Gmkt Creative Brief

---
name: gmkt-creative-brief
description: Turns a meeting note into a one-page creative brief with linked objectives, a single-minded proposition and a reason to believe backed by evidence, plus mandatories, deliverables, measures and a deadline. Use for "run gmkt-creative-brief", "write a creative brief", "brief the designer", "brief an agency", "turn my meeting notes into a brief", "single-minded proposition", "what goes in a creative brief", "my brief has five messages", part of the Claude for Marketing Graduates Pack by Polar Bear.
---

# Creative Brief

## When To Use
The designer or agency needs a brief and you have a meeting note, three Slack threads and a deadline. Use this when one piece of creative work needs commissioning and you have to answer: what is this for, who is it for, and what is the one thing it must say?

## When Not To Use
If the launch already has a message and you need every channel saying it the same way, use Messaging House instead. If nobody has agreed why the work is needed, stop and get that answer from your manager first; a brief cannot invent the reason.

## Inputs
- The meeting note, email or request that started the work
- Any audience evidence you hold (an Audience Persona, a Jobs to Be Done Map, research notes)
- Proof points the brand can show (documents, data, certifications), and who holds each; budget, deadline and mandatories (logo rules, legal lines, formats) if known
If you have none of this, I start from the request in your own words and mark the output as a first draft, with every gap in [brackets].

## Approach
This follows "The best way for a client to brief an agency", the IPA's guide written with the BetterBriefs project: define why the work is needed, one brief for one strategy, a backbone of objectives, audience and budget that link to each other, and one key message backed only by relevant proof. The judgment is in cutting. The failure it prevents: a brief with five messages, so the designer picks one at random and you spend a week on rounds of feedback about the one they did not pick.

## Workflow
1. Ask three questions: why does this work need to exist now, which one strategy is it serving (winning new customers, selling more to current ones, or getting people to buy more often), and who signs the brief off?
2. Write the need in one or two lines. If the answer to question one has two strategies in it, say so and propose two briefs; one brief, one strategy.
3. Build the backbone. Objectives in three linked layers: commercial (what the business gets), behavioural (what people do), attitudinal (what people think or feel). Each layer should explain the one above it. Budget stays [budget: from you] unless you give it.
4. Define the audience as a group that behaves meaningfully differently from everyone else and is big enough to meet the objective. Strike demographic clichés ("millennials", "busy mums") unless the evidence shows they change a decision.
5. Write the single-minded proposition: one key message in plain words, not a tagline. Under it, only the proof points that support that message, each with its evidence and holder. Missing evidence reads [evidence needed]; I never supply a proof point.
6. Add mandatories, deliverables (format, size, channel), measures agreed up front (how the work will be judged) and the deadline. Anything that does not fit on one page moves to an appendix.

## Output Format
```markdown
# Creative Brief
## Why this work
[Project, owner, date. One or two lines: the need and the one strategy it serves]
## Objectives
| Layer | Objective | Baseline and source |
|---|---|---|
| Commercial | [what the business gets] | [baseline needed] |
| Behavioural | [what the audience does] | [baseline needed] |
| Attitudinal | [what the audience thinks or feels] | [baseline needed] |
## Audience
[Who, how they differ, evidence behind it with source tags]
## Single-minded proposition
[One key message]
| Reason to believe | Evidence | Held by |
|---|---|---|
| [proof point] | [document or data, or evidence needed] | [name] |
## Mandatories, deliverables, measures
- Mandatories: [list] · Deliverables: [format, size, channel] · Budget: [from you] · Measures agreed: [how the work is judged] · Deadline: [date]
## Decision
[Sign-off name] approves the proposition and the evidence by [date], or sends it back with one change.
```

## Done When
- The brief fits one page and carries one strategy and one key message
- The three objective layers link, and every baseline is real or marked [baseline needed]
- Every reason to believe names its evidence and who holds it
- A named person and a date sit under Decision

## Quality Bar
- A tagline is not a proposition; if it rhymes, ask what it actually claims
- Proof points that do not support the proposition are cut, however good they are
- No invented budget, figure or insight; brackets show what is missing
- Every reason to believe cites evidence the brand holds; Claude never invents a proof point or a customer insight

## Next
Run gmkt-messaging-house (Messaging House) to keep every channel on the same message.

## About the makers

This pack is made by Polar Bear, a consultancy built by ex-McKinsey founders with a dream to make AI work for People, not instead of them. We help our clients build people systems and AI-first ways of working, and we run our own company on Claude. If your team has outgrown the self-serve version, message Pauline (linkedin.com/in/paulinebertry).