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How to brief a street interview campaign

By the Street Interviews team · 3 November 2026 · 4 min read

Most briefs fail not because they say too little, but because they try to say everything. The best ones fit on a single page, answer seven questions, and leave the creative team free to do the part that can't be planned: talking to strangers.

Street content has an awkward relationship with planning. Its appeal is that it feels unscripted, yet the campaigns that land are almost always the product of a clear, disciplined brief. The paradox resolves itself once you see what a brief is for. It is not there to write the video. It is there to fix the edges, so that everything inside them can be spontaneous.

Here are the questions worth answering before the first conversation with a production team.

What does success look like?

Choose one main goal. Reach, engagement, sign-ups, sales, footfall at an event, awareness of a launch. There will be secondary ambitions, and that is fine, but one has to lead, because it changes the question, the edit and where the finished videos go.

If you have a number in mind, write it down. "We want people talking about the launch" is a wish. "We want the launch film in front of a million people in the UK" is a brief.

Who are you talking to?

Describe your audience as people rather than segments. Where do they spend their evenings online? What makes them laugh? What would they forward to a friend without being asked? The answers decide where the crew films, who gets stopped, and the tone the presenter strikes.

What is the one thing they should remember?

Write it as a single sentence. If a viewer recalls only one idea after thirty seconds, what should it be? Everything else in the video exists to support that line. Briefs with five key messages tend to produce films that land none of them.

Where will the videos live?

Your own channels, a creator's channels, paid social, a website, a screen at an event, or some combination. Each comes with its own length, aspect ratio and rules on branding and disclosure. Decide early, because a film cut for one home rarely transplants neatly to another.

What is fixed, and what is free?

This is the question that most improves the work. Fixed items are the things that cannot move: dates, locations, legal lines, the claims you can and cannot make, logos and brand rules. Free items are everything else, above all the questions, the format, the presenter's style and the edit.

The longer the free list, the more natural the result. Street interviews work because the answers are real. Over-specify them and the audience can tell.

Who signs it off?

Name one decision maker and agree on the number of feedback rounds before filming starts. Social moves quickly. A video that spends a fortnight waiting for approval can miss the very moment it was made for.

What is the budget range?

An exact figure is not necessary. A range lets the production team propose the right number of videos, locations and edits, rather than guessing, quoting and starting again.

The one-page version

• Goal: one main objective, and the number you would be happy with.
• Audience: who they are and where they watch.
• Message: one sentence.
• Channels: where the videos will run.
• Fixed: dates, places, legal lines and brand rules.
• Approvals: who signs off, and how many rounds.
• Budget: a range.
• References: two or three videos you love, and one you don't.

Paste that into an email, fill in the gaps, and you have a brief most production teams can respond to the same day. The last line is the one people skip, and arguably the most useful. Knowing what you dislike saves everyone a round of revisions.

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