What a Creator sees when they apply to your brief

There is one brief, and you are already looking at it

A Cohley brief is a single shared document. There is no separate “creator version” — the brief overview you see is exactly what an eligible Creator sees. To preview it, open your brief and click brief overview at the top.

That also means anything you write in the brief is Creator-facing. There is no internal-notes area inside a brief.

What a Creator reads before they apply

The brief overview is the whole brief — not a summary or a section within it. Everything below is what a Creator scrolls through in that one view.

• Your company profile — logo, name, the “About [your brand]” description, and links to your website and Instagram, all at the very top.
• Style Guide — the visual examples you upload, shown as a gallery near the top. This is the single strongest signal a Creator has for matching your look and tone.
• Concepts and creative direction — messaging points, shot list, style, tone.
• AI Asset Analysis requirements — your must-haves, typically covering their filming space, outfit, and script.
• Compensation, deadlines, and deliverables — whether they can realistically deliver.

Put visuals in your Style Guide. Creators are visual — a few reference images or videos communicate more about what you want than several paragraphs of description, and they set expectations before anyone films. A brief with a thin Style Guide leaves Creators guessing, and guessing is where reshoot requests come from. You upload or link to  these in the brief wizard’s Style Guide section.

The application they submit

Creators go through a step-by-step wizard. Which steps appear depends on how you built the brief:

1. A short personal message — why they are a fit for your brand and this product.
2. Sample content, if you requested it — their own work, shown to you as part of the application. Either an uploaded photo or video, or a link from an Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube account they have connected to Cohley. Cohley validates that the link comes from an authorized account, so arbitrary external URLs are rejected. If your Style Guide makes the style you want obvious, Creators can pick a sample that actually matches it — which is what makes the request worth including.
3. Product selection — only if your brief includes multiple products or variants. They see the product image, name, and variants, and pick one. You can reassign this later.
4. Concept selection — only if your brief has multiple concepts. They apply to one concept. Whether they pick one or complete all of them is a setting you control in the concepts section.
5. Legal agreement — Cohley’s Terms & Conditions, your custom brief terms if you have added any, and the brief’s own terms. A timestamped record is stored per accepted Creator.
6. Shipping address — collected at application on every brief that ships product. The address is per brief, not stored on the Creator’s profile: a Creator who worked with you before still enters an address for this brief, and it can differ from the one they gave you last time. Always ship to the address on the current brief.

Screening & insight questions, if you added them, are asked before this — a Creator who does not qualify never reaches the application.

Your brief is a contract — write it that way

This is the part worth slowing down for. When a Creator applies, they agree to Cohley’s Terms & Conditions, your custom brief terms if you have added any, and the brief itself. A timestamped record is stored for every accepted Creator. The brief you wrote is the agreement between you and them.

That is why Cohley locks it once someone has applied — changing the terms after a Creator has committed would change a deal they already agreed to. After launch you can only edit:

• Title
• Deadlines
• Custom Creator Insights
• Creator Criteria
• Payment — increase only. You can raise compensation to attract stronger applicants. You cannot lower it: Creators already applied at the stated rate.

Everything else is fixed. If something genuinely has to change, send it to accepted Creators in the brief chat so they can review and confirm before moving forward — that confirmation is what makes the change legitimate.

What this means before you launch: every requirement you will want to hold a Creator to has to be in the brief at launch. Deliverables, usage rights, AI Asset Analysis requirements, exclusivity, anything you would point at later in a dispute. You cannot add a requirement after the fact and expect it to bind someone who applied under the earlier version. Add your legal terms up front too — custom terms are stored in Company Settings and selected into the brief, and they amend Cohley’s standard Terms & Conditions rather than replacing them.

Related articles

• How to write a Cohley brief
• Who can see my brief?
• Can I invite Creators to apply to briefs?