The creative brief explains to the client the agency’s creative process for a particular job.  

The creative brief is a worksheet that creatives and account service can use to define the job’s creative, production, and strategic goals. It provides focus and direction for those managing and working on the job. It can be used to document the strategic, creative steps the agency will perform to design and produce the work. The creative brief helps outline what needs to be accomplished by the work; they focus on what needs to be done to start working; and track the necessary, minute details.

Typically, the creative brief was written by the account executive or creative director in a word processor, then attached to the printed estimate. Its usual function was to supplement and justify the job’s estimate amounts.

With Clients & Profits X, the creative brief is an integral function of the electronic job jacket. Like the work order, the creative brief is just another part of the job ticket. Because it’s part of the job ticket, anyone with access to jobs can see it. And because it’s on-line, changes that anyone makes to the creative brief updates the database instantly. Users will always be looking at the most up-to-date version on the creative brief.



Creative briefs aren’t required. Each job ticket has its own special creative brief. A creative brief contains eight sections, each with its own customizable heading and body. Not all of these sections need to be used; only the sections that have text will appear on the printed creative brief report.

The printed creative brief can be attached to the printed estimate for the client’s review, or printed separately and distributed internally. Since creative briefs can be viewed on-line, anyone can see them from their own computer.

The steps in the creative brief can be preset for each job type/spec sheet. When a job is added for a job type, its creative brief headings are copied to the new job. This option will make your creative briefs more consistent, since the same types of jobs will always have the same creative brief headings. Also, these headings can be customized on any particular job without affecting other jobs or the job type/spec sheet itself.