Creative Brief

Creative Brief

Overview

Generate a creative brief grounded in real audience insight using OriginalVoices Digital Twins. Instead of writing briefs based on assumptions or internal opinions, this workflow builds the brief from validated audience understanding — so creative teams start with what actually matters to real people.

Workflow Steps

Step 1: Gather Inputs

Collect from the user:

• Product or service: What is being promoted or communicated?
• Campaign objective: What should this creative achieve? (e.g. awareness, trial, conversion, repositioning)
• Target audience: Who is this for? Be as specific as possible — demographics, interests, lifestyle, values
• Deliverables: What will the creative team produce? (e.g. social ads, video, landing page, packaging, brand campaign)
• Brand guidelines (if any): Existing tone, visual identity, or messaging guardrails
• Competitors or context (optional): Who else is in the space? What's the competitive landscape?
• Budget/timeline context (optional): Any constraints that shape the brief

Step 2: Audience Research via Digital Twins

Conduct deep audience research to build the brief on validated insight, not guesswork. Ask 10-12 questions covering emotional drivers, language, pain points, aspirations, preferences, and what makes the audience act.

ask_twins(
  audience: "[detailed target audience description]",
  questions: [
    "When you think about [product category], what matters most to you? What do you actually care about?",
    "What frustrates you most about [product category / current solutions]? What do brands in this space get wrong?",
    "How does [the problem this product solves] make you feel day-to-day? What emotions come up?",
    "When you see ads or content about [category], what catches your attention? What makes you stop scrolling?",
    "What kind of tone or voice feels right for a [category] brand talking to someone like you? What feels off?",
    "Can you describe a moment when you realised you really needed a better [product/solution]? What was happening?",
    "What would make you trust a new brand in this space enough to try it? What signals credibility to you?",
    "If a product like [product] truly delivered, how would your life or routine be different? What would change?",
    "What words or phrases do you use when talking about [problem/category] with friends or family?",
    "When you see [category] advertising, what turns you off immediately? What feels fake or irrelevant?",
    "What would a brand need to say or show to make you feel like they genuinely understand people like you?",
    "Who or what influences your decisions about [category]? Where do you go for recommendations?"
  ]
)

Note: Tailor questions to the specific product and campaign. If the brief is for a visual campaign, add questions about imagery and aesthetics. If it's for a specific channel, ask about that channel's consumption habits.

Step 3: Identify the Key Insight

From the research, identify the single most important human truth — the insight that should anchor the entire brief. A strong insight:

• Reveals a tension, desire, or unmet need the audience feels deeply
• Is specific enough to inspire creative work (not generic)
• Creates an "of course" reaction — it feels true and recognisable
• Connects the audience's world to what the product can deliver

Test your insight: If you could say it about any brand in any category, it's too generic. If it only makes sense for this audience and this product, you've found it.

Step 4: Deliver the Creative Brief

Format the output using proper markdown headers: use ## for the brief title, ### for major sections, #### for subsections, > blockquotes for Digital Twin quotes, and --- horizontal rules between major sections. Never use plain text or bold-only text as section headers — always use proper markdown headers.

Structure the brief as follows:

1. Background & Context

• What's the situation? Why is this creative needed now?
• Product/service overview
• Competitive landscape (informed by what the audience actually said about alternatives)

2. Objective

• What must this creative achieve?
• Primary KPI or success metric

3. Target Audience Profile

• Demographics and psychographics
• How they think and feel about the category (grounded in Twin responses)
• Their language — actual words and phrases they use
• What they care about most, in their own words
• Key emotional drivers

4. Key Insight

• The single human truth that anchors this brief
• Supporting evidence from audience responses

5. Single-Minded Message

• The one thing the audience should think, feel, or do after seeing this creative
• Must flow directly from the insight

6. Support Points

• 3-4 reasons to believe
• Product truths that validate the message
• Proof points or credibility signals the audience said matter to them

7. Tone & Manner

• How the creative should feel (grounded in what the audience said resonates)
• What to avoid (grounded in what the audience said turns them off)
• Audience quotes that capture the right tone

8. Audience Do's and Don'ts

| Do (resonates with this audience) | Don't (falls flat or alienates) | |---|---| | [Specific thing that works, with quote] | [Specific thing to avoid, with quote] | | [Another thing that works] | [Another thing to avoid] | | [Continue based on findings] | [Continue based on findings] |

9. Mandatories & Guardrails

• Brand guidelines to follow
• Legal or compliance requirements
• Channel-specific constraints

10. Deliverables & Format

• What the creative team needs to produce
• Dimensions, formats, or specifications

Tips for Best Results

• Lead with audience language: Use the actual words Twins used — they reveal how real people think and talk about this category
• One insight, not five: The best briefs are ruthlessly focused. Pick the most powerful insight and build everything around it
• Tensions are gold: If the audience revealed a tension (e.g. "I want X but I'm afraid of Y"), that's often the strongest creative territory
• Specificity inspires creativity: "Busy mums who feel guilty about screen time" inspires better work than "parents aged 25-45"
• Include raw quotes: Creative teams connect with real voices more than summarised findings
• Don't prescribe executions: The brief should inspire creative solutions, not dictate them. Define the "what" and "why", let the creative team own the "how"

Common Pitfalls to Avoid

• Brief by committee: Cramming every stakeholder's opinion into the brief dilutes focus
• Generic insights: "People want quality at a good price" isn't an insight — it's a truism
• Multiple messages: If the brief has more than one key message, it has no key message
• Skipping the audience: Writing the brief first and then looking for audience data to support it defeats the purpose
• Internal language in the brief: If the audience wouldn't use a word, it shouldn't be in the insight or message
• Confusing features with benefits: The audience cares about outcomes, not specifications

Creative Brief Quality Checklist

Before delivering, verify:

• [ ] Insight is specific to this audience and product (not interchangeable)
• [ ] Single-minded message is truly single-minded (one idea, not three)
• [ ] Audience profile uses their actual language, not marketing speak
• [ ] Tone guidance is grounded in what the audience said, not internal preference
• [ ] Do's and Don'ts are backed by real audience quotes
• [ ] Brief would inspire creative work (not just inform it)
• [ ] A creative team could start working from this brief alone

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: ovlabs
• Source: ovlabs/audienceresearchskills
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.