How to Write a Creative Brief That Makes Better Ads, and More Profit From Every Shoot
A strong creative brief states the outcome, the audience and the budget, and it names every place the ad will run before anything is written or shot.
To increase creative output, plan the variations before production starts, write a message for each placement, and test the cheapest placements first.
Use AI to speed the work up, and keep the vision with the people who own the brand.
Why creative deserves your attention
Nielsen Catalina Solutions found that creative accounts for 49% of a brand's advertising sales lift, more than media buying and planning at a staggering 36%.
A BetterBriefs Project survey of more than 1,700 marketers and agency staff estimated that 33% of marketing budgets go to waste because of poor briefs.
For this edition of ADvice, I interviewed two agency leaders about how they approach the brief and how they get more out of every project. I added what I see from the media side working on accounts here at Zayam Design.
We have a very insightful edition that has a strong correlation to what success can look like for you.
Meet the Guests
Michael Thomas is Creative Director & founder at Kreadiv & Koo, a full service creative agency that helps nonprofits and purpose driven brands with branding, marketing and advertising. He produces bespoke ad campaign video set and campaigns. Follow them at @kreadivkoo on Instagram & LinkedIn.
Jha Allen is an AI strategist, trainer, and founder of Endless 8, helping organizations and teams apply artificial intelligence to real world workflows in practical and responsible ways. Follow her @jha.allen on Instagram & LinkedIn.
Where every brief starts
You have to be able to have a creative to revenue conversation that includes how & who you want to communicate to for that specific product or service. As for your media plan, we can base it around your goals but often times we redirect clients from thinking about the creative only.
I opened by asking both guests the same question: A business owner is about to brief a creative team for the first time. What is the one thing they should get right before anything else is written?
Michael answered: "Set clear expectations around the outcome, the budget, and the vision. If you have a creative direction in mind, communicate it, but also be open to the expertise of the team you hired to bring it to life."
Jha put the audience first. She says to understand "who the audience is and, at their core, who they are to the business. That understanding shows the creative team how to set the campaign apart from others the business has made or seen." Her warning: "If that part is wrong, the entire creative team can miss the mark and end up speaking to the wrong person with the wrong message, vision, or direction."
We understand not each brief is created the same or even for the same team. However, be clear on the direction of the campaign from the start. Loop in each team member to ensure their work is clear in the final creative brief.
What the creative brief for ads needs to include
Next I asked Michael: What does a production team need from a creative brief before it can shoot an ad campaign video? Walk us through the sections you rely on.
His minimum is a script, a storyboard or visual direction, and a budget. The team also needs the goal, the audience and where the video will live. His reasoning: "The more we know upfront, the better we can plan the shoot and avoid wasting time and money trying to figure things out on the fly."
I followed up: What do clients leave out of a video brief that costs the most time and money on set or in editing?
He named whether the video will be used as an ad. "A two minute video and a 30 second ad are two different animals." If the team does not know the use, it cannot plan what to capture.
From the media buying side, I see the same gaps. Most clients arrive without a brief. When one does come, it usually misses two things. The first is the translation into assets for each placement.
An audio heavy concept points to terrestrial radio and programmatic audio, and it may also point to CTV with a static or video added. A video concept calls for several cuts. The second is visual direction. Brands know what they want the creative to drive, but not what it should look like.
A brief does not need many sections. It needs:
An executive summary: short enough to read in a minute and summarizes the campaign goals & concept.
The translation into placements: which channels, which formats, which cuts.
Visual direction: locations, the feel of those locations, and a mood board with pictures for a shoot & graphic design delivery.
The business goal: it shapes the direction of the campaign from simple scripting and the product placement to the full marketing strategy.
Plan for every channel at the start
One question I answer with the media plan is what can a person do at that moment of interaction. It costs money to reach someone, so the ad should give them a next step that fits where they are in that moment.
My grandmother used to say there is a time and a place for everything. Each placement is a moment in time, and the message should fit it. It's as simple as having a QR code on your CTV placement but not on your Youtube ads video creative.
Users can click the link on both but you can position your Youtube ads to shown only on desktop devices thus it can lead to a landing page visit with a CTA.
I asked Michael: How should a brief change when the video will run on several channels, such as connected TV, social and out of home?
"The brief shouldn't change just because the deliverables change, but the production has to account for those deliverables from the beginning. If you tell me you need CTV, social, and OOH, then it's on the production team to plan the shoot with all three in mind."
