How Not to Ruin Everyone's Day with Bad Briefs: A Comprehensive Guide

So, I'll keep this one brief...

In fact, I'll keep it all about that. On any project, if you don't get the brief right, you'll encounter a whole bunch of problems along the way. I'm building my brand on a lot of 'shuns - inspiration, production, imagination, and education. So here's a freebie for you:

The brief is the culture you want the entire project to have. It's your chance to set the tone for what you want to create, and it's massively important if you aim to produce a good film, design a campaign that works, or simply have a productive meeting.

Did you know that if you want to schedule a meeting at Amazon, the rules are twofold? Firstly, the person calling the meeting has to write a memo (brief). It's supposed to be a couple of pages long and detail succinctly everything that everyone attending needs to know in order to contribute meaningfully. This is a significant undertaking, so if you're calling a meeting, you better be invested because you've got work to do.

Also, did you know that the first part of said meeting is a silent group read (which I think is genius)? There’s no pre-read (which no one ever does); the context setting happens as a group, and everyone is on the same page to have the most productive discussion possible. It seems at Amazon, there are no "could've been an email" meetings.

So, if you’re going to brief a corporate video to an agency or an internal team, here’s how to do it effectively. Please feel free to take this and use it as your own.

Project Background: Any important information about the project or relevant background information to the business will help provide context. Also, include links, PDFs, previous videos, or content—anything that helps your agency get up to speed quickly.

What You Want to Create: Let's start with your vision. Download what you imagine this could be—don't worry about "coloring our thinking"; we'll do that for ourselves.

Key Messages: What are the key messages you're looking to convey to the world? Pro tip: there are only ever a maximum of three. If there's more they're not key, they’re just messages.

Ideal Runtime: I'm lying; this is a fool's metric. No one cares how long something is if it's good.

Viewing Context: Much more important—where and how will the content be viewed? Big screen auditorium? Sent as a link in an email? Is the viewer in a group or alone? We're guessing that no matter what, you want to put it on your YouTube, but tell us because it could impact the cost of your music or the agreements we have to strike with contributors.

Cast: Is there anyone who has to be included in the film? Usually, that would be a CEO or a key stakeholder, but sometimes you know this should be led by employees. We'll let you know if we disagree.

Locations: Are there any specific places we need to film? Have you opened a new office? Is Dave, the CEO, only willing to be filmed in his house in the Bahamas? We can but dream. However, if you know we'll have to go to Whitstable to capture something, please let us know.

The Audience: Arguably the most important information you could provide. If it's "all staff," tell us who these people are. You have their names and addresses, so you can probably tell us, "This is predominantly a middle-aged female audience."

Budget: Tell us how much you want to spend. You won't save money by keeping it secret, but you will waste a bunch of time as we think up something that needs significant investment that you have no intention of spending. The elephant in the room: we can probably make money off of a $20k project and a $100k project. We charge what it costs to make the idea; we have a cost structure in place to ensure we make a margin. You won't get a $100k film for $20k just because you kept the amount of money you want to spend quiet.

Delivery Schedule: Same thing here—if you need it in November, don't tell us the end of September. Tell us the real timeline. We're (generally) professionals who are good at time management. We like to get things done as quickly as reasonably possible because we can invoice you quicker—it helps with cash flow.

Stuff You Like: Maybe share a few things you like as references. We won't just copy them; we hate doing that, it's lazy. But we do like to see what type of work you gravitate towards.

And that's it, love from the corporate video industry. We'll come back with questions if we have them; we're not shy.

Lecture over - as you were,

MrMcK.