How to write a brief that gets usable clips

By Oleksii · Updated 22 October 2026 · 10 min read

Almost every rejected clip is a brief problem rather than a creator problem: something the brand needed was never written down, or was written somewhere the creator did not have to read. A brief that takes twenty minutes to write saves a fortnight of rejections.

What a brief is for

Not to describe your brand. The creator is making a sixty-second vertical video for people who are scrolling past it, and your positioning statement does not survive that context. A brief exists to answer four questions and nothing else: what has to be visible, what must not be said, where it goes, and what counts as done.

Everything beyond those four is optional, and most of it actively costs you. A brief that runs to three pages gets skimmed; one that specifies the shot list removes the only thing you were buying, which is somebody else's instinct for what holds attention in their own feed.

The four omissions behind most rejections

Specify the constraint, not the creative

The useful instruction is a boundary. “No competitor products in frame”, “do not film in a car”, “the opening cannot be a price” — each of those rules out something without prescribing anything.

The unhelpful instruction is a storyboard. “Open on the product on a white background, then cut to the creator smiling” produces exactly that, and exactly that is an advert. You are paying a per-view rate precisely because you want the version that somebody who posts to that audience every day would make.

A good test: read your brief and count the sentences that begin with “must not” versus “must”. If the second number is much larger, you have written a shoot schedule.

Say what done looks like

Every brief should carry an approval line — the thing you will check before you approve the payout. Three or four bullets, written as something a person can verify by watching once:

This matters more than it sounds. A creator who knows what will be checked can check it themselves, and a reviewer who has the same list in front of them approves consistently rather than by mood. Where campaigns on this platform require approval before joining, the same list is what applicants are measured against.

Three things worth leaving out

Your brand guidelines. Fonts, hex codes and logo clear-space are for your own designers. On a creator's phone they translate to nothing and read as a reason to skip the campaign.

A script. If you supply the words, you are buying a reading rather than a video, and the result sounds like one. Supply the facts the words have to be true to instead.

Follower requirements. On a per-view model they are self-defeating: you pay for views that arrive, and reach on short-form platforms comes from retention rather than audience size. A follower floor filters out the accounts most likely to surprise you.

Private campaigns and what to ask applicants for

If a campaign needs approval before somebody joins, the brief is doing a second job: it has to tell applicants what evidence to send. Be specific, and ask for something that cannot be faked with a screenshot — a short screen recording that goes from the platform into the account and shows its own stats page proves the account is theirs in a way a still image never can.

Ask for the things you will actually use to decide: recent view numbers, the audience countries, the age split. Asking for a follower count and then approving on views wastes everybody's time.

A brief that works, in full

Worth seeing the whole thing at once, because the point is how short it is. Everything below would fit on one screen on a phone, which is where it will be read.

Notice what is not in it: no shot list, no script, no brand guidelines, no follower requirement, and no adjective describing the tone you are hoping for.

Write the rejection reasons down first

A useful exercise before publishing a brief: write the three rejections you expect to send, in the words you would send them. “The label is not readable.” “This claims a result.” “Posted from a different account.”

Then check that each one corresponds to a line somebody could have read beforehand. If a rejection you expect to send is not covered by the brief, you have found the thing to add — and you have found it before it costs a creator a filming session and you a usable clip.

Common questions

How long should a brief be?

One screen. If it does not fit, the part that does not fit is usually brand positioning or a shot list, and both should go. The approval list can be bullets.

Can I ask for revisions?

You can ask, and in a per-view model it is usually the wrong move. The video is already posted and already accumulating views; re-cutting it means a new post from zero. Put the requirement in the brief instead of the revision.

What if a creator posts something off-brief?

That is what the approval step is for, and the reason the approval list should be written before anyone films rather than argued afterwards. A rejection with the specific bullet attached is understood; one that says “not quite what we wanted” is not.

Should the brief name the brand?

On a public campaign, yes — creators decide partly on whether they can stand behind the product. On a private campaign the brand stays hidden until an applicant is approved, which is the point of running one, so the brief has to describe the category and the requirements well enough to attract people without naming you.

How specific can I be about the opening?

Specific about what it cannot be, vague about what it should be. “Do not open on the logo” is useful. “Open with a question” is a formula somebody will execute without conviction.

The short version

Write the four answers — what is visible, what cannot be claimed, where it goes, what counts as done — and stop. Constraints, not storyboards. The approval list before anyone films, not after.

Read next: how campaign cost is put together, what actually moves the rate you pay, how fake views are spotted, or how campaigns work on this platform.