How to turn a brand brief into a script

What should you mark up in a brief?

Go through the brief with three symbols in the margin. Mark every line that must be said, every line that must not be said, and the sentence that says what the video is for. Everything else in a brief is context: the brand's background, who they sell to, what they have made before. Read it, but it doesn't go in the script.

• Must say. The product name, a claim the brand has approved, an offer, a phrase they want repeated. These are fixed.
• Must not say. Words to avoid, claims the brand can't make, things not to show. These are fixed too.
• What it's for. Getting people to know the brand exists, selling a specific product, getting an app installed. This decides the format.

If a brief doesn't say what the video is for, ask before you write. Every other choice depends on the answer. For the other side of the table, Lynx Media Group has a guide to how brands write a UGC brief.

How do you choose a format that fits the brief?

Choose the format from the goal, not from the product. A brief that wants people to understand what a product does needs a format with room to show it working. A brief that wants people to remember the brand needs a format with a story or an opinion strong enough that the viewer wants to see how it ends, with the product inside it.

Then check the format against the must-say list. If the brief requires three product details and the format you like has one beat before the turn, the details will pile up at the end and the close will sound like a list. Pick a format with enough beats to carry what is required, or ask the brand which details matter most. The parts you are fitting them into are laid out in a UGC script template that holds up.

Where do the brand's required lines go?

Put each required line where the video would say something like it anyway. A required line dropped into the hook almost always sounds recited, because the hook is the part viewers hear as the creator's own voice. Here is how the lines from one brief, for a set of glass meal-prep containers, land in the script at the end of this page.

Say each required line inside a sentence of your own, around the fixed words. If the brief fixes “dishwasher safe”, those words stay. “They're dishwasher safe, so they just go in with everything else” is a line you would say. “This product is dishwasher safe” is a line you would read.

What if the brief conflicts with the format?

When a brief line would break the format, say so and offer a swap rather than quietly bending one to fit the other. The common conflict is timing: the brief asks for the product in the first seconds, and the format you picked depends on a late turn. You have two honest options. Change to a format built for an early product, or ask whether the product can be visible from the start while its name waits for the turn.

Put the conflict in one sentence the brand can decide on: “This format works because the product answers the hook, so naming it in the first line gives the answer away. Can it be on screen from the start and named at the turn?” A specific question gets a specific answer. Then follow the brief as the brand decides it. It is their video.

How do you send the script back?

Send the script with every brief line marked, so the brand can check the requirements without hunting for them. In a two-column script, add a short note beside each row that covers a brief line. The reviewer can confirm the must-says at a glance and spend their attention on whether the video works.

Mark the must-nots too, wherever one changed a choice you made. A note such as “lid off in the microwave shot, per the brief” beside the row tells the brand you read the whole document, and it heads off a revision request before it is written.

1. hooksay: “If you cook for one, the cooking was never the hard part. It's the leftovers.”do: Open the fridge on a shelf of foil-covered bowls and lids that don't match.
2. beat 1say: “Half of these lost their lids, and I can't tell what's in the other half.”do: Peel the foil off one bowl, look inside, put it back.
3. beat 2say: “So I switched to glass. They're dishwasher safe, so they just go in with everything else.”do: Unload clean glass containers from the dishwasher and stack them on the counter.
4. turnsay: “These are [product name]. Tonight's dinner goes into three of them, and I can see which is which.”do: Spoon dinner into three containers, lids on, and slide them into the fridge. Heat one in the microwave with the lid off.
5. closesay: “There's a first-order offer in my link if you want a set.”do: Close the fridge on the neat stack.