Produces the operational handover brief that tells the execution team exactly what to make, to what specifications, by when and to whose approval; 09-campaign-strategy decides what campaign to run. Apply east-african-english for tone throughout.
Use When
- Campaign strategy is approved and designers, videographers, printers or content creators need one handover document listing each asset to make, its sizes, the deadline and who signs it off.
- Each deliverable needs specifications, platform sizes, copy, and brand do's and don'ts.
- The team needs a timeline with deadlines, owners and an approval chain before work starts.
- Content claims, sources and image or music rights must be recorded before assets go out.
Do Not Use When
creative-brief-and-big-ideafor the insight, the creative idea and the creative review.09-campaign-strategywhen the campaign's objective, message and channels are not yet decided.ad-copy-and-hook-labfor writing the ad headlines and hooks themselves.- Stop before issuing the brief to suppliers or committing spend without the named approver's sign-off.
Required Inputs
| Artefact | Source/provider | Required? | If absent |
|---|---|---|---|
| Approved campaign strategy: campaign name, dates (with teaser and analysis windows), key message | 09-campaign-strategy or client sign-off |
Yes | Stop; route to 09-campaign-strategy rather than deciding strategy here. |
| Target persona | 03-audience-personas |
Yes | Name the persona gap; mark channel fit NOT_ASSESSED. |
| Deliverables required, with quantities | Approved strategy or client lead | Yes | List only what the strategy names; do not assume every channel or format is in scope. |
| Team and partner names and roles, first reviewer and final approver | Client lead or account manager | Yes | Use role titles and note "Assign names at kickoff meeting." |
| Budget per deliverable type (UGX) | Client | Yes | Leave the budget lines blank with a kickoff note; do not invent rates. |
| Brand voice guide and approved brand assets | 04-brand-voice-intake; client |
Yes | Hold the do's and don'ts and any graphic specification until the guide is supplied. |
Workflow
- Confirm the intake answers in brief-document-sections § Intake questions (Country/city defaults to Kampala, Uganda); stop and route to
09-campaign-strategyif objective, message or channels are undecided. - Write sections 1–4 (background and objective, target audience with channel evidence, one-sentence key message, campaign concept).
- Build the deliverables table and per-deliverable specifications from current official sources through the platform skills; omit and mark
NOT_ASSESSEDany specification that cannot be verified. - Write campaign-specific brand do's and don'ts, the full-lifecycle timeline and the approval process, including what happens when feedback is late.
- Set one primary and three supporting KPIs with baselines and targets.
- Complete the reader-first content brief and content evidence and rights record for each production unit. Quarantine unsupported claims, missing rights, mismatched destinations or unassessed review states.
- Record the Five Outcomes for each deliverable; return any failed deliverable to its strategy, content or design owner, correct it and rerun the gate.
- Run the anti-slop ship gate; stop before issuing the brief to suppliers or committing spend without the named approver's sign-off.
Five Outcomes gate before sign-off
Canonical reference: docs/ux-foundations.md Section 3.
For each outcome below, record pass, fail or NOT_ASSESSED and cite the evidence. A failed outcome blocks the affected deliverable. Do not treat missing audience, source, approval or render evidence as a pass.
| # | Outcome | Campaign-specific verification |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Useful | The campaign addresses the persona's stated goal (not a vanity metric like "more followers") |
| 2 | Easy | The intended audience can identify the message and next action from the reviewed asset; no universal seconds threshold |
| 3 | Efficient | The required information remains understandable in the tested delivery context; provide an equivalent text route where needed |
| 4 | Pleasing | Visual quality matches the approved brand direction, assessed against the actual rendered asset |
| 5 | Accessible | Useful image descriptions, accurate captions or text alternatives, readable contrast checked against the applicable standard, and clear language |
The sign-off wording template is in brief-document-sections § Five Outcomes.
Outputs
| Artefact | Consumer | Acceptance condition |
|---|---|---|
| Ten-section campaign brief | Designers, copywriters, videographers, printers; client approver | Any qualified team member could act on it without further explanation; no unexplained placeholders. |
| Deliverables table with specification sources | Production team | Every required asset listed with placement, format, official source and access date (or NOT_ASSESSED), quantity, due date and owner. |
| Timeline and approval process | Account manager; client approver | Kickoff to post-campaign report covered; late-feedback and emergency sign-off rules stated. |
| Five Outcomes record per deliverable | Final approver | Every applicable outcome is pass with cited evidence before the deliverable ships. |
Evidence Produced
| Evidence | Format | Acceptance condition |
|---|---|---|
| Specification source log | Table: platform, placement, source, source date or version, access date, recheck trigger | Each technical value traces to a current official source or is omitted and marked NOT_ASSESSED. |
| Content evidence and rights record | One record per content unit | Every claim, image and music item has a source or rights entry; gaps are quarantined. |
| Accessibility and render review | Caption, alt text, contrast and native-size preview notes | Recorded against a rendered asset before production approval; no render means NOT_ASSESSED. |
Capability and Permission Boundaries
Read and search only; analysis is read-only. Publishing, spend, live account changes, outreach and personal-data processing need explicit, action-specific client authority. Issuing the brief to suppliers or scheduling content needs the named approver's sign-off.
