Writing a good briefing for the development of visual content

You have a budget and you want to create unique content. You fly Charlize Theron, Eva Mendes, Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem, and Ryan Gosling to China to photograph them with your product on the glass bridge in Zhangjiajie above the mysterious Wulingyuan landscape. You take these photos to emphasize your brand message and brand promise and to strengthen your brand identity. Of course, you don’t want anything to go wrong, so writing a good briefing for the photographer, videographer, or media agency organizing the shoot is essential. But how do you approach that? How do you write a good briefing? What should it include? What do you arrange and what does the other party handle? In short: what does a good briefing consist of?

“A picture is worth a thousand words”

Facts and figures about visual content

A video on your landing page increases conversion by 86%. Using the word ‘video’ in the subject line of your email campaign increases the open rate by 19 percent and the click-through rate by 65%. People remember 80% of what they see and do, 20% of what they read, and 10% of what they hear. 93% of human communication is non-verbal, 90% of the information processed by our brains is visual, and the processing of that information is much faster than with text. (source: Hubspot)

In short, if you want to stand out and be remembered, you need visuals. And good visuals always start with a complete and clear briefing. If you give a poor briefing, you risk:

• A disappointing result because the creative didn’t understand what you were looking for
• Higher costs, as it takes more time to achieve a good result or you basically have to start over
• A much larger time investment (internally)

The benefits of a good briefing

But what if you don’t have the expertise or capacity internally to create that visual content? Then you look for a photographer, filmmaker, or agency to help you. Every professional will probably immediately ask you a whole bunch of questions. That can be a bit overwhelming. By writing a good briefing yourself, you can prevent this situation.

To avoid misunderstandings and awkward situations, it’s important to write a very clear briefing that includes your requirements, wishes, and expectations.

The ideal situation is that you provide a filmmaker, photographer, or agency with all the information they need right away to get started and do what they do best: create outstanding photos and/or films. There are other advantages to writing a good briefing in advance:

• It provides focus: what is the absolute core message you want to convey?
• It prevents unnecessary corrections or hours worked because it was handled well and clearly from the start.
• You avoid discussions afterward because the wishes and agreements are clear upfront.
• You can better assess what a photographer, filmmaker, or agency can really do. There is less room for personal interpretation and the quality can be properly evaluated. This all relates to understanding you as a client, the ability to translate this input into compelling concepts, and their execution.

The ideal briefing for a photographer or filmmaker

Your briefing must meet quite a few criteria, preferably described as specifically as possible. When it comes to visual content, a briefing for a filmmaker naturally looks a bit different than one for a photographer, but the basics are the same for both. The ideal briefing looks as follows:

1. The ‘dry’ information: project name, project number, contact person / point of contact, contact details, any location, date, start and end time (if known), and other specific information.
2. Background information about your company: briefly tell something about your company and what you stand for. Which product(s) and/or service(s) do you offer and what is your current target audience? Where do you come from and what do you find important (brand promise and core values)?
3. Objective of the content to be created: Describe the reason you want to create visual content. Is there a new product? Do you want to reach a new target audience? Do you want to increase brand awareness? Do you want to emphasize one of your company’s core values? Explain the underlying idea.
4. Target audience you want to reach with the content: this does not have to be the same audience as your current customer base. For example: as a volunteer organization, you currently attract mostly people aged 50+, but you want to reach more socially engaged young people who like to volunteer alongside their studies for good causes.
5. Where the content will be distributed, what are the channels? Whether you have a video made for Snapchat or a video broadcast as a TV commercial, or you are going to post a series of photos on Instagram or put them on a roadside billboard… you can imagine that makes quite a difference. So also think about whether there are multiple expressions and channels and whether you want different content made for those.
6. Feeling, atmosphere, and appearance of the content to be developed: What should it convey? For example, light, airy, cheerful, relaxed (fits an organic tea or interior brand) or rather active, tough, extreme, bold, and daring (Red Bull, sports brands)? It is often helpful to also provide a style guide document in this context. That document contains a lot about color use, appearance, do’s and don’ts that the creator must follow, a kind of framework.
7. Things to consider / special notes. This can be anything. For example, will there be text over the image and should ‘empty’ space be reserved for that? Do you want landscape or portrait images, black & white or color, or a mix? Are there certain people you should or should not photograph? Think about privacy, weather conditions to consider, permission to enter certain areas, and thus reserving and obtaining, for example, a press pass.
8. The autonomy of the filmmaker, photographer, or agency. Do you already have something in mind, certain shots that absolutely must be included? Something very important? Or do you give the creator full creative freedom? How far does that freedom go?
9. Amount of content to be created: How many images should a photographer deliver and what does the process look like? For example, agree that you receive a selection of 30 low-res raw, unedited files. The photographer marks 10 A-choices, 10 B-choices, 10 C-choices. From this selection, the client may choose 10. These 10 images are fully edited by the photographer/agency and sent back to the client. The client may choose up to 7 from these. More is possible but at an additional cost. For a filmmaker, it is more about how many videos, footage, and their duration.
10. Quality requirements the content must meet: I always advise you to request high-res images. You can always reduce size later, but not enlarge. If you already know the dimensions for, for example, website use or a street poster, ask to receive the content in that format alongside high-res. Both video and photography involve file formats and ratios (16:9, 2:3). It is also useful to specify the file type. JPG, EPS, PDF, MP4, AVI: there are many. What do you need?
11. Determine the desired results. When is it a success? This part may be more for yourself than for the creator. But hey, the creator also wants your goal to be achieved and to do their job well. For example, agree that within a year you want a 2.5% increase in webshop purchases of a certain type of sneaker you advertise. Or that the average age of your volunteers decreases by increasing the percentage of volunteers under 21 by 10% within a year. Another goal could be an increase in the number of contact forms submitted via the website or increased brand awareness. In short: what behavior and actions should your target audience show as a result of the visual content created.
12. Agreements regarding price, schedule, rights, and use of the visual material. Not unimportant, of course. Do you agree on an hourly rate or a total price? What is the budget? Does that match what the creator asks? How much time will the creator approximately invest? How much time do they have to produce it – what is the final deadline? What are the different milestones and contact moments? How many rounds of corrections are included? Who holds the copyrights, is it unique content (do you buy it off) or can it be resold? May the creator use it in their portfolio?
13. Agreements in case one of the parties cannot meet the discussed points. Responsibility: At what point in the process does someone raise the alarm? If a certain budget is exceeded, if the deadline cannot be met. What are the consequences if the deadline is missed and who is responsible for monitoring the budget?

Now I needed about 1000 words to explain what a briefing must meet, but for the briefing itself: the shorter and clearer you write the briefing, the better and faster the photographer, videographer, or agency will grasp the essence.

One last tip: have both parties sign the briefing to confirm it as the starting point. That prevents discussions afterward! ????