However, if you miss the mark, you’ll spend the next three years quietly fixing it.

We’ve read and written branding briefs for over 20 years, across everything from FMCG challengers to B2B SaaS tools, place brands and BIDs, to sports organisations, and everything in between. The good news: the fundamentals are the same wherever you sit, so we put this guide together to walk you through them.

Before we get into the how, it’s worth being clear on the what. Because branding is one of those words everyone uses, yet few people define it the same way.

Here’s how we think about it: branding is the sum of everything people feel, think, and expect when they come across you. It’s not just your logo, it’s the personality, the promise, and the reputation. Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room, and branding is how you shape that with purpose rather than leaving it to chance.

That’s why a branding brief isn’t a shopping list of logos and colours. It’s a document that helps your agency understand who you are, who you’re about, and why you matter so they can build a brand that reflects all of that as accurately as possible.

If your brief only describes what you want the brand to look like, you’ve written the wrong brief. The best branding briefs describe what you want the brand to mean, and how you want to be perceived.

1. Who You Are (Honestly)

Start with the truth about your organisation. Not the polished version – the real one. What do you actually do? What are you good at? What’s the story of how you got here?

This matters whether you’re a consumer product, a B2B software, a service agency, a place, or a sports club. A BID needs to articulate what makes its district worth visiting and investing in. A sports organisation needs to capture its history and what it stands for beyond results. A software company needs to explain the problem it solves in a simple language that the average human understands. The brand can only be as authentic as the truth you put into the brief.

2. The Reason You’re Doing This

Why now? Brand projects are rarely just “it’s time for a refresh.” Usually something’s changed and it sparked a need for a new identity. Are you entering a new market, merging, repositioning, growing up, or maybe you just realised the brand no longer reflects who you’ve become?

Be specific about the trigger. “We’ve outgrown our identity” is a very different brief from “we need to stand out against three well-funded new competitors” or “we need to unify five sub-brands under one roof.” The reason shapes everything.

3. Your Audience (In Human Terms)

Who are you trying to reach? Go beyond demographics and into behaviour, mindset, and motivation. What do they care about? What are they choosing between? What would make them pick you?

Most organisations have more than one audience, and that’s fine – but rank them. A BID might speak to visitors, residents, businesses, and investors all at once. A B2B software brand might sell to both the end user and the person signing the cheque. Tell your agency who matters most, and who you need to keep in mind.

4. Where You Sit in the Market

Show us the competitive landscape. Who are your competitors, direct and indirect? What do they look and sound like? What’s the space no one’s owning?

This is one of the most valuable things you can put in a branding brief, because distinctiveness is the whole point. If everyone in your category uses the same blue and the same reassuring stock photography, that’s not a constraint, it’s an opportunity. Help your agency see the gap.

5. Your Positioning and Personality

If your brand were a person, how would it behave? Confident and direct? Warm and approachable? Precise and expert? Playful?

You don’t need to have this fully worked out, that’s often part of what an agency helps you define, but share your instincts. And be clear on positioning: are you the premium option, the accessible one, the challenger, or the most trustworthy? Where you want to sit changes every creative decision that follows.

6. What Must Stay (and What Can Go)

Every brand has equity worth protecting and baggage worth losing. Tell your agency both.

Is there a logo, colour, name, or asset your audience genuinely recognises and values? Please mention it, as throwing away hard-won recognition is expensive. Equally, is there something you’re desperate to move on from? A dated look, an awkward name, a tagline nobody understood? Flag it. This is especially critical for established brands, BIDs, and sports organisations where loyal audiences have real emotional attachment.

7. Where the Brand Has to Work

A brand lives in the real world, and the real world has constraints. Where will this identity need to perform?

An FMCG brand has to survive on a crowded shelf. A software brand needs to work across website, product UI, social media, app icon, conferences/exhibition stands, and anywhere in between. A BID’s identity might appear on street banners, digital media, or a market stall. A sports brand needs to look right on a kit, a big screen, and merchandise. With that information, we can align on all the touchpoints and have a clear direction before we start designing your brand identity.

8. Budget and Timeline

Yes, we know. But a branding project can mean anything from a minor identity refresh to a full strategic overhaul with naming, guidelines, and a rollout across dozens of touchpoints. Without a budget, we can’t tell you which of those is realistic.

Be honest about the timeline too. Is there a launch, a season, a funding round, or an event this needs to land for? Real deadlines help everyone plan properly.

9. What Success Looks Like

How will you know the new brand worked? It might be recognition, standout, a shift in perception, easier recruitment, more footfall, more enquiries, or simply pride from your own team when they hand over a business card.

Define it upfront. It keeps the whole project anchored to something real rather than just “we’ll know it when we see it.”

• Designing by committee. The more people who need to love the brand, the blander it becomes. Agree internally who the key players are and who has sign-off before you brief an agency. Ideally try to keep it to a small group with clear authority.
• Briefing the solution, not the problem. “We want a modern logo with a leaf in it” isn’t a brief. We’re happy to hear your suggestions and will do everything we can to incorporate them, but the whole process flows a lot smoother if you tell us what you need the brand to achieve and give us the opportunity to find the best way there.
• Confusing your taste with your audience’s. The brand isn’t for you or your CEO – it’s for the people you’re trying to reach. Keep the brief focused on them.
• Underestimating the strategy. The logo is the visible tip. The positioning, personality, and story underneath are what make it work. A good branding brief spends most of its energy there.