How to brief a UGC creator, from the person reading it

I read a lot of briefs. The ones that produce good work are not the longest or the most detailed, and the correlation between brief length and video quality is close to zero past the first page.

Two failure modes cause most of it. Either the brief scripts the video shot for shot, which produces something that sounds recited, or it says “make it feel authentic” and leaves the creator guessing at the product’s actual selling point.

What to specify

The one thing the video has to land. Not five things. If a viewer remembers a single fact after watching, which fact is it? This is the hardest line in the brief to write and the most valuable.

Who it is aimed at, specifically enough to change how someone talks. “Women 25 to 40” changes nothing. “People who have tried three of these already and stopped believing the claims” changes the whole opening.

Where it runs. A video for a paid placement against a cold audience is a different build from something going on your own grid to people who already follow you. Say which, because it determines how much explaining the first five seconds have to do.

Claims you cannot make. In supplements, skincare and anything adjacent to health, this is the difference between a usable video and a reshoot. Send the list up front.

What the product actually does, in plain language, ideally including the thing your team argues about internally. Creators can work with a real weakness. They cannot work around one they do not know about.

What to leave alone

The words. If you write the script, you get someone reading your script, and viewers are good at spotting that even when they cannot say why.

The shot list, mostly. Specify what must appear, such as the label facing camera, the texture on skin, the before and after. Do not specify the order or the angles. The person who has shot forty of these has a reason for the sequence they use.

The exact length. Give a range. A hook that needs eleven seconds to land should not be cut to nine because the brief said nine.

Five lines worth adding

1. What did not work last time, and if you know it, why. This single line prevents more wasted takes than anything else in the brief.
2. A reference video you liked, with one sentence on what specifically you liked. “The pacing” and “the way she holds it up” point in completely different directions.
3. Who signs off, and how many people are in that chain. A creator plans revisions differently for one approver than for four.
4. The real deadline, separate from the comfortable one. Everybody pads. Say which is which and the padding stops compounding.
5. What happens if it performs. If a winner means more work, say so up front. It changes how much effort goes into variants.

The brief that gets the best work

It fits on one page. It names one job for the video, one audience, one place it runs, and the constraints that are genuinely fixed. Then it stops and lets the person you hired do the part you hired them for.

A brief like that also gets you a faster quote and fewer revision rounds, because there is less to discover halfway through.

Once the video comes back, the next question is what to do with it. Most brands stop at “post it”, which leaves most of the value on the table.

If you want a second pair of eyes on a brief before you send it out, send it over. I would rather flag the gap now than shoot around it later.