A packaging brief is for the one piece of work that sits on the shelf next to every competitor at once. It needs the shopper's few seconds in the aisle, the rules the box has to follow, and a clear sense of what can't change.
Below is a full example for a made-up company, written in the eleven sections of a one-page creative brief. The shaded notes are the places a packaging design brief needs something a standard brief doesn't. If it's close to what you're working on, you can start from this example and change it.
Sunnyside cereal box redesign for less sugar
Sunnyside makes kids' cereal sold in grocery stores in 14 states. The recipe is changing in January to half the sugar, with the same taste in blind tests. The box hasn't changed in nine years, and the new recipe needs a new nutrition panel anyway.
Parents assume a bright kids' cereal box means a sugar bomb, so they walk past it.
Parents keep buying the plain box on the top shelf, kids keep asking for the cartoon box, and Sunnyside's new recipe changes nothing because nobody can tell from the aisle.
Parents of kids 4 to 10 doing a weekly grocery run, often with a kid in the cart. They give the cereal aisle a few seconds and flip a box over to check sugar only if something makes them curious.
“They love it, but I'm not buying that. It's basically candy.”
“Half the sugar and they still like it? Fine, that one can go in the cart.”
The cereal kids ask for, with half the sugar.
8 grams of sugar per serving, down from 16. Kids picked it over the old recipe in blind taste tests. The main ingredient is whole grain oats.
Keep the yellow and the sun logo, which kids recognize. Sugar claims must match the nutrition panel exactly. Front of box must work at 12 by 8 inches and on the small single-serve size. Recyclable board only.
Front, back and side panels for the family size box in three flavors. The single-serve box. A shelf strip for stores. Flat files for print and 3D renders for retailer listings and online stores.
Kickoff 8 September, design routes 29 September, shopper testing 13 October, client review 20 October, final artwork 10 November, print proofs 24 November, on shelves in January.
The One-Page Brief is free and there's no sign-up. It checks your brief for the usual problems, and you send it as a link so people can comment on the section they mean and approve it with their name.
Need it as a file?
The One-Page Strategy Kit has the creative brief, the messaging framework and the measurement plan as fillable PDFs and Word files, for when a client wants a document. It's $19.
Get the filesFrom the same desk
A weekly note on account planning for agency strategists. One thing that changed, the tension in it, and what I'd do Monday. The first part of every issue is free.
Written by Cody Simmonds. I also write The Rationale, a weekly note for agency strategists.