Brand Messaging Exercises Help

[stephanie mcgrath]

Hi there,

I'm working with a creative director on a Brand Messaging workshop for a new client. I have a few messaging exercises up my sleeve (including an adjective card sort), I'm just wondering if anybody else has tried different exercises or activities to really get the client engaged and zero in on the right tone as well as key messages.

Any help is appreciated!

[Kenneth Yau]

I use an adapted version of the product box innovation game for a lot of workshops: http://innovationgames.com/product-box/

Essentially, I get participants to design a box as if their service were a physical product that could be stacked on shelves.

I use this to draw out key messages, help develop a hierarchy of messaging, get stakeholders to think what the essential information is from the point of view of a customer, and so on.

I find it particularly useful for getting stakeholders to think about a home page in terms of limited attention span, rather than a theoretically infinite area onto which you can throw all manner of stuff to try and satisfy every stakeholder. So after getting individuals to design the product box, I get them to do it in teams.

Apart from being a fun exercise, there's a physical artefact that each participant can keep at their desks, which serves as a reminder.

Regards,

Ken

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Content Strategy" group.
> To post to this group, send email to content...@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to contentstrate...@googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/contentstrategy?hl=en.

[Rich Thompson]

You can do a card sort exercise with actual brand logos. Coke or
Pepsi, FedEx or UPS, BofA or Wells Fargo, Amazon or Zappos, etc. If
the client is multinational it can very interesting to include non-US
brands.

Rich Thompson
@richtextfr

[stephanie mcgrath]

Thanks for these! For the brand logos - is that meant to show what they do and don't like in a logo?

[Margot Bloomstein]

I've also had success with a Venn diagram exercise: on a whiteboard, have participants add all the terms that describe what they offer in one circle. You'll get stuff like security, independence, comfort, reliability--similar to what you'd see in the card sort. 

In the other circle, ask them to brainstorm all the things their audience wants; draw from user research and personas if you can. You might hear things like "more time in the day" or "job security." 

Then focus on the overlap, moving terms as needed. This helps to focus on what's really important to your client and their customers.

Margot Bloomstein

Appropriate, Inc.

Brand & content strategy consultant

617 921 4550 and www.twitter.com/mbloomstein

[Rich Thompson]

It is a way of getting their gut reactions to the brands, covering
everything from personality to tone of voice. Usually ask a question
along the lines of "is your brand more like X or more like Y? When
they pick one, I ask why. Answers are often very interesting, ranging
from "I don't like their ads" to "their a great company" to "the color/
design of the logo is awful/cool". I find it most useful with
industrial companies that aren't very familiar with brands and
branding and who don't have a very strong brand to begin with. Does
that help?

[stephanie mcgrath]

Thanks!

[Matt Moore]

Lots of good ideas here. One issue you might what to consider is brand differentiation. When asked to describe their brand, lots of managers talk about their category (e.g. laptops, food retail, IT consulting) rather than their brand.

You might ask them what (positive) words are used for them but not their competitors. You might also visit their competitors websites to see what language they use about themselves and see how these tally up.

Ideally you'd get the voice of the customer as well (which could involve extensive market research or could simply mean looking at a couple of reviews on the web).

[the Baraness]

I'm experiencing the same issue with internal and external alignment  regarding brand identity and differentiation. Managers keep saying, "we are a one-stop shop" and salespeople say, "we're a leads leader."  Our chief stakeholders hire outside firms which simply collate / gather survey results and focus group results. Employees lack cohesion and brand bonding/identity. A solution I've proposed: Empower the people before soliciting external experts. Make employees feel like experts. Give them vision boards/collages ala Pinterest to build; card-sorting exercises and as suggested earlier -- interactive games. Also, consider this tool/resource from Nancu Duarte, a brand thought leader and author of Resonate and Slide:ology: http://www.duarte.com/training/

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Content Strategy" group.
To post to this group, send email to content...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to contentstrate...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/contentstrategy?hl=en.

