Run a creative campaign from brief to launch

Three weeks to launch, someone asks which version the client approved. The brief is in a document, the moodboard is somewhere else, and the answer is halfway up a chat thread. Before anyone can change the work, they have to reconstruct the campaign.

This guide follows the creative-team demo and turns its story into a workflow you can use: one project containing working canvases for the brief, creative direction, deliverables, and reviews. The campaign is a demonstration, not a customer case study. The setup and examples below are a recommended way to run your own campaign, from the first brief through the material you keep for next time.

The short version

Create one campaign project and give each deliverable its own working canvas, assignee, and date. Put the brief, visual references, and review questions beside the work they explain. Keep feedback in canvas comments and share the client review canvas with comment access. Use Dashboard to inspect progress and workload, then Calendar to adjust the agreed schedule. Deliver the approved work, move its cards into your completed section, and copy useful canvases into the next campaign.

Watch the full campaign walkthrough first, or follow the clips alongside each stage below. The guide explains how to set up the work and make the decisions shown in the demo.

Give the campaign a home before production starts

Start with a project name that will still be recognizable after launch: R/1 campaign - September, for example. Add the campaign goal and launch date to its description, then invite the core team. The art director, designer, marketer, writer, and producer need somewhere they can return to throughout the campaign.

Set up sections for the stages your team actually uses. A workable starting sequence is Briefing, Production, Review, Ready, and Shipped. These are suggested names you choose for this campaign. Agree what moving into each section means before people start dragging cards.

For this workflow, Ready means approved and waiting for delivery. Shipped means the responsible person has completed the actual delivery or publication. That distinction gives the last launch meeting a useful question: which approved pieces still need someone to send or publish them?

A project card opens into a canvas. Put the material for that piece of work inside it, so opening Hero film review brings the team to the cut, references, and discussion. Create a canvas in the project for work that needs its own owner, date, or review. Brief, moodboard, film review, product imagery, and channel copy can live in the same project without becoming one enormous canvas.

Opening the campaign card takes the team from the Kanban overview into the material being made and reviewed.

Write a brief people can use during a disagreement

Before adding references, put the campaign's decisions into a brief canvas. Write the audience, the response you want, the promise the work needs to communicate, and the deliverables. Include constraints that will matter during review: required wording, visual boundaries, formats, and the person who approves the direction.

Make those constraints concrete. “Premium but approachable” leaves everyone room to disagree. “Show the product in use before the pack shot, and keep the opening line focused on everyday comfort” gives the writer and art director something they can apply to the same draft.

Finish the brief with open questions. Separate decisions already made from questions still waiting for an answer. When the client changes the priority in week two, update the brief and explain the change beside the affected work. A useful brief remains part of production; it does not retire after kickoff.

For the first review, ask each role to name one thing they need clarified before starting. The producer needs to know which shots are essential. The writer needs the message hierarchy. The designer needs to know which references describe the brand and which are just possibilities. Answering those questions together costs less than discovering five different interpretations in the first delivery.

The demo canvas keeps the campaign brief, product imagery, references, and working notes visible together. Use that arrangement to check a draft against the brief during review.

Build the moodboard around choices

The demo's designer builds a moodboard while the other roles develop their parts of the campaign. Use that moment as your starting pattern: collect visual references on a canvas, then explain what each group contributes to the proposed direction.

Arrange references around decisions such as lighting, composition, color, typography, and product treatment. Add short notes: “Use this lighting, not this setting” or “Keep the generous spacing; the headline treatment is still open.” A reference image without that sentence invites someone to borrow the wrong thing.

Keep the brief's goal visible in the review material. If the campaign needs the product to feel usable in everyday life, a wall of dramatic studio photography needs a reason. The moodboard review should end with a direction the team can produce, plus the specific questions still unresolved.

Once the direction is chosen, label it clearly and keep rejected alternatives apart from the active direction. Retain enough context to explain the choice. On the day someone asks to revisit the darker treatment, the earlier reasoning will save another meeting.

Watch the references being arranged into a moodboard. The surrounding space leaves room to write which treatment the team is choosing and why.

Let every role work against the same decisions

The role sequence in the demo shows the art director reviewing creative work, the designer building references, the marketer planning the campaign, the writer drafting beside visuals, and the producer maintaining a shoot plan. Give those activities connected homes in your project.

Assign a person to each deliverable and give it a real date. Put the review deadline before the delivery deadline in your working plan. A film due Friday needs a decision window for the people approving it; assigning every canvas to Friday hides that work.

For copy, place the headline options beside the visual they accompany. For production, keep the shot requirements beside the references they describe. Use files on the canvas for the material the team is reviewing. The next reviewer should be able to open the card and understand what they are being asked to decide.

Turn week-two feedback into a visible decision

“Make the opening stronger” is a difficult instruction to act on. Name the part, the concern, and the decision needed. In the film review, place a still of the opening shot on the canvas and attach a comment to that object: “Try the product-in-use shot first so we understand the benefit before the pack shot.”

Drawing and annotations help point out the detail. Circle the crop that needs attention or cross out a proposed shot, then add a comment explaining the reason. A circle identifies the location; the thread carries the discussion.

In this clip, drawing marks identify the part of the creative work being discussed. Add the reason in a comment so the mark remains understandable after the meeting.

Use @ to mention the person who needs to act. Keep replies in that thread so the next reviewer can read the request, the response, and the decision together. For video feedback, name the timestamp in the comment as well as the shot. This keeps the instruction specific even when you are discussing a still rather than a playing video.

