Retail Activation Quick Brief

Over the last few years, we’ve seen retail and trade briefs arrive in every format imaginable:

a two-line email with a logo attached
a 32-slide deck with no clear objective
a WhatsApp voice note from the field team

Different shapes - Same problem: it’s hard to design great in-store work when the brief doesn’t reflect the reality of the store.

What we kept noticing in projects with Trade Marketing teams was this gap between intention and information:

“We want to grow visibility”, → but no clarity on which shopper or which mission
“We need premium execution”, → but the retailer has strict material and size rules
“We want a national rollout”, → but only a pilot budget and no measurement plan

So instead of asking for “better briefs”, we started asking a different question:

What is the minimum set of questions a Trade Marketing Manager needs
to answer so that we can design something that actually works in-store?

Not a 10-page template.

Not another PowerPoint form.

Just a 10-minute conversation that gets us to clarity.

That’s how our Retail Activation Quick Brief was born.

It’s built around four simple ideas:
1. Why are we doing this?

Clear problem, clear objective, clear idea of what “good” looks like.
2. Who and where?

Which shopper, which channel, which retailers, which part of the store.
3. What do we have and what’s possible?

Existing brand assets, budget, scale of rollout, realities on the ground.
4. Timing, approvals & outputs

Key dates, stakeholders, and exactly what you need from the design team.
No jargon. No theory.

Just the questions that stop projects from derailing later: the missing planogram, the unseen retailer constraint, the unspoken budget ceiling, the “oh by the way, sales also need this for black friday”.

For anyone working in Trade Marketing, Shopper, or Brand who has ever thought: “If only our partners asked us these questions at the start…”

…I’ve turned this into a living, fill-in-the-blanks resource you can copy, adapt or share with your agencies:

Retail Activation Quick Brief – for Trade Marketing

🔗 Google Docs link:
https://lnkd.in/dyFfnZ7S

It’s not about making more paperwork.

It’s about giving every activation a better start in the first 10 minutes.

If you’re in Trade, Shopper, Brand or on the retailer side, what’s the one question you wish every brief included?

Drop it in the comments, and I’ll add the best ones to the next version.

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