Creativity Tutorial: How to Make a Brief Step by Step

Learn to structure an advertising brief step by step with Mumu El Branding Love

The briefing is a key tool in building a relationship between a creative company and its clients, whatever their sector: it details what one side is looking for and what the other can offer, the objectives set by the person who hires your services and the creative solutions you can use to achieve them.

If you want to fully understand everything that this essential document should include, Daniel Yepes Giraldo, founder of the Colombian branding agency MUMU, El Branding Love (@mumuelbrandinglove) guides you step by step through the items that he incorporates in the their briefs. Discover his advice in the following video:

1. Basic information

- What is the name of the brand? The client might have a clear idea, but it may be necessary to help them refine it.

- Tell us a brief history of the brand. The client should be able to describe, in their own words, how the brand was created and where it is now.

- How do you think your company is currently perceived? That is, what does the client think the public perception of their brand is.

2. Visual identity: understanding and present of the company

- Do they have established corporate or brand colors? Starting with them (or even proposing another color palette) you can begin to develop the visual strategy of the brand.

- What personality should the brand have? Cool and bright or maybe darker? Modern or more classic?

- What colors, shapes, and images come to mind when you think of the company? As in the previous point, you have to know the brand's feel, is it more of a nighttime or daytime rand? Is it associated with round or pointed edges?

3. Brand projection: project objectives

- What characteristics should the brand project? That is, what sensations or emotions should it generate in your potential clients.

- What key considerations affect customer decisions regarding the products and services you offer? What makes the brand different to the rest of the competition?

- What are the relevant benefits that the brand communicates today? Simply put: what do customers currently perceive as positive about the brand?

- What are the relevant benefits that the brand should communicate tomorrow? This is about deciding where they want to go, what image the brand intends to have in the future.

- What are the key communication elements of the brand? That is, what strategies and tools are going to be used? Social networks, creative ambassadors, or other more traditional techniques.

4. Market objectives: target audience

- How do we want to be perceived?

- What is the brand's target market? What clients do we want to reach?

- What is the lifestyle and behaviors of the brand's users? A segment of the population dedicated to healthy living is not necessarily the same as another that, for example, loves to travel.

- Brand positioning: where will the brand be located in the mind of the consumer? What sensations or concepts is the brand going to associate with?

5. Competitive environment: references

- What is the brand's competition? List the brands within the same sector that have similar objectives.

- What brands do they admire? Not necessarily from the same sector.

- What brands don't they admire? That is, brands they do not want to look like.

- Attach images or references that can inspire the project.

If you liked this tutorial and want to learn to use briefs and counterbriefs as tools to understand the needs of your client, discover Mumu El Branding Love's online course The Brief: Techniques and Tools to Create One.

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