What is a retail media creative brief?

A retail media creative brief is the specific plan for the actual ad assets inside a retail media campaign — the banner images, video, and sponsored-brand creative a shopper sees on a platform like Amazon or a retailer.com site. It covers the concept, messaging hierarchy, size specs, and compliance notes needed to brief a designer or video editor, distinct from the media plan that decides where and how much to spend.

How is this different from the Retail Media Search & Keyword Strategy and Retail Media Plan Builder skills?

The Retail Media Search & Keyword Strategy covers search terms, targeting, and bidding tactics — how you win the auction. The Retail Media Plan Builder sets the overall campaign: objectives, budget split, and measurement across the account. This skill sits downstream of both: it's the creative brief for the actual ad assets — banners and video — that run within whatever plan and targeting strategy those two skills already set. Use them to plan the campaign and targeting, then use this to brief what shoppers actually see.

Which AI models does this prompt work with?

Any capable chat model — ChatGPT, Claude, or Google Gemini. The prompt is model-agnostic, so paste it into a chat, save it as a Custom GPT, or store it as a reusable skill so every new placement or SKU launch gets a creative brief with the same size-aware, compliance-aware discipline.

Will it know the exact current ad specs for my platform?

It gives commonly known defaults but will not assert a platform's exact current size, format, or policy requirements as guaranteed fact, since retail media networks update these periodically. Always confirm final specs and current creative-content policy directly against the platform's published ad specs before sending assets to production — a brief built on stale specs is a common cause of creative rejection.

Shopper Brand

Retail Media Creative Brief

Brief the actual banners and video assets for your retail media ads.

What is the Retail Media Creative Brief?

The Retail Media Creative Brief is a free AI skill that briefs the actual ad assets — banners, video, and sponsored-brand creative — used inside a retail media campaign, once the campaign plan and targeting are already set. You give it the product, the platform, the ad placement type, and the campaign objective; it returns concept directions for the creative, a messaging hierarchy suited to a small, fast-scroll ad unit, size and format specs per placement, and the compliance notes most retail media networks enforce on creative submissions. It is built for shopper, brand, and e-commerce teams who have a media plan and budget in place but still need the actual ad briefed — what it should say and look like. Because it treats the ad unit's real size and glance-time as hard constraints, the creative survives the platform's approval process instead of bouncing back for a rework cycle. Live food and beverage digital shelf data helps confirm the visual cues shoppers respond to before creative goes into production.

Who it's for

Shopper and e-commerce teams briefing retail media ad creative
Brand managers producing banner and video assets for Amazon or retailer.com
Agencies building creative for a client's retail media placements
Founders producing their first sponsored-brand or display ad assets

What you get

Concept directions for the ad creative
A messaging hierarchy suited to a small, fast-scroll ad unit
Size and format specs per placement type
Compliance notes most retail media networks enforce
A shot list or asset list for a designer or video editor
A flag on claims needing platform or regulatory sign-off

How to use it

1Paste the prompt into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini.
2Fill the bracketed inputs (product, platform, placement type, objective).
3Answer its clarifying questions about existing brand assets and specs.
4Ask it to write three headline variants for A/B testing.

See it in action

Example input

Product: fictional 'Alderwood' smoked almond butter. Platform: Amazon Ads. Placement: Sponsored Brands banner (custom image, above search results) plus a Sponsored Brands video. Objective: drive consideration for a new SKU with no review history yet, competing against established almond-butter listings with hundreds of reviews.

Example output

Retail media creative brief — Alderwood smoked almond butter, Amazon Sponsored Brands banner + video

Creative challenge
This SKU has no review history yet, which is the single biggest trust gap the creative has to work around — a shopper scrolling past established competitors with hundreds of reviews needs a reason to consider a brand-new listing in the half-second a Sponsored Brands unit gets. The creative can't lean on social proof it doesn't have yet, so it has to lead with a distinct, specific product cue instead.

Concept directions

1. "The smoked difference" — hero the smoking process itself as the visual and message hook, since "smoked" is the one attribute no established competitor in a standard almond-butter set likely owns. Leads with differentiation, not trust-by-volume.

2. "Small batch, big flavor" — leans on craft/small-batch cues to reframe the lack of reviews as a positive (new and carefully made) rather than a gap (untested).

3. "Beyond the jar" — a usage-occasion angle (a specific recipe or pairing idea) that gives a shopper a reason beyond "another almond butter" to click through.

Recommended direction
Direction 1, "The smoked difference." A no-review-history SKU wins attention fastest through a specific, visually distinct product attribute rather than a lifestyle or craft story that takes longer to land in a fast-scroll ad unit — smoke as a visual (a wisp graphic, a warm color palette) is also easy to differentiate at thumbnail size against a shelf of standard beige almond-butter jars.

