Briefing a UGC creator for the Maghreb: the seven lines that matter

Bad briefs come in two forms. The empty brief — “a fun video about our product” — which forces the creator to guess, and the seven-page brief, with the brand guidelines, the tone of voice and the brand values, which the creator doesn't read. In between, there are seven lines. They are the ones ASLI's guided brief asks for, in this order, because each one removes a reason to reshoot the video.

1. The audience. Country, city if it matters, age range — and above all the language they speak at home. Not the one they read: the one they speak.
2. The dialect. Only one per video: Algerian darija, Moroccan darija, Tunisian derja, Kabyle, Standard Arabic, French. It's the line nobody fills in elsewhere, and it's the one that decides whether the video will be believed.
3. The product in real life. Where it's used, at what time of day, with whom. A cream means a bathroom in the morning; a dish means a kitchen at 19:00; an app means a sofa. The creator films where the audience can see itself.
4. The promise. One single sentence, the one the creator will say in their own words. Not three selling points: one. If there are three, that's three videos.
5. What isn't said. Banned words, comparisons to avoid, claims the law or the brand doesn't allow (“cures”, “the best”, a price, a discount).
6. The format. Vertical, 20 to 40 seconds, subtitles in the audience's language and in French, talking to camera or hands only, with or without music.
7. The rights. How long the brand can run the video, on which networks, as paid advertising or organic only. Written down before the shoot, never negotiated afterwards.

What the brief should leave out

The tone, the angle, the framing, the opening joke: the creator knows these better than the brand, because they talk to the audience every day. A brief that dictates the script gets a script reading — and the audience can tell. A brief that gives the promise and the no-gos gets a video the creator could have made for themselves. That's what brands are buying.

The seven-line test

Before sending a brief, reread it with one question per line: if this is all the creator knows, can they film tomorrow morning? If the answer is no for any line, that's the one that's missing. If the answer is yes for all seven, the rest is noise.