Brief translation lines media buyers actually use

Retail audience briefs often arrive as paragraphs. Media buyers under deadline translate them into platform language anyway; your job is to shorten that path. We teach teams to attach five “translation lines” per initiative: who we are excluding, which creative hook must survive compression, which offer types are forbidden, which inventory posture matters this week, and what success looks like without miracle metrics. Translation lines should be pasteable. If a line requires a footnote, it is not ready. Run a five-minute exercise: hand the lines to someone outside the project; if they can repeat the thesis, you pass. If they invent a softer version, your lines were too polite. Finally, keep a living library. When a line works twice, promote it to a template. When a line fails once, annotate why without blame. Brief quality compounds through reuse, not inspiration.