Messaging hierarchy, Sponsored Brands banner
1. Hero visual: product shot with a clear smoke-cue graphic element — the single biggest visual differentiator at thumbnail size.
2. Headline (under 50 characters per Amazon's typical limit): "Smoked Almond Butter. Nothing else tastes like it."
3. Logo/brand lockup: small, bottom corner — the banner's job is the hook, not brand-building at this stage.
No secondary copy line — Sponsored Brands banners render small; a second line usually goes unread and risks a rejected creative-approval submission for cluttered text.

Messaging hierarchy, Sponsored Brands video
1. First 2 seconds: the smoking process itself in motion (visual proof of the differentiator) — video's advantage over a static banner is showing, not just claiming, the process.
2. Seconds 2-4: product reveal with the headline as on-screen text, not voiceover-dependent (many shoppers scroll with sound off).
3. Final 2 seconds: clear product shot plus a simple call-to-action text overlay ("Shop now").
Target total length: 15 seconds or under, matching typical Sponsored Brands video specs and shopper attention span in-feed.

Size and format specs
- Sponsored Brands banner: confirm current Amazon Ads spec (typically a horizontal custom image around 1200x628px equivalent, but verify against Amazon's current published spec before final export, since ad specs change).
- Sponsored Brands video: confirm current spec (commonly a 15-30 second horizontal video; verify current codec and resolution requirements directly with Amazon Ads before production).

Compliance notes
- No superlative or unverifiable claims ("best," "healthiest") without substantiation — retail media platforms reject or flag these routinely.
- No pricing or promotional callouts inside creative unless explicitly tied to a live, platform-approved promotion.
- Confirm current Amazon Sponsored Brands creative policy directly before submission, since platform ad-content rules update periodically and a compliant brief today can go stale.

Claims to route
- "Nothing else tastes like it" is a subjective taste claim, generally low-risk, but confirm it doesn't read as an implied superiority claim under Amazon's current ad-content policy.

Assumption to validate
This brief assumes Alderwood has usable process/production footage or photography of the smoking step — confirm asset availability before locking the video concept, since Direction 1 depends on showing that visual, not just describing it.

Want me to write three headline variants for A/B testing the banner?

The prompt

Here's the start of the prompt. Download the free bundle for the full, ready-to-paste version — plus the installable Claude Skill and Custom-GPT instructions.

# Role
You are a retail media creative strategist for food and beverage brands. You brief the actual ad assets — banners, video, sponsored-brand creative — for a media plan that's already set, designing for a fast-scroll ad unit's real size and glance-time, not a shrunk-down brand campaign asset.

# Context I'll provide
- Product: [PRODUCT]
- Platform: [PLATFORM e.g. Amazon Ads, Walmart Connect, Instacart Ads]
- Placement type: [PLACEMENT e.g. Sponsored Brands banner, video, display]
- Objective: [OBJECTIVE e.g. consideration, conversion, launch awareness]
- Existing assets or brand guidelines (optional): [ASSETS]

# Your task
1. If the product, platform, placement type, or objective is missing or vague, ask up to 3 clarifying questions BEFORE writing anything.

Frequently asked questions

What is a retail media creative brief?: A retail media creative brief is the specific plan for the actual ad assets inside a retail media campaign — the banner images, video, and sponsored-brand creative a shopper sees on a platform like Amazon or a retailer.com site. It covers the concept, messaging hierarchy, size specs, and compliance notes needed to brief a designer or video editor, distinct from the media plan that decides where and how much to spend.
How is this different from the Retail Media Search & Keyword Strategy and Retail Media Plan Builder skills?: The Retail Media Search & Keyword Strategy covers search terms, targeting, and bidding tactics — how you win the auction. The Retail Media Plan Builder sets the overall campaign: objectives, budget split, and measurement across the account. This skill sits downstream of both: it's the creative brief for the actual ad assets — banners and video — that run within whatever plan and targeting strategy those two skills already set. Use them to plan the campaign and targeting, then use this to brief what shoppers actually see.
Which AI models does this prompt work with?: Any capable chat model — ChatGPT, Claude, or Google Gemini. The prompt is model-agnostic, so paste it into a chat, save it as a Custom GPT, or store it as a reusable skill so every new placement or SKU launch gets a creative brief with the same size-aware, compliance-aware discipline.
Will it know the exact current ad specs for my platform?: It gives commonly known defaults but will not assert a platform's exact current size, format, or policy requirements as guaranteed fact, since retail media networks update these periodically. Always confirm final specs and current creative-content policy directly against the platform's published ad specs before sending assets to production — a brief built on stale specs is a common cause of creative rejection.

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