The tutorial-creator brief template

What the brief is for

It does three jobs. It tells the creator what the product has to be seen doing. It records what both sides agreed, so a later disagreement is a reading problem rather than a memory problem. And it is the document you would be asked for if a regulator ever looked at the campaign, because it shows what guidance you gave.

It is not a script, not a slide deck and not a contract on its own. One page of plain text that a creator can read on a phone between shoots is the version that gets followed. A long PDF gets skimmed, and the field you cared about is in the part that got skimmed.

If you are still choosing the channel, influencer marketing for hardware brands covers that step, and the full sponsorship process shows where the brief sits in the sequence. If you are deciding whether to run the process yourself, in-house or an agency sets out the work per creator.

The template, field by field

Sixteen fields. Each one is here because its absence causes a specific failure, and most generic templates carry fewer than half of them.

Three of those sixteen are the ones that separate a hardware brief from a generic one. They are worth more detail.

Version lock, the field generic templates do not have

Name the firmware, the operating system build and the app version the video is filmed against, and hold them for the production window.

This is the single most expensive field to leave out. A tutorial earns its views over years because it answers a question, and it stops answering that question the moment your release notes move the menu the creator just pointed at. The video does not become slightly dated. It becomes a page of comments from people saying the steps do not work, which is the opposite of what you paid for.

Practical version. If a release is close, wait for it and film against the new build. If you cannot wait, say so in the brief, agree who records the version on screen, and agree what happens if the update lands mid-production. The usual answer is a pinned comment and an updated description, and both are much easier to ask for before filming than after.

Loaner terms, settled before the unit ships

Decide loaner or keep before anything is packed, and write the answer in the brief.

A loaner needs four things fixed: who pays return shipping, the calendar date it goes back, what condition it has to be in, and what happens if it arrives dead. Write a date, not a duration, because durations start from a day nobody later agrees on.

Cross-border makes this a logistics decision rather than an afterthought. Most creators in homelab, NAS and smart home are not in the same country as the brand, so settle who is the importer of record, what value is declared, and who pays duty and brokerage. A unit stuck in customs is the most common reason a filming date moves.

One thing a loaner does not change: the disclosure. The FTC gives the example of free use of a car for a month and recommends a disclosure “even though you have to return it”. Free product is a material connection whether or not it comes back.

The description is a deliverable, not a courtesy

In this niche the description is half the value of the video. People come back to a tutorial for the commands, and they copy them from under the player.

Ask for the repository link, the config files, the exact commands, your documentation link and the tracked link, and treat them as named deliverables in the brief rather than a hope. Generic templates ask for a link and a hashtag, which is why a sponsored hardware video often ships with nothing a viewer can actually use.

Two platform details are worth knowing before you ask for the chapter:

• Chapters. YouTube requires at least three timestamps listed in ascending order, the first starting at 00:00, and sets the minimum chapter length at 10 seconds. Ask for the sponsored part to be its own chapter and accept that some viewers will use it to skip. The viewer who scrubs back to that chapter twice is the one who was going to buy.
• Ad breaks. On monetised videos of 8 minutes or longer the creator can turn on mid-roll ads, and YouTube says slots at natural breakpoints, “such as a pause in audio or transition in visual”, are more likely to serve. Those are the same moments your segment starts and ends, so ask where the breaks sit rather than discovering it on launch day.

Disclosure, and the wording to put in the brief

Put the disclosure requirement in the brief as instructions, not as a reminder. This is the part of the document that protects you.

The FTC states that a company is “ultimately responsible for what others do on your behalf”, that advertisers “need to have reasonable programs in place to train and monitor members of their network”, and that if you pre-approve posts you should review them for truth-in-advertising compliance, including disclosure. A written brief and a reviewed draft are what that looks like in practice for one video.

On form and placement, the FTC says a disclosure “has the best chance of being clear and conspicuous if it's included in the video itself”, that viewers are more likely to miss one at the end, and that where a representation is made both visually and audibly, “the disclosure should be made both visually and audibly”. It also states that the ultimate responsibility for disclosing a material connection “rests with the influencer and the brand – not the platform”, so YouTube's own setting is a floor rather than a defence.

That setting still gets used. YouTube requires creators to select the paid promotion button in the video details, which adds a disclosure label at the beginning of the video, and says that you and the partners you work with are also responsible for understanding and complying with all applicable legal requirements.

For Canada, the Competition Bureau requires disclosure of all material connections, lists free products and discounts among them, and asks that disclosures be as visible as possible, in plain and clear language, without ambiguous terms or abbreviations, and repeated on every platform the content is shared to.

So the brief says, in four lines:

• Turn on the paid promotion setting in the video details.
• Say it out loud and show it on screen at the start of the sponsored part, in plain words. Name the brand.
• Put the same statement in the first lines of the description, above the fold, not under the links.
• Do not rely on “spon”, “collab”, “gifted”, “ambassador” or a thank you. The FTC treats those as ambiguous and confusing.

What to leave out

A brief fails more often by containing too much than too little.

• A duration in seconds. Length follows what has to be shown. A number in the brief buys you either a rushed demonstration or padding, and both read as an advert.
• A script. Tutorial creators turn down word-for-word reads, and audiences in this category spot them immediately. Give the facts and let the creator say them.
• Any condition that the verdict be positive. The FTC is explicit that you cannot condition an incentive on a review being positive, and that endorsements must reflect the honest opinions or experiences of the endorser. A brief that hints otherwise is evidence against you.
• Claims you cannot prove. The FTC's instruction to endorsers is not to make claims “that would require proof the advertiser doesn't have”. If you have no proof, do not put the claim in the brief and hope it gets said.
• Approval over opinion. Ask for factual corrections. Asking for a nicer conclusion ends the relationship and often the campaign.
• Exclusivity you do not need. Every month of category exclusivity costs you something in the fee. Buy it only if a competitor launch is actually coming.

Before you send it

1. Read it once as the creator. If any line tells them how to speak rather than what has to be true, cut it.
2. Check that the versions in field four are ones you can genuinely hold for the production window, and that the person who owns the release schedule agrees.
3. Confirm the unit exists, works, and can ship on the date in the brief. Test the exact unit you are shipping.
4. Name one reviewer, and tell the other stakeholders they send notes to that person rather than to the creator.
5. Send it as plain text in the email body and ask for a reply confirming the versions, the dates and the description deliverables. That reply is the agreement.

Then keep the brief, the reply and the draft you approved. For a campaign with several creators, that set of three documents per creator is the whole compliance file, and it is the part that is impossible to reconstruct later.