July 13, 2026
Most campaign briefs are written for a single city and a single team. That’s fine when you’re running a local campaign with operators you’ve worked with before and surfaces you already know. But when a wheatpaste campaign spans London, Mexico City, Tokyo, and New York simultaneously — or even just two of those — a brief that would work for one city will break the others.
The problem isn’t complexity. Multi-market wheatpaste campaigns aren’t inherently more difficult than single-city runs. The problem is that most brief templates don’t account for the information a remote operator actually needs to execute well. They’re written from the client’s perspective — what the brand wants — rather than from the operator’s perspective — what they need to know to put the right poster in the right place at the right time.
We’ve been running multi-market campaigns for over a decade. Our American Guerrilla Marketing field operators have executed wheatpaste campaigns across the US nationwide portfolio and in international markets from London to Tokyo to Buenos Aires. This is the brief structure that actually works — built from firsthand experience watching what goes wrong when a brief is incomplete and what goes right when it isn’t.
The single most common failure point in a multi-market wheatpaste brief is the assumption that what’s obvious to the client is obvious to the operator. It isn’t. And in international markets, the gap between what the client assumes and what the local operator can actually do is enormous.
Here’s a concrete example. A client sends a brief that specifies “major foot-traffic areas” as the placement target in each city. In New York, that’s meaningful — our operators know what that means in SoHo versus Williamsburg versus the Meatpacking District. In Tokyo, “major foot traffic” could mean Shibuya crossing, where surface access is close to zero, or it could mean the pedestrian-dense shopping corridors running off Takeshita-dori, where permissioned placements actually exist. “Major foot traffic” is not a brief — it’s a starting point. A brief should name specific neighborhoods, provide target surface types, and let the operator confirm what’s actually available.
Another common failure: briefs that specify format without consulting local operators first. We’ve received campaign files sized for US standard dimensions for campaigns going to European markets. We’ve received vertical artwork for markets where the available surfaces are all wide and horizontal. When the brief is built without operator input, these mismatches get discovered the week before the campaign goes live — after printing, after shipping, after payment.
A third failure: briefs that don’t specify documentation standards. GPS-tagged proof-of-posting is our standard, but if a brief doesn’t specify that requirement explicitly, an operator new to a market may deliver a simple photo report that doesn’t include the metadata the client needs for campaign verification.
A multi-market wheatpaste campaign brief should be structured in two layers: a master section that applies to all markets, and city-specific appendices that carry the details each operator needs for their location.
The master section covers:
The city-specific appendix for each market covers:
This structure means the master brief is readable by everyone — client team, campaign manager, all operators. Each city appendix is specific enough that an operator can work from it without needing to reference any other document. They know exactly what they’re placing, where, when, and how to document it.
This seems simple. It rarely is.
Campaign objectives should tell operators not just what the campaign is trying to achieve — brand awareness, event promotion, product launch support — but why those objectives matter in that specific market. An operator who understands that the Tokyo campaign is supporting a simultaneous album release and the goal is to saturate the neighborhoods where the artist’s core fanbase lives will make better decisions than one who only knows “high foot traffic.”
Target audience information should be specific enough to be useful. Age range, behavioral profile, cultural context. Not “18-34 urban millennials” — that’s too vague to inform location decisions. Something like “18-28, music-focused, active in Harajuku and Shimokitazawa, attend live shows, brand-aware” gives the Tokyo operator the information they need to confirm that the scouted locations are right.
Objectives should also define what success looks like. Is this campaign purely impressions-based? Is there a social component — placements designed to be photographed and shared? Is there a specific date by which go-live must occur because of an event or release? These details shape how operators prioritize when they hit constraints in the field.
Multi-market campaigns almost always want to go live simultaneously — or as close to simultaneously as possible. This creates real coordination challenges that a brief needs to solve, not ignore.
A simultaneous global launch for a midnight local time is a different logistical challenge than a rolling launch that staggers across time zones. Both are workable. But the brief has to specify which one you want and acknowledge the operational implications.
Midnight campaigns require operators to work through the night. This is normal in wheatpaste — operators are used to overnight placements. But international operators need lead time to confirm crew availability, secure any necessary permissioned access for nighttime placement, and coordinate documentation lighting (a GPS-tagged photo of a placement at 3am in a dim Tokyo alley requires equipment and planning that a daytime placement does not).
Rolling launches — London first, then New York, then Tokyo — are simpler to execute but require the brief to specify clearly what “live” means in each market. Does “live” mean the first poster is up? Does it mean all placements in the market are complete? Does it mean documentation has been delivered? The brief should define this so there’s no ambiguity when the campaign manager is tracking status across three time zones.
This section is where most multi-market briefs fall short — and where the most expensive mistakes happen.
Format specifications for each market should be determined in consultation with the local operator before the brief is finalized. This is non-negotiable for international campaigns. The operator knows the surfaces, the standard local print sizes, the paper weights that work in the local climate, and the paste formulations available. The brief should capture this information as confirmed specifications, not as questions to be resolved later.
Artwork delivery should specify file format, color profile, and resolution. For international markets, specify whether the color profile is US-standard or converted for local print standards. Note whether local printing is being coordinated through the operator or whether shipped prints are being used. If shipped, include customs documentation requirements and confirm arrival windows well ahead of the go-live date.
Quantities per market should be tied to a placement map, not a round number. “200 posters for London” is less useful than “London: 80 x B1 for Shoreditch/Brick Lane, 60 x A0 for construction hoarding on Bethnal Green Road, 60 reserve for operator-discretion placements.” The operator can execute against a placement map. They have to ask follow-up questions if the quantity doesn’t tie to a location breakdown.
