These are the slides from a workshop I delivered for the CIPR Scotland. It was a PR professionals workshop, meant to give them the skills to take a proper creative brief in order to, in turn, brief a designer to produce the creatives.

2. WRITING A
CREATIVE BRIEF
‘HOW TO HELP YOUR CLIENTS SPEAK CLEARLY’
CIPR ‘FRESH’ SERIES WORKSHOP - 30.4.13

3. WHY DO YOU HAVE TO
KNOW HOW TO WRITE A
BRIEF?

5. WHAT IS A BRAND?

6. A BRAND IS NOT...

7. A BRAND IS...
• Integrity
• Knowledge
• Expertise
• Reliability
• Low cost
...how people feel about your company. Its a set of values that a company
wants to attach itself to, e.g...
You’re asking for an emotional investment from your clients so in that
respect, a brand is much more akin to a reputation because if you don’t
engage them on some emotional level, you probably won’t get them as a
client.

8. “YOUR BRAND IS WHAT PEOPLE SAY ABOUT
YOU WHEN YOU’RE NOT IN THE ROOM”
JEFF BEZOS, CEO, AMAZON

9. WHY A GOOD BRIEF IS
ESSENTIAL

10. WHY A GOOD BRIEF IS
ESSENTIAL
• Knowledge - Clients will always know the most about their business
so their insight will form the cornerstone of your brief.
• Reputation - You’re responsible for your clients brand so a good brief
is essential to maintain their reputation. In doing so, you’re
enhancing your own reputation with them,
• Speed - Ensures the project can move along with minimal hold ups.
• Education - Leading your client through this in a structured manner
can be an eye opener and demonstrate your added value to them.
• Protection - A tight brief that everyone adheres to is your protection
against those clients that always try and get something for nothing.

11. WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU
DON’T TAKE A PROPER
BRIEF?

12. TAKING THE BRIEF

13. ...DON’T DO THIS!

14. THE BRIEFING PROCESS

15. THE BRIEFING PROCESS
• Record everything - No matter how trivial you think it might be.
• How long should it be? - No more than 3 pages at most
• T.E.D. - Use Tell, Explain And Describe questions to get the best
information.
• Be bold! - Don’t be afraid to ask difficult questions in order to find
out the pertinent information.
• Progress through it in a specific order - By keeping a tight
structure, you make sure nothing gets missed.
• Questions should be needs based - Always focus on discovering
your clients needs as the project they are briefing you on needs to
have some an end result.

16. WRITING THE BRIEF

17. SECTIONS
• Overview
• Inspiration
• Background
At Brightspace, we look at three main areas...

18. OVERVIEW
• Full contact details - You MUST get all of these.
• Set project milestones - This ensures everyone involved knows
when specific milestones need to be hit, keeping the project on
time.
• Project description - Get the client to tell you, in their own words,
exactly what they want you to do for them.
• Measuring effectiveness - What will success look like to your
client?
• Deliverables - What are the specific elements that are to be
designed, e.g. website, brochure etc.?
• Resources available - Do they have any existing images, copy
already written etc. that you can utilise.

19. INSPIRATION
• Brand voice - What values and tone of voice do you need to
communicate?
• The client / service - Get the client to tell you, in their own words,
about their service / product, more about their company etc.
• The project goals - What, specifically, do they want you to achieve?
• The audience - Your client SHOULD know about their audience and
be able to tell you all. If they don’t, you might have to look at getting
some market research done.

20. MORE INSPIRATION
• How do you want the viewer to feel? - Moved? motivated? scared?
warm and fuzzy?
• What do we want them to do as a result of this? - What action do
you want them take? Be mindful of all the calls to action.
• Messages to communicate - Is there a single message thats more
important to communicate than any other?
• Secondary messages? - Are there any? What are they?

21. BACKGROUND
• Is this project part of a bigger marketing campaign? - What other
marketing activities are they engaged in? What stage are they at
with other activities.
• If yes, how does it fit in with the other activities? - Asking this can
open dialogue that allows you to sell other services to your client.
• Current website and any social media links for reference
• Client / Competitors websites / social media links - Who are their
competitors? Get the client to tell you about them in their own
words.
• Budget - Hopefully the client has a budget in mind. They possibly
won’t but try and get a figure from them though as this is about
managing expectations (what they want) against reality (what they
can afford).

22. ADDITIONAL INFO
• Do they have corporate guidelines? - Its important to know as your
designer doesn’t want to get halfway through the project to find out
they have to start again because there are existing guidelines to
follow.
• Are there any technical specs? - Same as above, there may be
specific technical guidelines they have that need followed.

23. WHAT NOW?

24. WHAT NOW?
• Type up the brief carefully
• The client MUST sign and date it! - Remember, this is the clients
acceptance of YOUR brief and before the project proceeds, they
MUST sign it off.
• Give it to your designer to produce some amazing work! - Goes
without saying!
• Follow it religiously - The signed and agreed brief should provide a
number of touchpoints throughout the project that everyone should
be aware of and adhere to.

25. WANT TO KNOW MORE...

26. WANT TO KNOW MORE?
• Seth Godin - www.sethgodin.com
• Win Without Pitching - www.winwithoutpitching.com
Websites
Books
• Design is a Job - Mike Monteiro
• How to Write an Inspired Creative Brief - Howard Ibach
• Six Thinking Hats - Edward de Bono

27. THANK YOU!