Brand workshop

What it is for

Ask five people what the company should sound like and you may get five reasonable answers. The useful part of the workshop is finding where those answers would lead to different work.

This is our fork of Bruno Bergher's Startup Brand Sprint. The exercises make room for people to think before the discussion starts, then bring their choices together. Leave with a few decisions you can use in the writing and design, and examples of what those decisions rule out.

What the brand is — values, attributes, and anchors.

Tools, in order

Here is where each tool helps. Use an equivalent you already work with if it fits the task and your project’s access requirements.

1. 01

   Before the session

   Notion · Paper or a shared workshop board

   Gather current communication and examples of what feels right or wrong for the organization. Put the decision you need on the first page. Agree on recording, transcription, access, and retention with everyone before starting; handwritten notes are a valid alternative.

   Carry forward A brief, a prepared board, and an agreed capture method.

2. 02

   In the room

   Notion AI Meeting Notes · Paper or a shared workshop board · Phone camera

   Use the recorder to support listening, not to replace a facilitator. Translate chosen values into observable behaviors and examples; preserve competing interpretations. Write decisions and disagreements visibly; photograph the boards with permission. Pause recording whenever someone asks.

   Carry forward Authorized source notes, a transcript if agreed, and labeled board photos.

3. 03

   After the session

   Claude, ChatGPT, or Grok · Notion

   Check speaker names, quotations, numbers, and apparent agreements against the sources. Ask an assistant to draft a brand brief with decision criteria, language examples, and unresolved choices, with a source ID for each decision and a separate list of open questions. Have participants correct the record before using it as a brief.

   Carry forward a brand brief with decision criteria, language examples, and unresolved choices

Review the work with partners

We make and revise the work with Claude, ChatGPT, or Grok, then put selected versions on our Studio project pages for partners to review. Check the preview before sharing it. You can do the same with a private prototype or shared document; use a workspace that can access the files you need.

Name the version, say what changed, and ask the question you need answered. Keep feedback with that version and discuss conflicting requests before making the next changes. Confirm approval separately, and keep confidential work in a restricted space.

Delegate the routine work

Turn verified notes into a source-linked table, label board photos, or format the agreed action list. Give the agent only the relevant excerpts and a completed example.

Interpreting disagreement, choosing a direction, and deciding what participants actually approved stay with the facilitator and decision owner.

Sequence prompts, then delegateChoose a model for the design task

Prepare the room

2 × 90 min

Every brand stakeholder should take part. If the team fits in a room, get them all in there. If it's larger, get the people who express the brand day-to-day: designers, marketers, executives, salespeople, recruiters. Bring whoever demonstrates interest; you want motivated people brainstorming.

Don't do this alone. You'll end up with a limited perspective. The more diverse the perspectives, the better the output. Large groups move slower and go less deep; pick your tradeoffs.

• Schedule a 90-minute block for the first session in a room with whiteboards or foam boards.
• Plenty of colorful sticky notes (at least 40 per person) and Sharpies for everyone. No fine-point pens: ideas must read from a distance.
• Snacks are handy. Set a timer for 10-minute intervals to instill urgency.

Step 1 · 30–45 min

Values & attributes brainstorm

Reinforce the rules: there are no bad ideas, and be additive to other people's ideas. Start writing random adjectives on stickies: words ('simple', 'exclusive') or short expressions ('gender neutral', 'on your terms') that could describe the brand. Say each idea out loud as it lands on the table, so others can hear it and build on it.

People will stick to "good" adjectives: smart, professional. Those are acceptable but tend to be generic, which doesn't help differentiate a brand. Include controversial or silly ideas just to get the discussion going: 'complex', 'hard', 'expensive', 'aggressive', 'powerful', 'for dummies', 'rough'. They often cause people to write down the opposing notion, or something in between, which leads to interesting discussions later.

Keep people generative and on topic: no discussion of what works yet. When ideas slow down, run another 10-minute round; don't stop until two full minutes pass with no new ideas. The silence can be helpful.