Degraded Mode
Without an approved campaign strategy or current platform specifications, return the narrowest qualified result and mark the affected checks not assessed. Background, audience, key message, concept, timeline skeleton and approval process can still be drafted for kickoff.
Decision Rules
| Condition | Action | Failure or risk avoided |
|---|---|---|
| A technical specification cannot be verified from the official current source for the exact platform, account and placement | Omit the value, mark it NOT_ASSESSED and leave it out of the executable handoff. |
Assets built to stale sizes, durations or limits copied from an old brief. |
| Audience evidence for a proposed channel is absent | Mark channel fit NOT_ASSESSED; do not infer preference or reach from Uganda/East Africa location alone. |
Channel choices built on stereotype. |
| A unit has no approved offer, working destination or response owner | Leave the CTA out of that unit. | CTAs that lead nowhere or go unanswered. |
| Spoken or audio-dependent video | Require reviewed captions or an equivalent text alternative, tested in the intended placement. | Inaccessible video; captions mistaken for disclosure. |
| The client or approver misses the feedback window | Move the timeline by the same number of days, note it to the client and pause production. | Guessing what the client wants. |
| A time-sensitive reactive post inside the campaign | Allow account-manager approval on the client's voice note, with written confirmation within 24 hours. | Missed moments or unapproved posts. |
| A Five Outcomes check fails or lacks evidence | Block that deliverable; return it to its owner or keep NOT_ASSESSED and withhold release. |
Shipping unreviewed or failing assets. |
| Objective, message or channels are not yet decided | Route to 09-campaign-strategy and hand over the verified inputs already collected. |
Strategy decided inside an execution brief. |
Quality Standards
- All ten sections are present and complete; no section is left blank or contains a placeholder without a note explaining what must be filled in at kickoff.
- The deliverables table accounts for every asset mentioned in the Required Input; nothing is omitted.
- Each technical platform specification has current official-source and intended-placement evidence, or is omitted and marked
NOT_ASSESSED. - Spoken or audio-dependent video has reviewed captions or an equivalent text alternative; rendered accessibility and native-size preview evidence are recorded before production approval.
- The key message is one sentence only and is clearly distinct from the campaign slogan or tagline.
- Brand do's and don'ts are campaign-specific and reference the client's actual brand voice, not generic rules applicable to any campaign.
- The timeline table covers the full lifecycle from kickoff to post-campaign report, with realistic sequencing between review and production stages, and the approval process states what happens when feedback is late (ambiguity here is a common cause of campaign delays).
- Success metrics include baselines and targets; a KPI without a target is not a KPI.
Anti-Patterns
- Copying fixed dimensions or character limits from an old brief. Fix: route specifications through the platform skills and verify the official source.
- Forcing a word count, hashtag quota or CTA onto every unit. Fix: give each unit one audience need and one communication job.
- Writing the slogan as the key message. Fix: state the strategic truth in one sentence, then two sentences on what it achieves and asks.
- Implying a visual has been reviewed when no render exists. Fix: record alt text, contrast and render review with the design owner.
- Partial, drip-fed client feedback. Fix: the first reviewer returns consolidated feedback within the agreed working days.
- Using unlicensed images or music. Fix: use only approved brand assets and licensed or owned media, logged in the rights record.
- Issuing the brief to suppliers before sign-off. Fix: wait for the named approver; spend needs separate authority.
References
- Campaign brief document method: read when asking the intake questions, writing the ten sections, filling the deliverables, timeline, approval and KPI tables, or recording the Five Outcomes wording.
- Reader-first content brief: read for each content unit handed from strategy to production.
- Content evidence and rights record: read before approving any content unit with claims, images or music.
- Synthetic Ugandan small-retailer discussion example: read to see channel adaptation and evidence boundaries; it is not an approved strategy, a complete campaign brief, or authority to publish.
09-campaign-strategy: read when objective, message or channels are not yet decided.creative-brief-and-big-idea: read when the insight or creative idea is missing.ad-copy-and-hook-lab: read when the ad headlines and hooks must be written.- Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok platform skills: read when sourcing current specifications.
- Finished campaign exemplars: read when checking the finished standard.
- Creative review gate: read before creative sign-off.
- Anti-AI slop production gate: read during production.
ai-slop-audit: read at the release checkpoint.