Simple creative brief

The simple brief above intentionally drops every section that isn't load-bearing. References, timeline, deliverables, success metrics, brand guidelines, channel-specific specs - all useful in the right context, all skippable for 80% of campaigns. The five fields that survive are the ones that, if missing, guarantee bad creative downstream.

Goal controls the trade-offs. Audience controls everything about voice. Angle controls the single sentence the work expresses. Hook archetype controls the first three seconds. Do-nots controls everything the work refuses to be. Drop any one of the five and the brief stops doing its job.

Every other section that gets added to a brief - and there are usually fifteen - is doing the job of an attachment, not a brief. Reference ads belong in a linked folder. Brand guidelines belong in a linked document. Channel specs belong in the production checklist. The brief itself only has to do five things.

Treat the simple brief as the default, not the lite version. Upgrade to the long format only when you have a concrete reason: multi-creator launch, regulated category, multi-surface campaign with non-trivial production scoping. For everything else, five fields is enough.

There are exactly four reasons to upgrade from the 5-field simple brief to a fuller format. One: multi-creator launch - you need explicit creator voice constraints and usage rights, which require a longer brief. Two: regulated category (health, finance, beauty claims) - you need an explicit compliance section, which the simple brief doesn't have room for. Three: multi-surface campaign with non-trivial production scoping - you need deliverables, formats, and timeline locked, which justifies the longer document. Four: external agency or freelancer engagement - the brief is the contract; spelling it out is worth the extra page.

For everything else - in-house team, single channel, single format, single creator - the 5-field simple brief is the right level of resolution. Adding sections past that point usually adds defensive language, not useful information.

Internal: see creative brief template for the full-format version with 9 sections, and sample creative brief for a fully filled-in single example.

A simple brief should take 10 minutes to write. If it's taking 45 minutes, you don't have a brief problem - you have a strategy problem. The brief is the surface; the substance has to exist before you sit down to fill it in.

If you can't write the audience field in 90 seconds, you haven't picked an audience yet. Stop, go pick one, come back. If you can't write the angle field in 90 seconds, you don't have an angle - you have a feature list pretending to be an angle. Stop, isolate the single sentence, come back.

The 10-minute timer is a forcing function, not a productivity tip. Briefs that take an hour to write usually contain three competing strategies stapled together. Briefs that take 10 minutes contain one strategy, decisively.