For any creative project you do, you’ll be required to fill out a creative brief. This could be in the form of a questionnaire or maybe an interview, but at some point and in some way you’ll need to tell the people doing the project what you want.

Maybe you have the entire video made in your head and you just want to turn that into reality, but the more likely scenario is that your company has decided that animated video would be a good idea for your business and you want to work with an expert to create a video that will have high ROI, but you’re not exactly sure which direction to go with it.

And that’s where the creative brief comes in.

It’s kind of like the roadmap to get to your destination. Before you start this particular journey, you have to know where you’re going and map out the route. Let’s take a gander at what goes into a creative brief for an animated business video.

Goals

The first thing that a creative brief will ask is for a brief description of your business, just to get the basics about your company. But, right after that are the goals of the project. It’s okay to have more than one goal (our creative brief asks you to list your top three), but you have to have at least one goal.

This the purpose of the video, the “why” of it. Is it to raise awareness? Get people to join a cause? Buy something? Do something? Knowing why you’re making the video will help with every decision related with the project, which is the reason it’s one of the first things on the brief.

Audience

This, obviously, is the “who” of the project. You need to know who you’re making the video for. Your messaging would be drastically different for highly educated adults than it would be for children, just like if you were talking to a person.

On our creative brief, we specifically ask you to describe your customer avatar. This is basically one fictitious person who perfectly encompasses your average customer. The point of coming up with a single audience member that represents your target audience is that it’s easier to craft a message for one person than for thousands or millions of people. If you talk to this one person instead of trying to talk to thousands of people at once, your message will be clearer and more focused.

Consumer Benefits

And now the “what.” This is what the viewer will gain from watching this video. You want to reach your goals, but the people who view your video should also get something in return. When they’re done watching your video, they should feel like they’ve gained something, an understanding of something they were unaware of or information they can use in some way.

Knowing the consumer benefits will help you understand the other side of the “why” equation, as in why would someone want to watch this video? You might catch their attention with something entertaining, but you’ll need to give them something useful to keep their attention.

Hurdles

We like to know why consumers might not buy your product or service. What objections might they have to it? What are their biggest fears about purchasing it? Knowing why someone won’t do something will help you figure out ways to convince them to want to do it.

Related to this, you should also know who your competitors are and be able to say definitively what makes your offer different and more appealing than theirs. You’ll be able to highlight these differences and demonstrate how your offering is superior.

Angle

This refers to what angle you want the script of your video to take. Do you want it to tell a story from a character’s point of view or would it be better to just have a straight-ahead explanation of what you’re offering? If you opt to tell a story, whose point of view would it be best told from?

Whatever angle you decide to take, it’s always a good idea to put the benefits to the consumer first and foremost in the video. Make those benefits shine through regardless of how you decide to do it.

Call to Action

Of course you don’t just want people to watch the video. It should prompt them to do something. Whether it’s sign up for something, click on a link, use a hashtag or something else, you’ll want to make sure you include an action they can take.

There’s no guarantee they’ll take that action, but it’s guaranteed that they won’t take it if you don’t prompt them to do it. Even something as simple as visiting a website to get more information is preferable to not having a call to action for your video.

Character Style

This fits in with your audience. At least some of your characters should represent your audience, so what do you want them to look like? Do you want a wide range of ages or do you want most of your characters to be teens or elderly people?

You have to decide what ratio of genders you want, what races to depict if the characters have races, what ages, what type of clothing and anything else you can think of to describe your characters. They don’t necessarily have to be human characters, either. They could be animals or generic cartoons that aren’t really people, they just stand in for people. You’ll have to think about what’s the best way to represent your audience and your brand.

Tone

Lastly, you’ll need to think about what tone you want the video to have. Should it be serious, playful or downright zany? Just because the video is animated doesn’t mean it has to necessarily be playful or fun. It can still have a serious tone even with animation.

In fact, it can have any tone you want, but it should match your brand. Whatever you tone you choose can be conveyed through the music, artwork, characters and narration (if you have any).

Fortunately, you don’t have to go it alone. Any animation company you work with will have a creative brief to help you along the way. At WizMotions, we get you to fill out our questionnaire and then we talk extensively with you to get a better idea of what you want. Click here to schedule an appointment with WizMotions to see how we can help you make the perfect business video.