Creative
Brief
A structured brief for agency creative teams. Five titles, answered in order: Overview, Objective, Audience, Deliverables, and Timeline & Risks.
How to use this template
- Work through the five titles in order. Complete each one before moving on.
- Answer the core questions in full sentences. Write what you know, and flag what is still unknown.
- The prompts to pressure-test under each title are optional. Use them to add detail where it helps.
- Fill in the space provided, or copy the questions into your own document.
Brief details
What are you hoping to achieve?
In a sentence or two. The five titles below unpack it.
What creative thinking is needed, its role in the strategy, and what success looks like.
Prompts to pressure-test
- Is this creative intended to be a single idea or a flexible system?
- Are there any known boundaries we must respect without prescribing solutions?
What the idea should enable, the change it drives, and how people should think or act differently.
Prompts to pressure-test
- How will you recognise a strong idea when you see it?
- Are there any signals that would suggest an idea is off-strategy?
Who the idea is for, the tension it responds to, and the mindset they meet it in.
Prompts to pressure-test
- Are there any audience sensitivities we should be aware of without steering the idea?
- Does the creative need to work across multiple audiences or interpretations?
The level of creative output expected, how it will be used, and how far it must scale.
Prompts to pressure-test
- Are there any downstream outputs this creative must eventually enable?
- Are there any known exclusions or constraints that should not shape the idea itself?
The moments it should be mindful of, its shelf life, and the tensions to hold.
Prompts to pressure-test
- What is the biggest risk to the creative idea landing as intended?
- If pressure is applied later, what aspects of the idea should remain protected?
This template shapes the brief. It cannot score it.
A structure gets the right questions asked. It does not tell you whether the answers hold up. iQ reads the completed brief, scores its clarity, and flags what is still missing or unclear. Weak briefs are caught here, not three weeks into delivery.