How to brief a video agency (with a template you can copy)
A bad brief does not produce a bad video. It produces three rounds of revisions discovering what the brief should have said. Here are the nine things a studio actually needs from you.
Almost every video project that goes badly went wrong at the brief. Not because the client wrote a bad one, usually because they wrote a short one, in good faith, assuming the studio would ask about anything missing. The studio then quotes against its own assumptions, and the gap between those assumptions and reality gets discovered one revision round at a time.
A good brief is not long. Ours fits on one page. It just has to answer the nine things that actually change what gets built.
The nine things a studio needs
- What the video is for. Not the topic, the job. Getting a demo booked, getting a product understood, getting a room to stop talking at a conference. This single line decides more than everything below it.
- Who is watching, and in what state. A procurement officer reading a shortlist at their desk and someone thumbing a feed on a train need different films. Name the person and the moment.
- Where it runs. LinkedIn, a paid social campaign, a landing page hero, a trade show loop. Placement sets duration, aspect ratio, whether there is sound, and whether captions are optional.
- How long, and how many versions. If you do not know, say so and give a range. A studio can price 30 seconds plus three cutdowns; it cannot price the word short.
- What you already have. Footage, product shots, a brand kit, fonts, an existing motion system, a script draft. Existing assets can move a quote substantially in either direction.
- What it must include. Legal lines, a product name said a specific way, a logo end card, a disclaimer. The non-negotiables that are cheap to plan for and expensive to retrofit.
- References, with reasons. Two or three links, each with one sentence on what specifically you like. Pacing? Type? The colour? A reference without a reason is a Rorschach test.
- The date, and what it is tied to. A launch, an event, a campaign start. A real deadline gets protected; a soft one drifts and takes the quality with it.
- The budget, or a range. The most-skipped item and the most useful one. It is not a negotiating position, it is the constraint that determines which of five possible approaches gets proposed.
The four things that waste everyone's time
- Adjectives without referents. Clean, modern, premium, dynamic. Every studio agrees with all four and none of them constrains a single decision. Replace with a link and a sentence.
- A full script, written before the format is agreed. If the video turns out to be 15 seconds of vertical with no voiceover, a 400-word script was wasted work and now feels sunk, which makes it harder to abandon.
- Approval by committee, undeclared. If six people will see the first cut, the studio needs to know now, it changes how the first cut is presented, not just how the feedback is handled.
- Wish lists dressed as requirements. Everything cannot be a must-have. Ranking them is your job, and doing it in the brief is a great deal cheaper than doing it in round two.
The template
Copy this, fill it in, send it. It is deliberately blunt.
| Field | Your answer |
|---|---|
| Project | One line: what we are making. |
| Objective | What someone should do after watching. |
| Audience | Who, and where they are when they see it. |
| Placement | Channels and formats it will run in. |
| Duration and versions | Master length, plus cutdowns and ratios. |
| Assets we have | Footage, stills, brand kit, fonts, script drafts. |
| Must include | Legal lines, product names, end card, disclaimers. |
| References | Two or three links, each with why. |
| Deadline | The date, and what it is tied to. |
| Budget | A number or a range. |
| Approvers | Who signs off, and who else will comment. |
A worked example
The difference between a brief that gets a good quote and one that gets a guess is usually about forty words.
Weak: We need a modern, dynamic video for our new product launch. Something premium that shows off the brand. Around a minute. Budget flexible.
Strong: A 45-second launch film for our new insulated bottle, running as the hero on the product page and as paid social on Instagram and TikTok. Audience is existing customers on mobile, sound off by default, so it has to work with captions. We have product photography and a brand kit, no footage. Must show the lid mechanism and end on the logo. Reference: this competitor spot, for its pacing rather than its look. Live 14 October for the campaign start. Budget around $800. Two approvers, our head of marketing signs off.
The second version can be quoted accurately in ten minutes and built without a single clarifying assumption. It also quietly rules out three approaches that would have been proposed against the first.
How to give feedback that gets acted on
The brief starts the project; feedback finishes it, and it is where more revision rounds are burned than anywhere else.
- Consolidate into one voice. Collect internally, resolve contradictions internally, send once. Studios that receive six separate emails build the average, and the average is never anyone's favourite.
- Use timecodes. At 00:12 the type is too fast to read is actionable. The middle bit feels off is a guessing game you pay for.
- Describe the problem, not the fix. I lost the thread here tells a studio what to solve. Make it blue removes their ability to solve it a better way.
- Separate must-fix from would-like. Otherwise everything is treated as must-fix, and the round takes twice as long as it needed to.
- Send it by the agreed date. The delivery date and the feedback date are the same commitment viewed from two sides.
Once the brief is written, it is also the document that lets you compare studios properly, send the same one to each and see what they ask back. How to choose a video production company covers what to listen for, and pricing covers what the numbers should include.
Common questions
- What should a video brief include?
- Nine things: the objective, the audience, where it runs, duration and versions, assets you already have, mandatory inclusions, two or three references with reasons, the deadline and what it is tied to, and a budget or range. One page is plenty.
- Should I tell a video agency my budget?
- Yes, or at least a range. Withholding it does not lower the price, it produces a quote built on a guess. Knowing the number lets a studio propose the best version of your video at that budget rather than a cautious version at a number it invented.
- How long should a video brief be?
- One page. Longer briefs are usually the same information with more adjectives, and adjectives are the part a studio cannot act on. Specificity beats length: one reference link with a sentence on why beats a paragraph describing a mood.
- How do I give feedback on a video edit?
- Consolidate every internal comment into one message, use timecodes, describe the problem rather than prescribing the fix, and mark clearly which notes are must-fix and which are preferences. That one habit typically saves a full revision round.