--
"I do mind, the Dude minds. This will not stand, ya know, this aggression will not stand, man."
  -- The BL

[Joanna Pieters]

I've been putting together a workshop session getting teams to create a shop window and store layout to help with identifying key messages. I'm hoping it can achieve similar things to Ken's modified innovation box, which sounds a really good tool.

Ken, a very practical question. Do you start out with a flat box template, or give them a constructed box already? What size do you find works best to get everyone engaged and still sit on the desk afterwards?

Thanks
Joanna

Sent from my iPhone

[Kenneth Yau]

Joanna,

I get participants to construct the box before starting to decorate it. In terms of size, I go for about cereal box size and shape but sometimes it's dependent on what happens to be available at the stationery shop. I would advise you avoid a cube shape, purely because you want an obvious front, back and side to draw out a hierarchy.

Hope that helps.

Ken

[Joanna Pieters]

Thanks, Ken - I'm going to give this a try.

[stephanie mcgrath]

do you have any images of finished boxes so I can get a sense of the finished product? I really love this idea, just want to be sure I know how to set it up if I'm going to arrange it.

[clay.delk]

I found this great article from Harvard Business Review a few years
ago called "Building Your Company's Vision." It's more about ideology
and vision statements, but there are some great insights for branding,
as well. It does include some useful exercises, but the real value is
in the way they talk about vision, purpose, etc. There are some great
examples of the core beliefs of 3M, Sony, Walmart, HP, Nike and all
the other classically successful brands, which make great starting
points for the discussion. I've found them really useful in explaining
why this all matters to the clients.

A few excerpts:
"To identify the core values of your own organization, push with
relentless honesty to define what values are truly central. If you
articulate more than five or six, chances are that you are confusing
core values (which do not change) with operating practices, business
strategies, or cultural norms (which should be open to change).
Remember, the values must stand the test of time. After you’ve drafted
a preliminary list of the core values, ask about each one, If the
circumstances changed and penalized us for holding this core value,
would we still keep it? If you can’t honestly answer yes, then the
value is not core and should be dropped from consideration."

One great exercise they list is The Five "Why's":
"One powerful method for getting at purpose is the five whys. Start
with the descriptive statement We make X products or We deliver X
services, and then ask, Why is that important? five times. After a few
whys, you’ll find that you’re getting down to the fundamental purpose
of the organization.
The five whys can help companies in any industry frame their work in a
more meaningful way. An asphalt and gravel company might begin by
saying, We make gravel and asphalt products. After a few whys, it
could conclude that making asphalt and gravel is important because the
quality of the infrastructure plays a vital role in people’s safety
and experience; because driving on a pitted road is annoying and
dangerous; because 747s cannot land safely on runways built with poor
workmanship or inferior concrete; because buildings with substandard
materials weaken with time and crumble in earthquakes. From such
introspection may emerge this purpose: To make people’s lives better
by improving the quality of man-made structures."

Anyway, I found a link to the pdf here, worth a read if you have time!
http://oxygenfororganizations.com/wp-content/uploads/Building-Your-Companys-Vision.pdf

Good luck!

[Robert Rose]

Hello everyone....

I'm coming late to this party - but thought I'd add an exercise that I've
found to be really fantastic in my work. It's actually a combination of
exercises and works best if you have a slightly larger group with a bit more
time - all focused around one BIG "question" or "goal".... (E.G. What Is Our
Company's Main Value) Any of these can be done singularly - but they're
really fun when done in combination..

Start with the 5 Why's
Everybody comes to the room with a big idea or answer to the question (a
value statement, how the company can change the world etc....). What is it
that they believe? Then you split everybody into pairs. Then each pair
takes turn asking each other - 5 Why's... In other words if I say.. "company
X provides the best twinkies in the world" - the person across from me says
"why is that important" (or "why will that change the world").... No
judgement.,. And (if possible) no help is given to the answerer... Trust me,
after the second or third "why" - the answerer is digging deep for reasons
(yes, this is the point). After the 5th "Why" - the pair then work to put
that 5th why into a value or brand statement. It's almost inevitably a
MUCH bigger statement than they ever dreamed it was (e.g. change the
world/industry type stuff). Then repeat with the other person - so that
each person comes out with a BIG Why!

