How Do You Brief a Creator Campaign?

What a brief is actually for

A brief is not a script and it is not a contract. Its job is to give a creator enough to decide two things - whether they can do this honestly for their audience, and what it should cost. Everything that serves those two decisions belongs in it. Everything else is slowing the quote down.

The six things a brief has to contain

• The product, in one sentence a viewer would understand. Not the positioning statement. If a creator has to read it twice, so will the audience.
• Who you want to reach. The single most useful line in any brief, and the one most often left out. “Men 18-34” is not an audience, it is a census bracket. “People who already play strategy games and are frustrated with their current one” is an audience.
• The format, or the outcome if you do not know. An integration and a dedicated video are different buys at different prices. If you are unsure, say what you want to happen and let the quote propose the format.
• Timing, and whether it is fixed. A launch date tied to a product release constrains which creators are still free, and that changes the price. A flexible window is worth real money.
• Usage. Whether you intend to run the video as a paid ad, or use the footage on your own channels, and for how long. This is a separate right from the organic post and it is priced separately. Deciding it late is the most common cause of a campaign being repriced.
• A budget or a target. Either a number, or the reach you want. Withholding both does not get you a better price, it gets you a quote for the wrong campaign.

What to leave out

• A script. You are buying the creator’s judgment about how to talk to their own audience. A script written by someone who does not watch the channel is the fastest way to a video that underperforms while technically meeting the brief.
• A list of banned words with no reason attached. Constraints are fine when the reason is given - legal, regulatory, a competitor’s trademark. A list with no rationale gets followed literally and awkwardly.
• Every feature of the product. Pick the one that matters to this audience. A creator covering three features covers none of them.

Why the brief changes the price

The same creator costs different amounts for different asks, and almost all of the variation is set by the brief rather than by negotiation. A short integration with no usage rights and a flexible date is a different product from a dedicated video with a competitor exclusion, a fixed launch and six months of paid usage.

This is why quotes come per campaign rather than off a rate card. A vague brief is quoted defensively, which means it is quoted high. A specific one is quoted for what you actually want.

How to size it before you have a quote

You do not need rates to set a budget. Every show on our brand partnership roster publishes a guaranteed view figure. Across 64 shows those run from 10,000 to 2.6 million, with a median of 100,000. Add the guaranteed figures for the shows whose audiences fit the product until you reach the reach you want, and you have a lineup and a budget before anyone has quoted anything.

At the $20 to $25 CPM performance campaigns typically run at, a million guaranteed views is roughly $20,000 to $25,000.

What happens after you send it

We come back with a lineup rather than a single name - the shows whose audiences match, each with its guaranteed view figure, so the reach is visible before anything is booked. Where the brief leaves a decision open, we say which way we would go and why.

The four briefs that go wrong

• No audience. Everything else in the brief is guesswork without it.
• Usage decided late. Agreed as organic, then extended to paid after the video is live, which reopens the price.
• A fixed date with a short lead time. Not impossible, but it narrows the roster to whoever is free, which is rarely the best fit.
• Approval by committee. Every additional approver adds a round, and rounds are what push a campaign past its own launch date. Name one decision-maker in the brief.