That's a solid point, as the brief for the production team should be standard but they should be aware of use. The work they do will be manipulated in post production for use in the media buy. Keep it simple but in depth.
How to get more ads from one shoot
I asked Michael: How can a business get more finished ads out of a single shoot? Which planning decisions make that possible?
His answer applies to any budget: "You can't shoot one video and expect the production team to magically turn it into ten great ads if you didn't plan for ten ads in the first place." Location, talent, budget and script all have to match the number of ads you want.
Then I asked how to keep production costs and timelines under control without the video looking cheap.
His answer: planning, hiring a good crew and refusing last minute projects. "A lot of what makes production expensive is poor planning."
Write a message for each placement
Teams have long made one evergreen message and run it everywhere. Picture a coffee brand promoting a fall drink across paid social, airport terminals, city billboards, digital out of home and CTV. One generic line does not fit all five.
AI now lets a small team write a message built for each placement. The airport terminals might say "Fly high. Feel the clouds in a cup." The billboard might say "Buckle up. Pull up for the new fall drink." One budget then produces several creative lines instead of one.
AI also changes the economics. It has costs too: subscriptions, credits that run out, and an IP risk. Some tools train on what you feed them, so certain campaigns cannot go through them for legal reasons.
AI can help teams turn a single shoot into hundreds of variations of images or videos for testing, without paying a team by the hour for every revision.
Treat AI as savings with tradeoffs.
Where AI helps and where it hurts
I asked both guests: What is one mistake you see businesses repeat in their ad creative, and what should they do instead? Both answered with AI.
Michael: "We're overusing AI, and a lot of the creative is starting to look the same. Sometimes you can tell within the first two seconds. I'm a huge fan of AI, but I'm not a fan of everything looking like AI."
Jha: "Businesses should use AI as a collaborator, not as the creative director. The vision, direction, and final decisions should still come from the business."
The audience notices. A Vistar Media report found that 43% of Canadians say they are less likely to trust an ad if they know AI was used to create it. That shows trust in AI creative is conditional.
Two habits protect you. First, just give the tool context.
I asked Jha: What information should a business give an AI tool so the creative it produces matches the campaign goal?
She says to share pictures, videos, links, your website, past articles and previous campaign materials, and to speak to the tool instead of only typing. "You sometimes express more, give additional details, and allow yourself to overshare, which is exactly what you want to do."
Second, write a real brand guideline. Without one, the output looks like everyone else's.
Jha explains why: "AI tools can only build on the context they're given. If the output feels generic, sometimes it's because the tool is filling in gaps and making assumptions."
Start small with AI
I asked Jha: How should a business set up its first AI workflow for creativity, and what should it avoid doing at the start?
She tells clients to start with the work, not the AI. Understand your team, your process and where you need support.
Then pick one clear area where AI can improve what you already do. Using it everywhere at once, or only for the sake of using it, "can lead businesses down a path where they end up accomplishing very little."
How to test ads & pick winners
My own approach starts with one rule: do not buy the expensive placements first. Run your top of funnel messaging in your cheapest placements, mainly paid social or programmatic display, and watch engagement.
Engagement is resonance, and resonance is worth doubling down on. Then look at which message moves the business goal. Do the same before you commit to out of home or a brand activation if you have a smaller budget under $100k.
I asked Michael: How do you know a video ad is working creatively, and what do you look at after launch? His answer: "It's my job to make sure the video looks good and does good." Conversion is the measure of whether it does good based on what the client wanted.
Hes' right. Measurement looks different on every campaign. Test for what matters to your business. An ad might bring people to sign up for email, the email might lead to a purchase, and the sale traces back to both. However, the data will attribute the sale to the last click in the email.
One change for this quarter
I closed by asking Michael: If a business could change one thing about how it approaches creative this quarter, what should it be?
"Choose your budget, establish your brand positioning, and stick with it." In his view, that focus makes for better decisions and stops a brand from constantly changing direction. Jha's earlier point is the guardrail: "AI is there to aid in the process, but not own it."
Final Takeaway
Write the brief around the outcome, the audience and the budget. Name every placement before the shoot. Plan the number of ads you want, write a message for each place, and test cheap before you spend big. Use AI to move faster, and keep the human perspective that makes your brand different.
Want help turning a brief into a media plan?
