How to Draft a Video Production Creative Brief

Any good marketer knows that the best way to ensure great results is to start with a good strategy. That begins with a solid creative brief. The more specific you can be in setting your expectations, the more likely you are to receive exactly what you’re looking for. This is true for video marketing and digital content too.

A video production creative brief - either created in-house or together with your video production team - will set the framework to accomplish goals for your business, and ensure that everyone is aligned on what, when, where, why and how your video will be produced.

The brief can be drafted various ways, but regardless of format, it is the plan to ensure your video is created exactly as you need it as the project heads toward completion. In short, it’s the blueprint everyone will follow.

Here are the considerations that your video production brief should include:

Your Audience

Who are you creating this video for? The more specific you can be at this point the better. A video made for teenage exchange students is going to be a lot different than videos geared toward CEOs of global corporations. Your audience informs many minor and major creative decision - from the setting of the video, the script language, the people who will be in it, the music, the color and type of fonts or graphics, and so much more.

Your Goal

What do you want this video to achieve? Are you trying to generate awareness for a new service? Sell a specific product? Drive attendance to an event? Video is a marketing tactic and each tactic should have one clear goal. Without that clarity you may end up with content that doesn’t help you achieve the results you need.

Example of what your brief might say: “Our goal is to attract new business for our service.”

This tells us that we need to focus on service benefits and ensure the video gives your viewers direction and a way to find out more about your service.

Type of Content

Chances are you already know what type of video you’d like to produce. It could be a talking head video, feature commercial, animation, explainer video, or a series of explainer videos. Each video best serves a particular goal and they’re filmed and edited differently.

Example of what your brief might say: Our video will be a testimonial from three satisfied clients highlighting specific benefits. Total runtime not to exceed 1.5 minutes.

Your Message

If your goal is to bring in new business, your message should be in alignment. You should be able to explain the core idea of your video in one sentence. Your message provides reasons why your audience should take the action you want: i.e. buying your product.

Example of what your brief might say: Our social media service saves marketers time by making scheduling easier, making editing faster, and creating more accurate measurements.

Distribution

A video production company will storyboard and tailor your video according to the channels and platforms you will show it on (YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, television). It’s important to include any particular format you require as well as the estimated length of video you want. Some platforms require specific size and resolution considerations as well as an understanding of the placement of various call-to-action features.

Example of what your brief might say: This video content will live on our YouTube channel and be embedded on our website.

Deadline and Budget

Perhaps the most important parts of the video production brief are understanding how fast you need your content, and what your budget is.

Ideally, you should include a timeline for delivery of first draft, edits and final product.

Understanding your timeline and budget will ensure the team understands the quality required and the time frame they have to deliver the video. It will impact who they assign to your project and the set the expectation for the quality that can be achieved.

Example of what your brief might say: First draft 12 weeks, one week for each round of edits (2) final video delivered in MP4 format by the end of Spring. Budget $15,000.

Contact us to get started and we’ll help with the planning of your content and ensure a smooth process from start to finish.

Anatomy of a Product Launch Video Project

The Project

Our client Strato Footwear is launching a new line of footwear and they asked us to create a suite of video and photography content they can use on their social channels, in email campaigns and on their site. The deliverables include six 15-second social media ads, one 30-second product video and 20 photographs of the footwear and model.

The Important Stuff

The shoes are the stars of this content. So it was important to show them in the best possible light (no pun intended since we shot outdoors). Our client wants their audience to see the many different ways the shoes can be used; on the beach, hiking on trails, walking in the city and just taking it easy. Of course, they also wanted the shoes to look good in each shot, so that meant plenty of pauses to wipe them clean as needed from shot to shot.

The client wanted the content to be bright and the scenes to be energetic. In other words, they wanted more than just shots of the product sitting on a beach or on a sidewalk. After some discussion, it was agreed that we would bring on some talent to show the footwear in action in different scenarios.

The Shoot

Filming the content for our client consisted of 6 unique locations; a beach, an open-air trail, a pine forest, a boardwalk, a nature reserve and a downtown area. As filmmakers, you quickly learn that filming outdoors provides a number of challenges, and the one we had the least control over was the weather. Sometimes we just have to wait it out and that was true for this project as we had to reschedule 3 times to ensure a nice, sunny day.

We hired one actor to be in all the scenes but dressed him in different outfits for each location. It was important to make sure all the outfits matched the client brief about the type of clothing their customers might wear. For example, hoodies, sport shorts, classic tees, chinos, etc. in neutral colors.

We made sure to include close-up shots of the shoes to show them off, shots of the actor walking in the different locations, nice wide shots of each location to let the audience know where the scenes were taking place, and close-ups of the actor.

The Outcome

Our client has material for their launch and website, and some great shots of the new footwear. We can mark off another successful product video shoot with a happy client. We’re looking forward to working with Strato even more in the coming months as they extend their line of footwear to include new designs, new colors and new products.