# Creative brief — Fintech

The creative brief with three columns a regulated financial product needs: which product the asset sells, which cleared claim it carries, and where the disclosure that travels with that claim actually sits.

Everything else is the general creative brief, unchanged. One row per asset, a hook written as what happens, one message with a proof beside it, the specs up front and an honest must-avoid.

## How to use it

1. Copy this file, or the CSV version if you would rather work in a sheet.
2. Write one row per asset, not one per campaign.
3. Write the hook specifically enough that two people would build roughly the same thing.
4. Name one message per asset. A second message is a second row.
5. Fill Specs before the work starts, including the safe areas and text limits.
6. Write Must avoid honestly, because that is where rework comes from.
7. Set the due date earlier than the run date, with room for review and re-edit.

## The columns

**Asset ID** (Text). A short stable identifier that goes on the file, the ad name and the review record, so every asset carrying a given claim can be listed on the day a rate changes.

**Concept** (Text). The idea this asset expresses: the fee position stated plainly, the eligibility answered, the application shown end to end. Concepts here are narrower than elsewhere because the wording is fixed.

**Format** (Text). What is being made: a static, a short video, a set of search lines. The format decides whether the disclosure can sit in the asset at all or has to live on the page.

**Placement and aspect** (Text). Where it runs and at what ratio, and whether that placement truncates. A placement that cuts a fee summary is a placement this claim cannot use, and that is decided here rather than at review.

**Hook** (Text). What happens in the first line, written specifically: the fee position in six words, no imagery. In this category the first line usually is the cleared claim, which leaves the craft to everything after it.

**Message** (Text). The one thing the reader has to believe, expressed only in wording the review has cleared. A better-reading version of a cleared sentence is a new claim.

**Proof** (Text). What makes it credible: the same claim on the landing page, in the same words, with the disclosure the review specified. Proof here is consistency rather than persuasion.

**Call to action** (Text). What the reader is asked to do, in the words the page uses, and pointing at the page the review was given rather than at a general product page.

**Specs** (Text). Dimensions, file type, safe areas, and the minimum type size for any disclosure carried inside the asset. That last one constrains the composition and belongs here rather than in a review comment.

**Must include** (Text). Anything that has to appear: the cleared wording exactly as written, the product name, the disclosure where the review placed it.

**Must avoid** (Text). Anything that must not appear, with the reason: no paraphrase of the cleared claim, no rate or comparison absent from the review, no imagery implying approval or a lifestyle the product does not promise.

**Due date** (Date (YYYY-MM-DD)). The day the finished asset is needed, counted back from the flight start with the review queue in between, because a cleared claim and an uncleared asset are not the same thing.

**Owner** (Text). The person who commissions this asset and checks it against the review reference in this row before it is built into an ad.

**Product** (Text). The financial product this asset sells. It decides the claim, the disclosure and the landing page, and a single asset cannot serve two products with different terms.

**Claim carried** (Text). The exact cleared claim this asset makes, with the review reference. Not a paraphrase: the wording that was reviewed is the wording that runs.

**Disclosure placement** (Text). Where the disclosure sits — in the asset, adjacent to it, or on the landing page — and whether the placement can actually display it at the specified size.

## The creative brief

| Asset ID | Concept | Format | Placement and aspect | Hook | Message | Proof | Call to action | Specs | Must include | Must avoid | Due date | Owner | Product | Claim carried | Disclosure placement |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |

## Before you commit it

- There is one row per asset, and every row names one product.
- Every claim carried is the cleared wording, not a paraphrase, with its reference.
- Every disclosure has a placement that can actually display it.
- No asset carries a rate or comparison that is not in the review.
- Specs include the minimum type size for any disclosure in the asset.
- Must avoid names the paraphrases, imagery and implied claims that are out.
- Every due date leaves room for review and a re-edit before the run date.