Every wheatpaste placement our operators execute is GPS-tagged. That’s a standard we built over years of campaign work because clients need proof-of-posting that holds up — not just as internal reporting, but for campaign case studies, client presentations, and sometimes regulatory records.
The brief should specify:
This is one area where a detailed brief genuinely improves the end product. Operators who receive clear documentation requirements produce better documentation. Operators who receive vague requirements produce variable output that requires back-and-forth to resolve.
On-the-ground documentation also provides the social content and press assets that justify the campaign budget to stakeholders. We’ve had clients tell us that the GPS-tagged photo documentation we deliver from international campaigns has been used in investor presentations, board reports, and earned media pitches. A brief that specifies documentation standards to that level of detail pays dividends well beyond proof-of-posting.
Things change. A permissioned surface falls through the day before placement. Weather makes a location impractical for a morning go-live. A local operator identifies a better location than what was scouted and wants to make a substitution. The brief needs to define how these situations are handled.
A clear escalation protocol covers three tiers:
Tier 1 — Operator discretion: Minor substitutions within the same neighborhood, timing adjustments within a 4-hour window, paste formulation adjustments for weather conditions. These should be documented but don’t require client sign-off. Operators are certified and licensed professionals. Trust them to make field-level decisions within defined parameters.
Tier 2 — Campaign manager approval: Neighborhood substitutions, format changes (if a surface turns out not to support the specified format), quantity adjustments of more than 10%. These require a call or message to the campaign manager but don’t require going back to the full client team.
Tier 3 — Client approval: Market-level cancellation, major format changes, shifts in go-live date, any change that materially affects the campaign deliverables as specified. These require client sign-off and a brief amendment.
Naming these tiers in the brief — with explicit examples of what falls into each — eliminates the most common source of friction in multi-market campaign execution. Operators know exactly how much latitude they have. Campaign managers know when they need to escalate. Clients don’t get woken up at 2am for a paste-viscosity decision.
The final section of a multi-market brief should define what the client receives at the end of the campaign. This seems like an afterthought. It isn’t. The reporting commitments in the brief shape how operators document their work and how campaign managers compile outputs.
Standard deliverables for a multi-market wheatpaste campaign should include:
For campaigns that include case studies as a deliverable, the brief should specify what case study elements are required — before and after comparisons, neighborhood context shots, any specific creative elements that need to be captured for the case study narrative.
Reporting timelines should be realistic. A full GPS-tagged photo report for a four-market international campaign takes a day to compile if documentation has been collected in real-time. It takes four or five days if documentation is being assembled after the fact. Specifying real-time documentation in the brief means the report can be delivered within 24-48 hours of campaign completion.
When a multi-market wheatpaste campaign brief is built correctly, it functions as a guarantee to all parties. The client knows what they’re getting and when. The operators know exactly what they’re executing and what standard their work will be judged against. The campaign manager has clear authority boundaries and escalation paths.
That’s the real function of a good brief — not paperwork, but alignment. Multi-market campaigns involve operators in multiple cities, often in multiple time zones, working with materials that can’t easily be revised once they’re on a wall. The brief is how everyone shows up to the same campaign even when they’re thousands of miles apart.
We’ve built this kind of brief structure over 10 years of multi-market campaign work. We’ve seen what breaks when the structure is missing and what succeeds when it’s in place. If you’re planning an international wheatpaste campaign and want to start from a brief template that actually works, contact AGM for a quote and we’ll walk you through the process from the first call.
American Guerrilla Marketing coordinates wheatpaste campaigns across the US and international markets from a single New York contact.
A solid brief covers campaign objectives and target audience per city, placement neighborhoods and surface types, poster format and quantity per market, key dates and go-live windows, documentation requirements including GPS-tagged proof-of-posting, and escalation contacts for each market. The brief should be detailed enough that an operator in any city can execute without needing to call you for clarification.
For a campaign running in three or more international cities, finalize your brief at least six weeks before the first go-live date. This gives operators time to scout, confirm permissioned placements, coordinate local printing, and flag any market-specific issues before they become last-minute problems.
One master brief with city-specific appendices works well. The master section covers brand guidelines, campaign objectives, documentation standards, and escalation procedures. Each appendix covers the specifics for that market: neighborhoods, poster sizes, quantities, placement dates, and local operator contact. This structure keeps the brief consistent while allowing for the variation that international markets require.
Operators should have a defined escalation protocol in the brief itself. Minor adjustments — switching a placement location within the same neighborhood — can be handled at operator discretion with photo documentation. Major changes — format shifts, neighborhood changes, date adjustments — require client sign-off. The brief should spell out the threshold clearly so operators don’t have to guess.
Yes. We’ve developed a brief structure over a decade of multi-market campaign work that we refine with every client. For international campaigns, we start with a discovery call, build out the master brief with market-specific sections, and share it with our operators in each city for feasibility review before the client approves final scope.
American Guerrilla Marketing coordinates wheatpaste campaigns across the US and international markets from a single New York contact.
Millie Phillips
Campaign Architect, American Guerrilla Marketing
Email: [email protected]
Office: (646) 776-2770
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American Guerrilla Marketing — Los Angeles
Street-level campaigns in Los Angeles and nationwide. Wheatpasting, LED trucks, street teams, and more.
(646) 776-2770
July 13, 2026
July 13, 2026
July 13, 2026
July 13, 2026
July 13, 2026
