The Truth Will Set You Free

While not everyone you see on the news at night these days believes this, we do. Every brand knows "what" they do and "how" they do it, but many do not have a clear way to articulate "why" the brand exists. It's that hill you plant your flag on and why you get out of bed in the morning. Our collaborative, one-day workshop helps brands uncover their why. Without giving away too much of our secret sauce, the brand truth workshop is typically a full, electronic-free day where key brand stakeholders gather to really expose what the brand is all about. We start with why the brand exists, but we also systematically guide brands through exercises that help articulate their key differentiating characteristic, the human personality traits of the brand, a psychographic description of their best customer, and the affiliation strategy. The outputs of the workshop help to guide everything from the brand's internal and external communications - to marketing look, tone and feel and even to future product and service offerings.

Uncovering and articulating your brand truth is hard work, but it can both stabilize and free you at the same time. An outside perspective asking the right questions can help. We know an agency that is up to the challenge.

Brand Truth Research & Workshop Process

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Discovery
Day of the Workshop
Workshop Outputs

Discovery

  • We analyze the brand/competition/category through primary and secondary research
  • We confidentially interview key stakeholders to get an idea of what they believe the brand is all about, key areas of opportunity, and challenges
  • This information is put into a presentation format that will open the workshop as a way to level set the room

Day of the Workshop (typically a six- to eight-hour, electronic-free day)

  • We will systematically walk the group (consisting of a handful of agency people along with roughly ten key brand stakeholders) through a series of brainstorms that include examples from other brands.

    Throughout the day, we will uncover as a group:

    • Brand Truth – Why the brand exists (emotional, rather than functional, purpose)
    • Differentiating Characteristic – The ONE thing the brand does better than anyone else in the category; aspirational in nature
    • Brand Persona – Three primary human personality traits of the brand which serve to guide the tone and tenor of external marketing efforts
    • Customer – Psychographic description of our target customer
    • The Club – Affiliation strategy; what it says to be a customer of the brand

Workshop Outputs

Within the month following the workshop we will provide the outputs listed below. The outputs are intended for internal purposes only and provide guidance for the brand moving forward.

  • Narrative – This is a detailed document that unpacks and gives context to where we landed for the five categories brainstormed during the workshop. It’s especially valuable for future stakeholders to understand what the brand is all about, even if they couldn’t be part of the workshop.
  • Overarching Brand Strategic Brief – This document articulates the brand architecture and serves as a guide for future creative efforts, whether they are led by our agency or another group.
  • Manifesto – This is a one- to two-page written document that helps bring the outputs of the workshop to life in a more emotional way. Many of our clients have turned the manifesto into a video to serve as a rallying cry/internal inspiration for their employees.
  • Brand Touchpoint Analysis (optional) – This is a list of the primary touchpoints (typically 15-50) that are involved in communicating the brand to the customer (name, logo, website, business collateral, etc.). We work together to give every touchpoint a high, medium, or low ranking so we have a game plan moving forward for prioritizing any updates needed to align the touchpoints with the positioning. This is a document that is very helpful to some clients and not to others, so that’s why we list it as optional.

Brand Truth Research & Workshop Process

Discovery

  • We analyze the brand/competition/category through primary and secondary research
  • We confidentially interview key stakeholders to get an idea of what they believe the brand is all about, key areas of opportunity, and challenges
  • This information is put into a presentation format that will open the workshop as a way to level set the room

Day of the Workshop (typically a six- to eight-hour, electronic-free day)

  • We will systematically walk the group (consisting of a handful of agency people along with roughly ten key brand stakeholders) through a series of brainstorms that include examples from other brands.

    Throughout the day, we will uncover as a group:

    • Brand Truth – Why the brand exists (emotional, rather than functional, purpose)
    • Differentiating Characteristic – The ONE thing the brand does better than anyone else in the category; aspirational in nature
    • Brand Persona – Three primary human personality traits of the brand which serve to guide the tone and tenor of external marketing efforts
    • Customer – Psychographic description of our target customer
    • The Club – Affiliation strategy; what it says to be a customer of the brand

Workshop Outputs

Within the month following the workshop we will provide the outputs listed below. The outputs are intended for internal purposes only and provide guidance for the brand moving forward.

  • Narrative – This is a detailed document that unpacks and gives context to where we landed for the five categories brainstormed during the workshop. It’s especially valuable for future stakeholders to understand what the brand is all about, even if they couldn’t be part of the workshop.
  • Overarching Brand Strategic Brief – This document articulates the brand architecture and serves as a guide for future creative efforts, whether they are led by our agency or another group.
  • Manifesto – This is a one- to two-page written document that helps bring the outputs of the workshop to life in a more emotional way. Many of our clients have turned the manifesto into a video to serve as a rallying cry/internal inspiration for their employees.
  • Brand Touchpoint Analysis (optional) – This is a list of the primary touchpoints (typically 15-50) that are involved in communicating the brand to the customer (name, logo, website, business collateral, etc.). We work together to give every touchpoint a high, medium, or low ranking so we have a game plan moving forward for prioritizing any updates needed to align the touchpoints with the positioning. This is a document that is very helpful to some clients and not to others, so that’s why we list it as optional.

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