Whether it’s a new brand logo, a package redesign, or an entire ad campaign, great creative is born out of a well prepared creative brief. While it’s tempting to jump directly into the creative effort, it’s crucial to spend the time to do the due diligence first. A well crafted creative brief looks at the complete picture, defines project goals, and provides a road map for everyone involved in the effort.
Creative briefs don’t have to be lengthy, complicated efforts. Following this simple guide will produce an effective creative brief for food branding and marketing efforts:
1. State your objective. This is a concise project statement or vision that defines the main reason why the project is being undertaken and the desired outcome/benefit of the project. For example, if the project is defined as a food packaging effort, is this effort being undertaken to introduce a new variety, product reformulation, or improved/easier to use package configuration? Is the desired outcome/benefit primarily to retain existing consumers, attract new consumers, or comply with new packaging standards/regulations?
2. State your requirements. This defines the services and capabilities you will need from your design firm’s creative team to successfully complete the project. Using the food packaging example, is this a new brand or product that requires a branding effort in addition to packaging design, or is this an established brand or product whose packaging needs to be redesigned? The creative team can better respond to your needs if they are clearly defined upfront.
3. Share your data. Assist your creative team by sharing all relevant information such as your branding/marketing strategy, your previous branding/marketing efforts, previous product and target audience research, available graphic resources, and any other information that would help inform the creative team. A well informed creative team is a more productive creative team.
4. Give direction and trust. True creative direction is based on empowering the creative team to do their job by giving them all of the essential information they will need, and trusting them with the creative freedom they will need to provide innovative, appropriate design solutions. Once you have stated the what and why of the project, the creative team needs the power to make the creative decisions on how to execute the defined project vision and goals.
