simple layout you can use is QTY x DURATION - TYPE - ORIENTATION. For example:

• 1 x 60sec - CEO profile - Landscape
• 1 x 15sec - CEO highlight reel - Portrait
• 2 x 3min - Client Testimonial videos - Landscape

Usage:

Where will the video will be viewed by the audience? This might include specific social media platforms, websites, EDM's, or other surfaces. Each digital surface has its own requirements and best practices so it's important to know where the content will be viewed.

Also consider how long you want to use this content for: is this an evergreen piece of content designed to be used for many years or part of a short marketing campaign? This will inform whether the content is made for longevity or high impact, or both.

Goals:

Be clear about what you want the content to achieve. Some examples include:

• Increase Lifetime Customer Value by educating our existing clients on our wider range of services
• Increase brand awareness within our sector
• Build brand loyalty by providing free educational resources to our existing customers

Ideally goals should include measurable and realistic KPI's or metrics such as a number of views, clicks, minutes watched, etc. Base metrics on exisiting pieces of well-performing content.

Deadlines:

Coordinate your schedule with your external supplies and get on the same page from the outset about important deadlines allowing time for feedback rounds, internal reviews, and final delivery. Add deadlines into the creative brief to make sure the entire creative team are working to the same timelines.

Assets/Inspo:

When briefing a creative team, adding in any examples of existing assets or inspo you like (or don't like) can be super helpful to communicate your vision. This could be inspo for style of content, casting, location, on-screen graphics, or anything else that is useful for the creative team to know.

Not sure how to write your creative brief?

If you're struggling to answer the questions in this guide, your idea might need a little more percolating.

The Keyy team can help you put together a creative brief for a free video quote, or discuss the kernels of an idea to see what stage it's at. Contact us for a no-obligation chat about your next project.