What is a client brief?
A client brief is a document issued by a brand or organisation that outlines what they want a marketing campaign to achieve. In professional practice, it's provided by the client to the agency or marketing team before any work begins. In an educational context, it's usually provided by your tutor and forms the basis of your coursework or exam response.
Briefs vary enormously in length, format and detail. Some are two paragraphs. Some are ten pages. Some tell you almost everything you need to know. Others leave significant gaps that require your own research and judgement to fill. In all cases, your job is the same: read it carefully, extract the essential information, and use it to anchor your campaign planning.
Why summarising matters
Summarising a brief isn't just a box-ticking exercise — it's where your campaign thinking actually starts. The act of pulling information out of a brief and restructuring it forces you to ask the right questions: What does the client actually want? What constraints are we working within? What has been left unclear or unsaid?
A brief summary also functions as a shared reference point for everything that follows. Your SMART objective should connect directly to the brief's stated objectives. Your target audience research should expand on the brief's audience description. Your deliverables and campaign timeline should match what the brief asks for. The summary keeps everything aligned.
In coursework and exam settings, a well-structured brief summary also signals to a marker that you've understood the task before attempting it — which is far more reassuring than diving straight into a SWOT analysis without showing you've read and interpreted the brief first.
What to extract from a brief
Every brief, regardless of how it's written, contains the same core information. Here's what to look for:
Reading a brief critically
The best students don't just read a brief — they interrogate it. Here are the questions to ask as you read:
What does the brief say explicitly?
Start with what's clearly stated. Name, dates, budget, audience, deliverables. Copy these directly into your summary — don't paraphrase what is already precise. A budget of "£50,000–£75,000" should appear exactly as written, not as "a moderate budget."
What is implied but not stated?
Briefs often set an objective without fully defining it. "Increase brand awareness among young people" implies a need for reach-focused media and awareness metrics — even if the brief doesn't say so explicitly. Read between the lines and document your interpretation.
What is missing?
Some briefs leave gaps — no budget given, no specific audience demographics, no clear output format. Identifying these gaps in your summary shows critical thinking. You can then address them through your own research and make your assumptions explicit.
From this short extract you can pull: brand name and positioning (irreverent, Scottish), objective (reconnect, drive awareness and engagement), audience (16–30 year olds, Scottish), timing (ahead of summer festival season), and budget (£60,000). What's missing: specific campaign start and end dates, required deliverables, and a precise definition of "engagement."
Mapping campaign stages
A strong brief summary doesn't just record what the brief says — it begins to structure how you'll respond to it. Mapping the campaign into chronological stages is the bridge between reading the brief and planning the work.
A typical campaign moves through these phases:
You don't need to follow this order exactly — some campaigns run certain phases in parallel, and some briefs will impose their own structure. The point is to show that you understand campaigns as a process, not a single event. Each stage connects to a tool in Campaign Theory: research feeds your SWOT and audience profile; ideation feeds your creative concept; media strategy leads to your media plan and schedule.
Tool walkthrough: the Brief Summary Tool, field by field
The Brief Summary Tool takes you through every component of a brief summary in a structured order and generates a formatted output card. Here's what to write in each section.
Brand / Client Name
The name of the brand or client as it appears in the brief. Keep it clean — this becomes the title of your output summary card.
e.g. Irn BruKey Brand Information
A concise summary of the brand — what they sell, their history, market position and any relevant background. Don't copy the brief verbatim here; synthesise it. Show you understand who the brand is, not just what the brief says about them.
e.g. Irn Bru has been Scotland's best-selling soft drink since 1901. Known for irreverent humour and a fiercely Scottish identity. Strong brand recognition among 16–35s, positioned as an affordable everyday treat.Key Communication Objectives
What the campaign needs to achieve. Extract this directly from the brief, then note any implications — if the objective is "increase brand awareness," note that this calls for reach-focused media and awareness metrics. This feeds directly into your SMART objective.
e.g. Increase brand awareness among 16–25 year olds in Scotland and drive a measurable uplift in social engagement ahead of summer.Campaign Dates & Timing Notes
The start and end dates as given in the brief. Use the timing notes field for seasonal context, phasing, or key dates that shape the campaign window — festival season, product launch date, school holidays, etc.
e.g. 1 June – 31 August 2025 · Timed to coincide with the Scottish summer festival season (T in the Park, Edinburgh Fringe).Budget
The allocated spend, exactly as stated in the brief. If no budget is given, note that it's unspecified — don't invent a figure. Budget directly influences media channel selection, production quality and campaign scale.
e.g. £60,000 total · or: Budget not specified in brief.Audience Description
The brief's description of the target audience — copied in and, where necessary, briefly interpreted. This is the starting point for the fuller audience research you'll do in the Target Audience Maker.
e.g. 16–30 year olds in Scotland, interested in music, sport and social events. Primarily social media users.Specific Output Required
Exactly what the brief asks you to produce — content formats, volume, platforms, any specific creative requirements. If the brief doesn't specify, document what you plan to propose and flag it as your interpretation.
e.g. A social media campaign consisting of 12 posts across Instagram and TikTok, plus one 30-second video ad for pre-roll placement.Available Resources & Tools
The platforms, tools and assets available for the campaign. This might include advertising platforms, production software, existing brand assets or data sources. These inform your media decisions and production planning.
e.g. Meta Ads Manager for paid targeting, Canva for creative production, Instagram Insights for performance tracking.Campaign Stages
A chronological breakdown of the campaign from research to evaluation, one stage per line. This doesn't need to be exhaustive at this point — it's a high-level map that you'll build out in detail with the Task Planner. Each stage should be a clear, action-oriented phrase.
Research and audience analysis · Develop SMART objectives · Ideation and creative concept · Media strategy and scheduling · Production · Launch and monitoring · EvaluationBrand: Irn Bru — Scotland's best-selling soft drink since 1901. Irreverent, bold and fiercely Scottish. Strong recognition among 16–35s.
Objectives: Drive brand awareness and social engagement among 16–30 year olds in Scotland ahead of the summer festival season. Budget: £60,000. Timing: 1 June – 31 August 2025.
Audience: 16–30 year olds in Scotland, interested in music, sport and social events. Output: 12 social posts across Instagram and TikTok, plus one 30-second video ad.
Common mistakes to avoid
Copying the brief word for word into the summary. A summary should demonstrate understanding, not transcription.
Synthesise and interpret — show you understand what the brief means, not just what it says.
Ignoring gaps in the brief. If no budget or dates are given, pretending they exist or simply skipping past the gap.
Flag missing information explicitly — "budget not specified in brief" — and note what assumptions you'll be making.
- Confusing objectives with deliverables. The objective is what the campaign achieves (increase awareness). The deliverable is what gets produced (12 Instagram posts). These are different things — keep them in separate sections.
- Writing vague campaign stages. "Do research" is not a stage. "Research target audience demographics using Ofcom data and Meta Audience Insights" is. The more specific, the more useful.
- Skipping the brand background. Understanding who the brand is shapes everything that follows — tone, creative direction, media choices. Don't treat it as optional.
- Not connecting the summary to the rest of the campaign. Your brief summary should explicitly feed into your SMART objective, audience research and deliverables plan. It's not a standalone section — it's the anchor for everything else.
Summarise your brief now
Work through each section and generate a structured brief summary to save to your campaign.