Go to the World Café
Then.... everybody takes their Big Why Statement and gets split into small
groups.... if you have a large group (e.g. 20+) you might have four groups
of 5 etc... whatever makes sense for your group... Each takes a Large
sheet of paper - and writes their Big Why on it... They share ideas, and
riff and draw and find the commonalities between their why's... Only ONE
RULE here... No "No's".... No one is allowed to poo poo others ideas...
Every Idea has to start with the "Yes and..." type of attitude... After 10
minutes here (it should be a timed exercise) then all but one of each group
(one stays as host) gets up and moves to another group).... They take what
they've learned in their previous group and perhaps (not a rule) apply it to
the other group. The host in each group catches the new people up to what
happened in the previous... Rotate this a couple of times depending on the
size of your group.... By the way... the host in each group MOVES... So each
time there is a switch - there's a new host... By the end of switching a
few times the goal is that the last HOST draws a concluding statement at the
center of their large piece of paper... The concluding statement should
(at least) Have a verb and an object (e.g. Driving Happiness - or Creating
World Peace).... But the last host should also have a supporting argument
(from all the notes and his/her experience) that supports that statement.

Then....

Questions/Challenges
Again depending on the size of the group - the group then decides on two or
three of the Statements to tackle.... (it could be ALL of them if the group
is small)... The Host (whoever is running the exercise) should attempt
with the groups help to summarize the statements into a Brand Statement - or
a general Overview of the statement... Once you have these - and again it
could be all or just a few of them (for example, I did this with a group of
50 people and as you might expect we had to cull it down from 50 Why
Statements - to 10 overall statements to about 5 we were going to work on).
The idea then is to split into as many groups as you have statements - each
group takes a statement and spends the next 20-30 minutes brainstorming BOTH
what is already happening and what needs to happen to make this statement
TRUE in the company... and also what challenges might the company expect to
make this true (these are both world challenges as well as inside
challenges.... Then, after 20 minutes... Each group presents to one other
group... After the presentation, the other group asks probing questions
(have you considered this.. or what about this challenge)... the presenting
group IS NOT allowed to answer any questions out loud... just take them in,
write them down - and then the presenting group becomes the questioning
group etc... Then take ANOTHER 20 minutes to let the group address the
questions raised...

Then finally...

Presentations...
Each group presents their brand statement and the solutions and challenges
that need to occur to get that brand statement to be true.... Everybody
laughs, gets excited and applauds for the other group...

The keys here are the following:
1. You start out with however many BIG IDEAS as you have people... If you
have 20 people in this group.. You'll have 20 Big WHY's...
2. You'll get that down to some subset of Combined big ideas... Again with
twenty people you'll probably end up with 5 or 6 Big Brand Statements
3. You'll get that down into a smaller (let's say 2 Group proposed) Value
statements that can represent the whole brand...
4. And, a pretty good SWOT analysis of each of those statements...

The wonderful part is - that ALL of that work is valuable... None of it
should get thrown away... The initial Why statements can go on stickies that
serve to support later initiatives (and exercises) - and all the "side work"
is valuable to the organizers and the group....

This is also a fun exercise to do outside of Branding - and just on things
like "how to solve world peace"... Kind of thing...

And, finally.. If it sounds like too much.... Just introduce the 5 Why's
into any branding exercise.... it's a wonderful way to get beyond "features
and benefits" and into why this organization exists...

Hope some of that is helpful!

Cheers,

~rr

Robert Rose
Chief Troublemaker
Big Blue Moose
-----------------------------------
10153 Riverside Drive
Suite 419
Toluca Lake, CA 91602

p. (323) 230-0243
f. (323) 417-4906
www.bigbluemoose.net
Rob...@bigbluemoose.net

It’s All Possible!

Good luck!

--