Here, the review moves from a visual detail to a comment on the work. Keep the requested change and the response together.

End a review by recording the outcome beside the work: approved, approved with a named change, or another review required. These are your team's written decisions, not an automatic approval workflow. Give unresolved changes an owner and a next review date before moving on.

Bring the client into the review canvas

Prepare a canvas containing the material the client needs to assess. Include the review question, the current options, and the response deadline. Keep internal budget discussions or unrelated drafts in other canvases. Sharing one canvas exposes its contents to that audience, so choose the boundary before copying the link.

Open Share, enable the guest link access your review needs, and choose comment permission. Copy that link for the client. Comment access lets the reviewer discuss the material without changing the layout or artwork. People who need to contribute actual content need edit access instead.

The sharing clip shows where the link is copied. Check its permission before sending it to your reviewer.

For a link that allows guest collaboration, the client can enter as a guest without creating an account. First-time guests enter a display name before continuing into the canvas. Test the link and its access before the review, including any required passcode, so the client arrives at the intended material.

The guest entry clip shows the step between receiving the link and reaching the review material. A returning guest with a saved name can enter without repeating the name step.

Give them a short instruction with the link: “Please comment on the two opening options by Thursday noon. We need a direction choice; detailed retouching comes in the next review.” A clear question does more for useful feedback than adding another page of background.

When the client comments, answer in the same thread. Acknowledge the requested change, explain what the team will revise, and name the next decision. Guests with comment access can reply and mention people, but they cannot resolve or reopen whole threads. Keep thread cleanup with the team.

The shared canvas keeps the guest and team conversation beside the campaign material. Review the response there before making the next revision.

Read the project before the launch meeting

In the demo, the story shifts from creative review to a project whose pace is drifting and whose workload is uneven. Make Dashboard part of the routine before the final week, while there is still time to change the plan.

Look at progress, the remaining work in the charts, and the workload distribution. Then inspect the canvases behind the concern. A designer with several remaining pieces needs a conversation about their scope: three headline revisions and three new campaign concepts are very different commitments.

This Dashboard clip shows the progress and workload views used for that discussion. Read the counts, then ask the owners what remains.

Define the complete sections that make progress meaningful. Project progress counts top-level canvases in sections marked complete. For this workflow, mark Shipped complete and keep Ready incomplete, because delivery remains outstanding there. Naming a section Shipped alone does not configure that rule.

Switch to Kanban or List and open the relevant card. Read the work and its latest discussion before changing its date or assignee. The dashboard tells you where to investigate; the canvas tells you what the next action requires.

Open the canvas from the project to inspect the actual work before deciding what needs to change.

Change the schedule with the people doing the work

Suppose the film needs another edit and the same designer also owns the product imagery. This is a planning example you can apply to the demo's late-campaign moment. Ask which work is essential for launch, which part another teammate can take, and which review can move without compressing the final handoff.

Use Project Calendar to see the dated work together. With permission to edit the date, drag the canvas to the agreed day, then open it and confirm the new date. You can also update the date through the canvas details.

The same campaign can be inspected through its project views. In Calendar, compare the dated pieces before settling on the revised handoff.

Make the plan change explicit:

1. Agree the revised deliverable and date with its owner.
2. Update the date and assignment in the project.
3. Leave the reason and next action on the affected canvas.
4. Tell the reviewer what changed and when their response is needed.

Moving a calendar item changes the recorded schedule. It does not create production time or obtain a client's agreement. If the launch date is fixed, reduce or reassign the work until the remaining plan fits. Keep a separate follow-up canvas for deferred material so it has a place to return to after launch.

Ship the work, then move the card

On launch day, review the canvases waiting in Ready. Open each one and confirm the approved material, destination, and person handling delivery. Keep the final file or destination link with the canvas so someone checking the campaign tomorrow can find what actually went out.

After the responsible person publishes or delivers the piece, move its card to Shipped. That is the action shown at the end of the demo: the last cards reaching their completed stage.

Keep approved-but-unsent work in Ready. This makes the last few cards useful instead of ceremonial. A campaign that is almost delivered still needs someone to do the remaining delivery.

The clip shows a card moving into the completed section. In your campaign, make that move after delivery so the stage has the same meaning across the team.

Leave the next campaign a better starting point

After launch, keep the original canvases as the campaign record. Add a short retrospective covering the direction that worked, the review that took longer than expected, and the change you want to make next time. Put the lesson beside the relevant material when it needs an example.

For reuse, open a useful canvas's menu and choose Copy to another project. Select the next campaign's project, then rename and review the copy. Update the brief, dates, assignments, and review instructions for the new work. Check what content and access belong in that destination before inviting its team.

Copies are separate canvases. Later edits and discussions do not stay synchronized with the original. Preserve the original for its decisions and history, and make the new copy unambiguously about the new campaign.

A good starting point contains the questions and structures that earned their place: the brief prompt that prevented a misunderstanding, the moodboard labels that made the direction clear, and the review instructions that got a usable answer. Keep those. Give the next team room to make different work.

What can go wrong

The client can open the canvas but cannot comment. Check the link permission in Share. View access does not allow comments. Use the guest collaboration guide to check the entry and permission flow.

A deliverable disappears from Calendar. Confirm that it has a date, then check the visible date range and filters. Look for it in List before creating another copy.

Finished work does not count toward progress. Check that the destination section is marked complete and that the canvas is top-level in the project. Allow the progress summary to refresh after the change.

Feedback is split between two versions. Choose the canvas that will carry the remaining review and send its link to the reviewers. Label the other version clearly so new feedback has one destination.