Creative Secrets: Drafting an Effective Creative Brief

by Dave Dumanis

A good creative brief is by far the most important document you’ll ever run across, possibly more important than your employment contract itself because it can—indirectly—determine how much you’ll make in the future, and for whom you’ll work. Conversely, a bad creative brief can ruin a project before it starts.

Millions of dollars have been spent buying media for campaigns with poor creative briefs or no creative briefs at all, and the results speak for themselves. It annoys me like few other things to see a prime piece of expensive media filled with poorly targeted creative, just because the people in charge weren’t willing to take the 60 minutes to make sure they were working from a complete, accurate brief.

What I want to show you here is how to tell a good brief from a bad one, why clients secretly hate filling out creative briefs, how to draft a good one yourself, and common pitfalls to avoid along the way.

For more, buy your copy of this tiny but mighty ebook now. It's part of the Creative Secrets series, written with a lifetime of ad world experience—and zero AI.

12 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 17, 2025

About the author

Dave Dumanis is the author of 51, AMERICAN BEEHIVE, ALPHABETICAL DISORDER, SHAGGY DOG STORIES AND NURSERY RHYMES, A PLAGUE OF BOILS, CREAM, THE SOFT PINK AND WHITE BUNNYRABBIT STORY, MONA LIEBOWITZ, and NINE LIVES BY PAUL VARJAK. He lives in San Francisco with his wife and daughter.