The H2 kick-off: how to set up a creative project for the back half of the year

Most clients spend Q2 planning their H2 campaigns. Very few spend it planning their creative relationships. By the time a brief goes out, summer has already eaten three weeks of runway. A Q4 campaign that launches in October needs a signed brief on a creative partner’s desk by late June. That is a shorter timeline than most marketing leaders expect.

This guide is for clients who work with external creative partners: co-ops, studios, independent creators. Not internal teams. The planning math is different, and so is the setup. (If you are still deciding between a co-op and an agency, read creative co-op vs agency: the design project benefits clients actually get first.)

TL;DR: what to do before July

• Send your creative brief by late June (allow 8–12 weeks before your October launch)
• Complete partner onboarding at least two weeks before the first deliverable
• Define revision rounds and who consolidates feedback before work begins
• Share your summer PTO calendar and async communication plan upfront
• Name one approval owner and lock the launch date with your creative partner
• Do all of this in May or early June, not July

The summer math problem

Work backwards from your launch date. If your campaign goes live in October, creative work needs to start by mid-July at the latest. Most agencies recommend allowing 8–12 weeks for creative production, plus 2–4 weeks for partner onboarding if the relationship is new (DesignRush, 2026), which puts your brief-send deadline at late June.

Here is what that looks like concretely. You want a product campaign live October 6. Subtract 10 weeks for creative production: brief due July 28. Subtract three weeks for onboarding: kick-off materials due July 7. Subtract two weeks for your own internal alignment and brief drafting: you need to start writing the brief on June 23.

That is six weeks from now.

Most clients think they have until July to get started. They don’t. August compounds the problem. Key stakeholders go on holiday, feedback cycles slow down, and turnaround expectations blur. Projects that kick off in July with no summer planning built in are the ones that hit October still waiting on one final round of approvals.

The fix is to treat May as your H2 planning month, not your H2 placeholder month.

Start with the brief, not the budget

Brief quality is the single biggest lever on how a creative project runs. A weak brief does not just slow things down. It creates structural problems that compound through every revision round.

Wellingtone’s 2025 State of Project Management research found that around two-thirds of organisations report frequent project delays caused by unclear requirements. PMI’s ongoing research into project delivery consistently shows that scope creep affects the majority of projects. These are not creative-industry-specific problems, but the creative industry is especially exposed to them because so much of the work depends on interpretation. A brief that leaves room for guessing will be guessed.

A strong H2 creative brief includes:

• The audience: who exactly you are trying to reach, with specifics (not “marketing professionals” but “B2B marketing leads at Series B companies who manage a team of three or more”)
• The goal: one primary objective with a measurable success metric
• The deliverables: format, quantity, file specifications, and any platform requirements
• The timeline: launch date, milestone dates, and revision round limits written explicitly
• The decision-maker: a single named person who gives final approval
• Brand constraints: what the creative partner should not do, not just what they should

The items clients most often leave out: success metrics, revision round limits, and the name of the final approval owner. These three omissions generate more back-and-forth than any other briefing gap. Add them before you send anything. For projects where you cannot meet synchronously, see also: the async brief: how to kick off creative projects without a single meeting.

Onboard your creative partner before the first deliverable

Onboarding is not paperwork. It is the foundation your creative partner builds on. Treat it as Week 0, not Day 1.

What to share before any work starts:

• Brand assets (logo files, color palettes, typography, photography guidelines)
• Brand voice guide or tone-of-voice document
• Names and roles of key stakeholders your creative partner will interact with
• The feedback consolidation process (who collects input, how it gets communicated)
• The approval timeline with milestone dates
• Revision round limits (see the next section)

If this is a new creative relationship, structured onboarding takes two to four weeks (DesignRush, 2026). That is not wasted time. It is the period where your creative partner learns your context, asks the questions that prevent costly mistakes later, and sets up the working structure you will both rely on for months.

The urgency here goes beyond efficiency. If you are working with an AI-assisted creator for the first time, review what to ask before hiring an AI-assisted creator before the onboarding conversation. Function Point (2025) reports that 79% of creative agencies already absorb work beyond agreed scope without additional pay. A project that starts without clear onboarding compounds this problem for everyone: your creative partner ends up over-serving without a mechanism to flag it, and you end up with deliverables that miss the mark because the context was never properly transferred.

Set the revision architecture in advance

Revision rounds are where most H2 projects go sideways. Not because the creative work is wrong, but because there is no agreed structure for how feedback works.

Set this at kickoff, not when the first draft arrives.

A workable structure for most H2 creative projects looks like this: two consolidated feedback rounds, followed by one final approval. Each feedback round should collect input from all stakeholders before it goes to the creative partner. No drip feedback. No “one more thing” emails after a round closes.

Define this clearly:

• How many revision rounds are included in the project scope
• Who is responsible for consolidating feedback before it is sent
• What triggers a scope conversation (requests outside the original brief, additional formats, significant directional changes)

Writing this down at kickoff takes twenty minutes. Not writing it down costs weeks.

Communicate the summer calendar explicitly

Your creative partner cannot plan around information they do not have.

Tell them upfront: who is away and when, what your turnaround expectations are in August, and how async feedback will work during PTO periods. If your team typically takes two weeks off in August, your creative partner needs to know that in May, when they are building their capacity plan.

A shared project calendar sent at kickoff should include:

• Key stakeholder holiday periods
• Milestone dates with buffer for async feedback (add two to three days to any August deadline)
• The communication channel for urgent questions when the primary contact is out
• An escalation path if feedback is delayed beyond an agreed window

This is especially relevant given that creative agency billable utilization fell from 70% to 62% in 2025 (Function Point, 2025). Creators are managing tighter capacity. A client who communicates summer constraints clearly is a client whose project gets protected capacity.

H2 creative kickoff checklist

Use this before you brief any external creative partner on an H2 project.

• Brief drafted and sent by late June (for an October launch)
• Onboarding materials shared: brand assets, voice guide, stakeholder map
• Revision rounds agreed: number of rounds, consolidation owner, scope trigger defined
• Summer PTO calendar shared with the creative partner
• Approval owner named (one person, not a committee)
• Launch date locked and confirmed with the creative partner in writing

Start in May, not July

H2 success for clients working with external creative partners does not start when the brief goes out. It starts when you decide to treat the relationship setup as part of the project itself.

The clients who get the most from their creative partnerships are the ones who bring partners in early, brief them clearly, and build a shared working structure before the first deadline appears. That work happens in May and June, not in the scramble before Q4.

If you want help setting up your H2 creative project, talk to TBM. We work with marketing leads and founders to scope, brief, and kick off creative projects that stay on track through the summer.

Talk to TBM