I’ve run many brand workshops over the years both face to face and remotely with clients from all different sectors including pharmaceutical and interior design.
Further down I have shown two brand DNA overviews from two investments companies, one from Germany and the other from Saudi Arabia. Although both are similar in that the invest in people and companies their models are very different. These brand DNA’s were developed and agreed over a process of workshops and follow up meetings.
A typical workshop will cover and debate a competitor audit, brand-scape including colours, mapping the market, competitor visual language, investigating potential proposition style i.e. company focussed, customer focussed, cause focussed etc. I’ll also get clients to consider their brands differentiation, authenticity, consistency and understanding with the objective to figure out what the brand means to the client/business and ultimately what they want their brand to mean to their clients and prospect clients.
Once the above has been shared and debated I move onto to explaining and developing the brand DNA using the five ‘Ps’ to create and articulate these:
1. Purpose
Your passion and vision, and why you exist
2. Positioning
Your mission and market positioning and how you’ll achieve your Purpose
3. Principles
The values that define who you are
4. Personality
The personal attributes you share: how you ‘come across’
5. Proposition
Your go-to-market promise (and potential tagline)
In the majority of these workshops I get clients to discuss their differentiators (RTB’s) and unique selling points (USP’s). And additionally to these I get them to think about their tone of voice (TOV) asking them to consider their brand voice as a filter for the words they will use to write the copy for their marketing communications.
At the end of the workshop(s) I’ll remind the clients that their brand should be the combination of their positioning, principles, personality, and value proposition that helps to deliver the purpose of the business.
The brand DNA examples below were created through workshops and the process above.