Step 2 · 30–45 min

Yes and no

Write Yes and No on opposite sides of the board. As a group, place every sticky: yes means "this could describe our brand", no means no. The facilitator moves the stickies; everyone's participation is encouraged.

The discussions during this step are the most important part of the process. There will be plenty of disagreement, which is healthy, but it needs to be sorted out. Stickies might start on one side and move to the other; that's why we use them. When you hit a wall, deconstruct the meaning of the word:

This takes the rest of the session. A few unresolved disagreements are fine, up to five or six adjectives. If you have a large "maybe" group, you probably haven't gotten to the bottom of it.

You should be exhausted at this point; call it a day. Document the board: photos are good, transcribing each word is ideal. Keep yes and no separate.

When a word gets stuck

• Find a close synonym — a specific word can carry implicit meaning an equivalent removes.
• Use an antonym — if the opposite clearly belongs on one side, the original places itself.
• Separate the brand from the product — a product can be easy to use without ease being a core brand value.
• Separate the brand from the customer — a $5,000 seat doesn't mean the company should be perceived as exclusive.
• Skip it and come back later — a word discussed later might clarify the disagreement.

Step 3 · 30–45 min

Affinity mapping

Second session, same room, the yes stickies from before. Spread them on the table, then start placing them on the board at random, grouping related adjectives close together. It feels awkward for the first three to five minutes. Then the team starts spotting similarities and tight groupings emerge.

You'll probably see groups like Presentation (visual ideas about style, color, light, polish), Tone (communication-related adjectives: voice, authoritativeness, friendliness), and Personality (human-like attributes: expert-like, teacher-like, childlike), plus groups about values: abstract, almost philosophical notions that will be unique to the company's mission.

Organize everything in up to 60 minutes. As groups become clear, write a descriptive name above each on the board or on a different-color sticky.

Step 4 · 30–45 min

Distilling into values

The most analytical step. Transpose each grouping into a hierarchical list in a document: titles and content. If a group doesn't feel unique to the brand, ignore it. Abstract groups go under a Values header; then, with the team, sum up what each cluster encompasses: safe, secure, trustworthy → Secure; easy, empowering, low barrier to entry → Easy.

Take another pass and coalesce each group further. Aim to limit each header to four items so the result is actionable.

These attributes by themselves can still be ambiguous. That's where brand comparisons help. Use the last ten minutes to list sentences in the format "More like ___ than ___", filled in with other brands. Brands in the broadest sense: well-known public entities with consistent perception, ideally not in your industry. Celebrities, cities, typical dishes all count. Get at least fifteen; thirty if possible.

Comparison examples

• More like Google than Apple
• More like Toyota than BMW
• More like Tag Heuer than Swatch
• More like George Clooney than Ryan Gosling
• More like burgers than sushi

What comes out

• One document: the brand values, concrete ways those values present themselves, and comparisons that anchor the brand relative to others.
• That document becomes a structural brief for establishing or refining the brand identity, used internally for guidelines, direction, benchmarking, and generation. Share it with a designer and you can expect designs that fit the brand; work from it with marketing and it's easy to define what language and tone to use.

Leave the next person enough to work with

Write down what was decided and why, with links to the notes or examples behind it. Keep the open questions alongside the decisions. Someone joining the project should be able to tell which is which without asking you.

Project: [name]
Input sources: [references and permission]
Approved decisions: [choice, rationale, owner]
Assumptions: [what remains untested]
Open questions: [question, owner, due date]
Acceptance checks: [observable pass/fail criteria]
Next step: [person or workflow]
Approval: [name, date, version]

Before you move on

• Can someone who was not in the room understand the result?
• Are claims supported by evidence, with uncertainty labeled?
• Has the responsible person approved the decisions—not just received the document?
• Have you removed private information and checked rights to any assets?

If the summary says something was agreed and you cannot find that agreement in the notes, ask the person who decides before carrying it into the next task.