How to write a campaign brief
that nobody has to ask about.

Storyflow suits this job well because a campaign brief is words, images and tables at once: the sections, the reference images that show the tone, and the deliverables and budget tables all sit on one board, its AI drafts the sections from your notes, and the approver opens it by link with no account. A word processor such as Google Docs or Word is still the better choice when you need tracked changes line by line.

Background, objective, audience, insight, proposition, mandatories, deliverables, budget, timeline and success measures, plus the name of the person who approves the work. The objective, audience, insight and proposition carry most of the weight. On a Storyflow board each one is its own card, so an empty section is visible at a glance.

One to two pages, or one board. Long enough to answer every question the creative team would otherwise ask, short enough that they read all of it. If yours is longer, move the research and strategy into an appendix and keep the brief to the decisions. Storyflow's AI can shorten a long draft section by section.

It is the one thing the audience should believe after seeing the campaign, written in one plain sentence. In the worked example on this page it is 'Arrive at work as fresh as you left home.' It is not the tagline; the creative team writes the line that makes people believe it. Draft three on the Storyflow board and keep the one a stranger could repeat.

As one outcome, one number and one window: '2,000 test-ride bookings from commuters in Denver and Minneapolis between 1 and 30 April'. Say how it will be measured and who checks it. Avoid 'awareness' on its own, because nobody can tell when it is achieved. Put the measure beside the objective on the Storyflow board.

A campaign brief covers the whole campaign: the business objective, the budget, the channels and the timeline. A creative brief is narrower and is written for the people making the work: the insight, the proposition, the tone and the deliverables. Agencies often turn a client's campaign brief into their own creative brief. Both can live on the same Storyflow board.

The worked example on this page is a full one: Northfield Bikes wants 2,000 test-ride bookings from commuters in April; the insight is that they would cycle if they could arrive without needing a shower; the proposition is 'Arrive at work as fresh as you left home'; the deliverables are one 20 second video, three cutdowns, six posts, two posters and a landing page; the budget is $35,000 including production.

It can write a useful first draft. Storyflow's AI reads your notes, last campaign's results or an attached PDF or Word document, lays out the ten sections on the board and leaves a section empty when your material does not cover it. The insight and the proposition still need a person who knows the audience, so plan to rewrite those two by hand.

One named person who owns the result, usually the marketing lead or the client contact with budget authority. Write their name on the brief. Share the Storyflow board by view-only link: they open it with no account and sign in to comment on the section they want changed.

An objective with no number, two propositions instead of one, an audience described only by age, a list of deliverables with no count, and a budget that does not say what it includes. Each one causes questions later. Laying the brief out section by section on a Storyflow board makes most of them visible before it is sent.

Yes, or at least a range. Without one the agency guesses, and the concepts come back sized for a budget nobody has. Say what the figure covers: production, media, talent, usage rights. A budget table on the Storyflow board with a Sum footer keeps the total honest as lines are added.

Yes. Storyflow's campaign brief template lays out the sections on a board you can copy, and the ten sections on this page work as a template on their own. The template page has the blank structure; this page explains what to write in each part.