Most companies already know what they sell. They do not know, or will not write down, what they refuse to be. That refusal is the useful part of a brand. Everything else is decoration that will be redesigned in eighteen months.
A punch is a useful test
We ask a simple question in the first week: if a competitor ran the same campaign tomorrow, would anyone notice it was not you? If the answer is no, there is no brand yet — there is a category costume. Colour will not fix it. A new serif will not fix it. A sentence that the company is not allowed to say might.
The work is unglamorous. Interviews with the people who will have to live with the result, not only the people who commissioned it. Competitive reading that is actually reading, not a slide of logos. An audit of the language already in use, including the sentences that should be retired.
Short on purpose
The strategy document we leave behind is short. If it cannot be held in a conversation, it will not be held in the work. Positioning, narrative, principles, the architecture of names if the company is actually several companies. Later work — ours included — is not allowed to contradict it.
That is the punch: a journalist, a new hire, a retailer in another city. If the brand folds, it was a look. If it holds, it was a decision.