Most media plans begin with a brief that lives in an email thread. Ours begin with two records. It sounds like a small difference. It changes what every later decision can rely on.
BrandDNA: what the brand means, written down once
BrandDNA is derived from the brand's own material: the website, brand guidelines where they exist, and what the brand already publishes. It records five things. What it stands for: purpose, positioning, value proposition, brand promise, core values and the brand archetype. Who it speaks to: primary audience, markets, industries and the competitive frame it is judged in. How it speaks: tone of voice, formality, lexicon, locked terms, what to say and what never to say. Where it belongs: environments it belongs beside and environments it must never sit beside, forbidden topics, regulated flags and mandatory disclaimers. How it looks: colours, typography, photography and motion guidelines, and the distinctive assets that make it recognisable.
Two properties make the record trustworthy. Every field keeps its provenance: read from the brand's material, inferred by the system, or set by a person. And the record carries a quality score that reflects how complete and how well-sourced it is. A BrandDNA built from a full guideline set scores higher than one inferred from a homepage, and the score tells the client and us how much to trust it before the first campaign.
CampaignDNA: what this campaign wants
CampaignDNA is derived from the brief and the landing page, and it also records five things. What it must achieve: business objective, communication objective, the single-minded proposition, the key insight and the metric hierarchy with one primary metric. What it says: key messages and their hierarchy, the campaign promise, the main offer, the call to action and the mandatories. Who it is for: target personas and priority personas, markets and languages. When and how: flight dates, timing sensitivity, budget and pacing, channel plan and format weighting. What it measures: the measurement plan and the benchmarks, plus the landing pages analysed and the assets extracted from them.
One BrandDNA, many CampaignDNAs. Brief us once, and the second campaign starts from a brand we already understand.
Why records beat briefs
A brief is written for a person to read once. A record is written for a system to work from every day. When MatchPersona builds personas, it reads both records: BrandDNA tells it what the brand means and what it must never sit beside; CampaignDNA tells it what this campaign wants and which personas matter most. When MatchOutcome bids, it carries the primary metric from CampaignDNA into every impression. Neither capability has to guess at intent, because intent is on file, with provenance.
The records are yours. You review and correct them before anything runs, and they stay with you for the next campaign, on any screen.
