Brand immersion time with a new client is one of the most exciting times in the branding process. At Fierce, we have trusted tools that we use in these moments of discovery that are tried and true and that we continue to perfect. They help us ask the right questions that lead to excellent dialogue and wonderful insight every time we sit with a new client. One of my favorite questions that always starts an engaged conversation with the executive team is “What is your only-ness as a brand?” Often times when we are done with our brand immersion time and we spend time summarizing what we have learned together, the client will say “I don’t know why we haven’t done this sooner.” One of my favorite comments was at one of my most recent brand immersions where the client said “We have sat around this board table as an executive team so many times but we have never been able to talk like this and have these kinds of productive discussions about our brand.” That is the ultimate success–clarity and facilitating focus and growth through this process.
I love this new brand deck concept. It simplifies the process literally into black and white and guides the often complex and complicated exploration of defining who you are as a brand and why it matters with simple words, concepts and ideas.
Scott Thomas, former design lead for the 2008 Obama campaign and founder of Chicago design and technology studio Simple. Honest. Work, is behind the idea and describes the concept of the cards in the video below.
“I think one of the most important things with starting any company, or any brand—the sort of core characteristics that define who you are—even if you’re focusing on the visual perspective of that brand, communicating certain attributes is key,” he says. “We really need a simple tool to be able to determine exactly what those core characteristics were.”
Here is a video with Scott Thomas describing the inspiration behind this project:
