How to write a simple creative brief
Here at DWH towers in Coventry we work with a wide range of clients. Some of our clients have worked in marketing all their lives and know all about the theory of marketing and how to develop marketing strategies. Some of our clients are small business owners and know little about the theory but have an instinctive grasp of what their customers want and how to interact with them. Some of our clients have only been working a short time and don't always have a lot of practical experience. Some of our clients have literally no idea about marketing their business. Whatever the reason for using us our clients know they can rely on us to help them be successful.
We thought it might be interesting to develop some content that will give a basic explanation of marketing and the elements that are involved in it from design right through to SEO. Practical content that users can copy. For free – no catches. Help yourself.
This blog is all about the creative brief.
What is a creative brief?
A creative brief is an instruction for someone to build or design something for you. A website, a brochure, a logo, an advert, a building sign, an exhibition stand, an e-mail. It doesn’t have to be complicated or long but it must set out your expectations, deliverables and timescales for the project.
In our experience projects that don’t have a creative brief can go wrong or take longer than they should.
7 things to include in a creative brief?
It doesn’t have to be complicated and we’ve laid out a really simple template below – just copy and paste it into a document and you’re good to go.
About your business
A simple summary of your business. What markets do you operate in, what products do you offer, who are your competitors and so on. Any information about your customers and how they interact with you – are you online only, retail only, mixture of both and so on
Project
What’s the project about – what has brought about the requirement for change? Are you looking for something new or something to compliment your existing approach?
Objectives
You can have more than one objective for a project or piece of work but there is always a prime reason driving the project. Is it to get more sales, change customer activity or is it to refresh your brand?
Be honest – your agency partner will want to do the best job for you (to get more business of course) so be up front. I had a client once who asked us to develop a new brochure range and they were slightly coy about the reasoning. It turned out it was because they just didn’t like the ones they had but they couldn’t really say why specifically. Creative work can be subjective and bosses can be a bit bonkers so its OK to tell the truth to your agency.
Deliverables
What will we have at the end of the project? This sounds kind of straight forward but it’s worth spelling it out. Be specific – if all your brochures are a certain size include it in the brief.
Deadline
When does it need to happen. If its a website what is the live date. If it’s an exhibition stand when do you need it (not the date of the exhibition – when do you need it at your office so you can get it transported to the event) Your agency will take this date and work backwards giving you the steps along the way for the project to be delivered. This timing plan will then help you to see all the stages in the project.
Mandatory’s & legals
What do you have to include with your brochure, advert or stand? Most industries have specific wording and small print to include but your agency will need to know up front what it is and how much space it will take up.
Existing brand considerations
This isn’t just about your logo but more about other things that may not be immediately obvious. Maybe there is a specific colour range or palette for specific products, maybe a certain type of image is required and maybe a certain tone of voice needs to be used in any wording. Often companies have things like this in their “brand guidelines” which explains how to use the company logo and any requirements for image type and so on. A lot of small businesses may not have a formal document but there will probably be some way that things are done but this needs to be detailed here. What’s obvious to people working at your company may not be so obvious to your agency partner.
Santa Claus is the real thing*...or is he?
I can remember years ago being on a marketing course and the subject of advertising influencing, informing and shaping popular culture (and vice versa) was discussed. One of the examples quoted was that Coca-Cola was responsible for the modern day imagery associated with Santa Claus.
I didn’t really think too much about this at the time and always took it at face value and presumed it to be true. However a discussion at DWH towers around the general commercialisation of Christmas and the expectations of our children (iPads, bikes, Cosmo Robots, skateboards) compared to us as children (satsumas, lumps of coal, only 3 TV channels, etc) brought us to this very subject. Fact or urban myth?
Santa Claus sorting out the facts from the fiction
Since I went on that marketing course I’ve learned that conventional wisdom isn’t always right so we thought we’d check out the facts or the fiction around this. By the way this isn’t an attempt to jam lots of Xmas related hashtags into our social media in December under the guise of a relevant blog at all. No sireee..
Santa Claus the advert
Isn’t the Internet fab? We instantly find the answer direct from the horse’s mouth. Well Coca Cola to be precise. Saved us minutes of tireless work. According to them:
“In 1931 the company began placing Coca-Cola ads in popular magazines. Archie Lee, the D’Arcy Advertising Agency executive working with The Coca-Cola Company, wanted the campaign to show a wholesome Santa who was both realistic and symbolic. So Coca-Cola commissioned Michigan-born illustrator Haddon Sundblom to develop advertising images using Santa Claus — showing Santa himself, not a man dressed as Santa.
“For inspiration, Sundblom turned to Clement Clark Moore’s 1822 poem “A Visit From St. Nicholas” (commonly called “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas”). Moore’s description of St. Nick led to an image of a warm, friendly, pleasantly plump and human Santa. (And even though it’s often said that Santa wears a red coat because red is the color of Coca-Cola, Santa appeared in a red coat before Sundblom painted him.)”
If you want to know more there’s a great blog on their website “5 Things You Never Knew About Santa Claus and Coca-Cola”
Further Xmas mythbusting
This article in the Guardian is also worth a look if you want to hear about 9 other Christmas myths. “Coca-Cola didn’t invent Santa … the 10 biggest Christmas myths debunked”
Fantastic design and inspired marketing from a top Coventry agency
We’re in the business of making you successful. With over 15 years experience in branding, graphic design, web design & development, marketing & social media we’re an agency that can meet the broadest and narrowest of briefs. We've worked for a wide range of clients from start-ups and charities to public sector and FTSE 100 companies. Based in Coventry we’ve worked with clients across the globe.
A boutique agency that delivers
design | web | social media | marketing
Small and perfectly formed, we can deliver your project at a fair budget. With many years experience agency side and client side we get clients and what they want. A no nonsense, no fuss collaborative approach means we work effectively with our clients to make them successful. Lets face it, we’re successful if you are successful so we do everything we can to make your business thrive through excellent design and marketing.
Whatever design or marketing you need we’ve got it covered
Maybe you’ve got a good idea what you need, maybe you haven’t a clue or maybe you need to talk about it. We sit down with businesses every day to see how we can help them grow and evolve. We put together plans, budgets and ideas and then work together to decide what we are going to do. We are small and perfectly formed so you only talk to the people that are going to do the work. All (and we mean all) of our projects are delivered on time, on budget and to everyone’s satisfaction. Inspiration and common sense in equal measures.
Check out the range of services we offer and take a look at some of the examples of our work:
Branding
So what’s your story? Branding is much more than a name and a logo. It’s a promise you make to your customers. We deliver more than a set of guidelines. We tell stories. Let us start yours.
Case study – New look and feel for digital recruitment agency
Established in London in 2010, Opilio Recruitment are the go-to digital recruitment agency for global brands, tech start ups and everything in between. Over the years their business has steadily grown with a team spread across offices in London, Birmingham and Manchester. As a result, they needed a revamp of their current marketing collateral both online and offline.
