What a Marketing Video Brief Must Specify Before AI Production Starts

Concept illustration: a fixed lamp design surrounded by a pleated-paper landscape.

"Make it cinematic" gives a production team room to explore. It leaves the marketing manager without a clear basis for accepting the result. Before generating material, specify what will be delivered, which details must survive, who can approve changes, and what sends work back for correction.

Consider a fictional launch for a terracotta table lamp with a cream pleated shade, a narrow stem, and a round base. The brief below illustrates production decisions; it is not a report of a completed campaign.

Specify the Package the Team Will Deliver

Write a separate line for each final version. "A social video" leaves duration, framing, language, and finishing work unresolved.

For the lamp launch, the proposed package is a 15-second vertical paid-social cut and a 15-second landscape product-page cut. The team chooses 1080 x 1920 and 1920 x 1080 pixels, respectively, at 24 frames per second, delivered as H.264 MP4 files. These are example project specifications, not model limits or universal channel requirements.

Request clean versions without text, the editable finishing project, and the approved music record. This example uses no speech. If narration is added, caption files become an additional deliverable.

Specify whether each format gets its own composition. A vertical version cannot be assumed to work as a crop of the landscape edit.

Identify Protected Details and Allowed Changes

Attach the approved product reference and mark what it controls. For this lamp, the protected details are its terracotta finish, cream pleated shade, narrow stem, and circular base. Background styling can vary within an agreed palette.

Also specify what the video must not imply. The fictional brief excludes unsupported battery-life claims, waterproof scenes, and invented controls. Any logo, price, or offer text will come from approved artwork added during finishing.

A team using astorie can apply this distinction before preparing generation instructions: product references define the object; atmosphere references suggest the setting. A beautiful room image should not silently become permission to redesign the lamp.

Illustrative reference for the fictional brief: shade, stem, and flat circular base. The larger cylinder is a separate display plinth.

Carry the Brief Into the Production Rules

The brief needs to remain useful after the initial meeting. Carry its requirements into shot requests, review notes, and the editor's delivery checklist.

Astorie's brief-to-edit production guide places the approved brief at the start of a pipeline that continues through planning, generation, review, and editing handoff. The practical connection is traceability: each selected asset should have a purpose and an approval status the next person can understand.

Keep the lamp's requirements in a compact record:

Brief field	Filled example
Audience and action	Small-space shoppers; visit the lamp's product page
Required message	Show the lamp's form and how it sits on a side table
Product constraints	Preserve shade, finish, stem, and base from the approved reference
Sound and copy	Cleared instrumental track; approved closing copy added in the edit
Review owners	Product owner checks accuracy; marketing lead approves message and release
Review limit	One consolidated revision round; additional concepts require approval
Example schedule	References approved Monday; first cuts Wednesday morning; feedback Wednesday afternoon; final review Thursday
Stop condition	No batch generation while product-reference questions remain open

Separate a Defect From a New Request

Define rejection conditions before reviewing attractive footage. A changed base shape, unreadable required copy, or an export with the wrong dimensions fails this brief. Feedback should identify the failed requirement and affected shot or timecode.

A request to introduce a black lamp variant, add narration, or produce another language version changes the agreed package. Record the added work and confirm its owner, cost, and deadline before production resumes.

This distinction also protects useful work. Reject the affected asset when possible instead of restarting the entire sequence because one detail failed.

Assign Approval to Specific Decisions

Name one person who consolidates feedback. The product owner can confirm physical accuracy, while the editor checks exports and finishing. The marketing lead makes the final release decision after those checks are complete.

Give each checkpoint a deadline, including a final-export review before the publishing slot. Approval of an early concept does not approve later captions, music, or offer wording.

Archive the approved brief with the references and final files. If the offer changes after approval, update the relevant requirement and identify which exports need replacing. The next person should be able to see why the delivered video was accepted.