Approval workflow: An approval workflow is the defined sequence of reviewers a brief or asset passes through, with each step's owner and criteria made explicit.
Artwork / final art: Artwork is the production-ready file prepared to a printer's or publisher's exact technical specification, after creative approval.
Asset: An asset is any reusable produced file — an image, video, logo, layout or copy block — that can be deployed across channels.
Attribution: Attribution is the method used to assign credit for a conversion across the touchpoints a customer encountered before it.
Audit trail: An audit trail is the chronological record of who changed what and when, kept so that decisions can be reconstructed after the fact.
Bleed: Bleed is the extra image area extending beyond the final trim edge of a printed piece, so that trimming tolerances never leave a white sliver.
Brand guidelines: Brand guidelines are the documented rules for using a brand's identity — logo, colour, typography, imagery and language.
Briefing: Briefing is the process of transferring a business problem into a creative task — including the conversation, the written brief, and the alignment that follows.
Call to action (CTA): A call to action is the explicit instruction telling the audience what to do next, and where.
Change request: A change request is the formal record of a scope, timing or budget change after a brief has been signed off, with its cost and schedule impact stated.
Channel: A channel is a distinct route to the audience — such as out-of-home, paid social, email, print or retail — each with its own formats and behaviour.
Consumer insight: An insight is a non-obvious truth about the audience that explains their behaviour and opens a door for the brand to be relevant.
Copy: Copy is the written text in a piece of communication — headline, body, call to action and any legal or functional wording.
Corporate design (CD): Corporate design is the visual system of an organisation — logo, colours, typefaces, grid and imagery — applied consistently across all touchpoints.
Creative brief: A creative brief is a short, structured document that defines what a creative project must achieve, for whom, and within which constraints — before any work begins.
Customer journey: The customer journey is the sequence of stages a person passes through from first awareness to purchase and beyond.
DAM (Digital Asset Management): A DAM is the system that stores, versions and distributes an organisation's approved media assets with rights and usage metadata attached.
Data Processing Agreement (DPA): A DPA is the contract required under GDPR Article 28 between a data controller and a processor, defining how the processor may handle personal data on the controller's behalf.
Data residency: Data residency is the physical location where data is stored — a decision that determines which laws and transfer rules apply to it.
Deadline: A deadline is a committed date by which a deliverable must be complete — distinct from an internal target date used to build in buffer.
Debrief: A debrief is the structured review held after a project ends, capturing what worked, what did not, and what should change in the next brief.
Deliverable: A deliverable is a specific, countable output the project must produce — with a defined format, size, language and delivery date.
Flighting: Flighting is the scheduling of media activity in concentrated bursts separated by periods of no activity.
GDPR: The GDPR is the EU regulation governing how personal data is collected, processed, stored and transferred, with direct effect for anyone handling EU residents' data.
Headline: A headline is the primary line of text in a piece of work, carrying the idea and earning attention for everything that follows.
Kickoff: A kickoff is the meeting that formally starts a project, aligning the team on the brief, roles, milestones and ways of working.
KPI (Key Performance Indicator): A KPI is a quantified measure agreed in advance that determines whether the work achieved its objective.
Mandatories: Mandatories are the non-negotiable elements a piece of work must contain — legal disclaimers, logos, URLs, claims, formats or partner credits.
Marketing funnel: The funnel is a model describing how an audience narrows from awareness through consideration to conversion and loyalty.
Media plan: A media plan sets out which channels a campaign will run in, at what weight, in which periods, and at what cost.
Milestone: A milestone is a fixed point in a schedule marking the completion of a phase or the moment a decision must be made.
Moodboard: A moodboard is a curated collection of visual references that communicates the intended look, feel and register of a project.
Objective: The objective is the business outcome the work must produce — stated as a change in behaviour, perception or revenue, not as an activity.
Omnichannel: Omnichannel describes an approach where all channels present one continuous, consistent experience rather than parallel independent campaigns.
Persona: A persona is a fictional, named profile that represents a real audience segment, used to keep teams designing for a specific person rather than an abstraction.
Personal data: Personal data is any information relating to an identified or identifiable person — including names, emails, IP addresses and online identifiers.
Post-mortem: A post-mortem is a blameless review of a completed or failed project that documents root causes and concrete process changes.
Proof / Gut zum Druck: A proof is the final pre-print sample that the client formally signs off, after which responsibility for errors transfers to the approver.
RACI: RACI is a responsibility matrix assigning each task an owner who is Responsible, Accountable, Consulted or Informed.
Reason to believe (RTB): A reason to believe is the evidence that makes the proposition credible — a proof point, a mechanism, a certification or a demonstration.
Rebrief: A rebrief is the agency or creative team playing the brief back in their own words to confirm they understood the task the same way the client intended it.
ROI (Return on Investment): ROI expresses the financial return of an activity relative to its cost, used to compare marketing investments against each other.
Scope creep: Scope creep is the gradual expansion of a project beyond its agreed deliverables, usually through small unbudgeted additions rather than one large change.
Segmentation: Segmentation is the division of a market into groups that behave differently enough to justify different messages, products or channels.
Sign-off: Sign-off is the recorded moment a named decision-maker approves a brief or a deliverable, freezing its content and starting the next phase.
Single source of truth: A single source of truth is one authoritative location for a piece of information, which all people and systems reference rather than copy.
Single-minded proposition: The single-minded proposition (SMP) is the one idea the audience should take away — expressed in a single sentence, with everything else deliberately left out.
SOW (Statement of Work): A statement of work is the contractual document defining deliverables, timelines, responsibilities and commercial terms for an engagement.
Stakeholder: A stakeholder is anyone whose input is needed or whose approval can block a project — including people who never attend the meetings.
Sub-processor: A sub-processor is a third party engaged by your vendor to process personal data on their behalf — for example their hosting or email provider.
Target audience: The target audience is the specific group of people the work must move — defined by behaviour and mindset, not only by demographics.
Tone of voice: Tone of voice is the consistent personality of a brand's language — how it sounds, not what it says.
Touchpoint: A touchpoint is any moment of contact between a person and a brand, including ones the marketing team does not control.
Usage rights: Usage rights define where, how long and in which media a licensed asset — image, footage, music or talent performance — may legally be used.
USP (Unique Selling Proposition): A USP is the one attribute a product has that competitors cannot credibly claim, used as the central argument for choosing it.
Value proposition: A value proposition states the concrete benefit a customer gets, for whom it is intended, and why it is better than the alternatives.
Version control: Version control is the practice of keeping an unambiguous record of which iteration of a document is current and what changed between iterations.

Briefing Dictionary