What is a brand brief?

A brand brief is a document that gathers the most relevant characteristics of your brand to be able to share easily with anyone involved. It includes its mission, vision, background story, and brand personalities, such as its values, tone of voice, and graphic guidelines. You can use PandaDoc’s brand brief template to capture these details.

How to write a brand brief?

The easiest way to write a brand brief is to define your brand and be able to identify the key elements of your branding. If you have a brand manual, you can use it as a guide and choose the information you want to add to your brand brief template.

What does a brand brief include?

A brand brief includes all relevant information about your branding, including your brand’s mission, vision, background story, and personality. It can also incorporate your target audience, graphic guidelines, or anything relevant to share with those who will use it.

Why write a brand brief?

The main reason to write a brand brief is to communicate your brand easily with your team and partners. Even if you already have a brand manual, a brief can serve as a quick guide to understanding your brand and how to represent it. And, as your business grows, it is a handy tool to share with your new team members as they arrive.

Who writes a brand brief?

Brand briefs can be written by anyone with in-depth knowledge of your business and brand, including an in-house marketing team, your marketing agency partner, customer service teams, design teams, or development teams. If you are a large organization, this can include the founders, marketing, or communication team members.

Prepared for:

[Partner.Company]

Brand Brief Template

Prepared by:

[Sender.Company]

[Sender.Email]

Brand Story

[Sender.Company] was born in (the year it started) out of a desire to (the problem you are trying to solve) by our founder (founder’s name if applicable). As we grew, we focused on perfecting our solutions to provide not only (your solution, e.g., a pen that lasts and doesn't stain) but to do it with impeccable work ethic and (insert a core value of your company, e.g., connect people through the warmth of a written letter).

Brand mission and vision

Mission statement:

To create/facilitate/provide the (insert an adjective, e.g., best) (your solution, e.g., internet service) in the world while being (insert one of your brand values, e.g., being environmentally friendly).

Vision statement:

To be the best (your niche) company in the world.
We envision a world where everyone can (your solution) (insert an adjective or description, e.g., to reach the ones they love).

Brand values

This list of values represents everything we believe in. We want our product and all communications to reflect our values, and we hope you can use them as a guide when interacting with our clients, partners and team.

Value, e.g., loyalty	(insert a value description, e.g., we make it a priority to put our clients first.)
Value	(insert a value description)

Target Audience

Age range (if applicable)
The area you cover(if applicable, for example, a city or country)
Level of education
Interests
The problem they need to solve
The reason they need to solve it

Brand Tone and Voice

Our tone and voice determine how we communicate with prospective clients, customers, employees, and partners, and it will reflect in all of our brand communications. Please follow it carefully and always ask a team member if you have any questions.

Tone and Voice

Our brand voice is (adjectives that describe it, e.g., informal but specific). We express it using a tone that is (adjectives to describe the tone, e.g., friendly and positive). To establish clear guidelines, here are some things we want to encourage/avoid (add a bullet list with everything you would like to encourage or avoid, e.g., speaking to our clients by their first and last names).

Competitors and Competitive Advantage

Positioning statement: For (your target audience, e.g., small-town coffee lovers who now live in the city) and want (add needs or problem to solve, e.g., coffee and sense of community), (your brand) provides (your solution, e.g., great coffee and a public, comfortable workplace), where they can feel (add feeling, e.g., at home and taken care of) by (your brand).

Positioning map: (Make a cross and choose two values for each line, e.g., accessibility and quality. Add numeral values along each line and position your brand and your competitors in the map accordingly).

As seen on the map, our main competitors are (list competitors), and we chose these two brands because (add reason).

Unique selling proposition:(include what makes your brand stand out from the competition, e.g., our brand offers great organic coffee and a place that feels like home).

Graphic Guidelines

Here is a list of guidelines when using our logo and color palette. Please follow them carefully whenever you are in the position of creating graphic designs.

Logo for digital communications

(Add logo and available options). We encourage sharing it at a minimum size of (include size) pixels.

Logo for print communications

(Add logo and available options). We encourage sharing it on a minimum size of (include size) pixels.

Logo uses

Avoid changing our logo proportions and colors or rotating it. If you need to combine our logo with a particular design, please choose from one of the following options: (add logo options, if any).

Color palette

(Names and images of brand colors). These colors apply to all of our formal communications. For (add a specific channel name or promotional event, e.g., television or Black Friday sale), we allow for different color palettes that will be discussed and determined prior to that (event/promotion/channel) rollout.

Typography

(Name of font and add an image of the typography for your logo, titles, and paragraph text).

Signature

MM / DD / YYYY

[Partner.FirstName][Partner.LastName]