So let's take a more detailed look at what goes into a creative brief.

There aren't a lot of rules about this. If you download some of the many templates available online, you'll see that their form and content vary wildly.

Nonetheless, there are some elements that appear in most creative briefs. Here's a list.

The medium and the form the end work will take. What is to be created from this work? A website, a 30-second television commercial, an entire content marketing campaign?

Assignment or objective. What is it we're trying to persuade people to do with this work? Download an app, vaccinate their children, visit Poland?

And what's the budget and schedule? I mean, how much time and money do we have to accomplish this miracle?

Then we're going to talk about target audience. Who are we talking to? What demographic or other groups are we trying to reach? New Yorkers, pharmaceutical company reps, Boomers? In other words, what would the personas for this audience be like?

How you answered that question will go a long way into determining the project's voice and tone.

The problem to be addressed or overcome: What consumer behavior are we trying to change? Is the problem that more people in Latin America use mobile devices than laptops? Or that North American consumers purchase turkeys only three times a year?

What's the message to the audience? What are we trying to say to our audience to drive them to action? Their vision will be sharper if they have a particular brand of lenses in their glasses, to ask their doctor if marzipan is right for you.

Measure success or the work objective. How will we know our work has had any effect? And if so, how much of an effect? Have we identified the KPIs for our product? Do we measure sales before and after a campaign? Conduct focus groups? Carry out attitudinal tracking?

Those are some of the basics. There are plenty of other elements that might be included in a creative brief.

Some of these are a little quirky and quite specific to certain styles of marketing campaigns. But they may also have value for your project. Here's the template we like to use at TBA Digital.

So just how brief should a creative brief be? A page, 10 pages? Creative briefs are usually one to three pages.

You want to include enough information to inspire your team and to keep everyone working towards the same goal. However, the more details you include, the more difficult it becomes to get everyone to commit to the brief. And the whole purpose of the creative brief is to establish agreement, so you can begin the real creative work.

In general, one-and-a-half to two pages is a good length for a brief.

One last thing. And this is true of any kind of outline. No matter how much effort you put into your brief, the people reading it are as likely to get hung up on what isn't in it as what is.

That's part of the point of writing a creative brief. To bring everyone on board early. And to avoid having to return to square one when the late arrival comes in and says: "Hey, I've got an idea".

A good creative brief will help you build and keep momentum on the project.