The video arrives. The light is beautiful, the product well filmed, the tone natural. And yet it does not serve your campaign: it praises the wrong quality, it runs for a minute when fifteen seconds were needed, or it was shot horizontally. You ask for another version, the Creator does not see what was wrong, and a week goes by.
Often the problem is not the video but the brief. A brief avoids going back and forth when it settles five things before the shoot: who the video speaks to, the single message, the exact deliverables, what is fixed and what is free, and how the video will be approved and used. The rest of this article goes through each of those decisions, with an annotated brief and a list to check before you send it.
Why a vague brief costs you rounds of revisions
#A Creator who receives an incomplete brief does not stop: they fill the gaps with their own assumptions. They pick an angle, a length, a format, a tone. Those choices are often good in themselves, but they are not yours. You discover the gap on delivery, exactly when fixing it costs the most: another shoot instead of one more sentence in the brief.
The most common instructions are also the most misleading. “An authentic video that showcases the product” says neither who it is for, nor which benefit, nor in what form. Anyone can agree with it, and that is precisely what makes it useless.
The five decisions to make before writing
#1. Who the video speaks to, and about which problem
#Describe one precise person and the situation where your product helps them. “Women aged 25 to 35” is a marketing target; “someone who runs in the morning and whose bottle leaks inside their bag” is a scene the Creator can play. The more concrete the situation, the closer the video will land without you having to write it for them.
2. The single message
#A short video carries one message. If you list six benefits, the Creator will pick one, or race through all of them so that none is remembered. Choose the one that matters to the person described above, and keep the others for other videos.
3. The deliverables, down to the format
#This part is often forgotten, and yet it is the easiest to write. Specify:
the number of videos, and their target length;
the format: vertical 9:16, square, horizontal;
what you expect exactly: edited video, raw files, or both;
the useful variants: several hooks for the first three seconds, several endings;
subtitles, music, on-screen text: who takes care of them.
4. What is fixed, what is free
#Split it into two lists. On one side, the non-negotiable points: a disclosure to display, a claim that is not allowed, a gesture of use to show, a competing brand not to film. On the other, what you leave to the Creator: the setting, the words, the pace. Imposing a word-for-word script often removes the very thing you chose them for; dictate only the sentences that have to be dictated.
5. Approval and usage rights
#Say who approves, within what time, and how many rounds of revisions are included. Also state where, for how long and in which countries you will use the video: on your social accounts, in paid advertising, on your website. Those usage rights are part of the agreement; leaving them implicit only postpones the conversation to the moment it is hardest to have.
If the Creator also publishes the video on their own account, the collaboration falls under commercial influence. In France, the law then requires a clear “Publicité” or “Collaboration commerciale” disclosure throughout the promotion (French law no. 2023-451, article 5). If your campaign runs in France, plan for it in the brief; elsewhere, check the rules that apply to you.
An annotated brief
#Section | Vague brief | Useful brief | What it prevents |
|---|---|---|---|
Audience | “Sporty people” | “Someone who runs before work and puts their bottle in their bag.” | A performance angle when the real subject is a wet bag. |
Message | “Show everything the bottle does well” | “It does not leak, even upside down in a bag.” | Six benefits in fifteen seconds, none remembered. |
Deliverables | “A dynamic video” | “Two vertical 9:16 videos of 15 to 20 s, three different hooks, raw files included.” | A one-minute horizontal video that cannot be used as an ad. |
Fixed / free | Nothing specified | “Show the bottle upside down above an open bag. Free: place, outfit, words. Not allowed: any claim about keeping drinks cold.” | A claim the brand cannot prove. |
Approval and use | Nothing specified | “Feedback within 48 h, one round of revisions included. Use: brand accounts and ads, 6 months, France.” | A negotiation about rights after delivery. |
What is better left out
#Adjectives instead of decisions: “authentic”, “dynamic”, “impactful” cannot be filmed.
A list of benefits with no order: if everything is a priority, nothing is.
A full script imposed when only two sentences are genuinely mandatory.
References the Creator cannot see: “like our last campaign”, with no link to it.
The list to check before sending
#Inside AVYOR
#The AVYOR campaign assistant goes through four steps: information, budget, targeting, then a review of the complete brief before publication. Targeting covers platforms, audience and deadline; the review is the right moment to go through the list above. The usage rights granted on a deliverable are the ones defined in the conditions of the accepted campaign: what you write there is the reference for both sides.
