How to brief an audio agency (so you actually get what you need)

A practical guide from people who’ve read a lot of briefs. Some good. Some… less so.

A good brief is the single biggest factor in whether an audio project succeeds. Not budget. Not timeline. Not the agency you choose. The brief.

And yet most audio briefs are either too thin (“we need a radio ad”), too prescriptive (“we want a female voice, upbeat music, and the tagline at the end”), or a TV brief with “radio” written at the top.

None of those get you what you actually need. Here’s what does.

Start with what the audio needs to do, not what it should sound like

The most useful thing in any brief is a clear objective. What do you want the listener to feel, think, or do after hearing this? Drive footfall to a store? Reappraise a brand? Remember a name?

That’s the starting point. Everything else - tone, style, music, voice - should flow from it.

When a brief leads with executional preferences (“we want something upbeat and modern”) instead of strategic intent, it narrows the creative options before anyone’s had the chance to explore them. The best work often comes from a brief that’s tight on the “what” and open on the “how.”

One audience. One message.

Audio is a sequential medium. Listeners can’t skim it, skip back, or glance at the headline. They get 30 seconds, in order, once.

That means one message, aimed at one audience. Not three messages crammed into a single spot, and not a catch-all aimed at “everyone aged 25–65.” The tighter the focus, the harder the creative can work.

If you’ve got multiple messages for multiple audiences, that’s multiple briefs. And that’s fine — but each one should be single-minded.

Tell them the channel, and tell them early

Where the audio will run isn’t an afterthought. It changes everything.

An ad for a breakfast radio show needs different energy to a pre-roll on a true crime podcast. A spot for Spotify has different technical constraints to one for DAB. A piece of content designed for social needs to hook in the first two seconds, not build to a reveal at the end.

The more your agency knows about where the creative will live, the better they can build it to perform in that context. “It’ll run on radio and streaming” is a start, but “it’ll run on Capital Breakfast and Spotify Free Tier, targeting 28–40s in the Midlands” is a lot more useful.

Share the brand assets. All of them.

Brand guidelines. Sonic identity (if you have one). Previous audio work. The TV campaign the audio sits alongside. The visual identity the audio needs to feel connected to.

An audio agency that understands the broader brand context will produce work that feels joined up. One that’s working in a vacuum will produce something that sounds fine on its own but disconnected from everything else.

Be honest about budget and timeline

Vague budgets produce vague responses. If you know what you can spend, say so. A good agency will tell you what’s achievable within that number, and be honest about what isn’t.

Same with timing. If the deadline is tight, say that upfront rather than halfway through the process. Agencies can work fast when they need to, but surprises cost everyone.

Leave room for pushback

This is the one most briefs don’t explicitly include, but it’s worth saying: the best work comes from agencies that are allowed to challenge the brief.

Not to be difficult. To make the work better.

If the objective and the requested execution don’t align, a good agency will say so. If there’s a stronger creative route than the one the brief implies, they should be able to explore it. The brief should set the destination. The route should be a conversation.

The short version

A great audio brief covers: what the audio needs to achieve, who it’s aimed at, where it’ll run, what brand assets exist, what the budget and timeline look like, and how much creative freedom the agency has to push the work. Get those right and the rest tends to follow.

Need help pulling a brief together, or want a fresh perspective on one you’ve already written? We’re always happy to have a look.