First-time workshop questions always trigger blog posts. A new question from last week's Outside-In Brand Innovation Brainzooming Workshop at the Brand Strategy Conference is no exception.
The intimate size of the brand innovation workshop afforded a rare opportunity. The participants decided to select one brand from among the attendees with everyone working together on outside-in innovation exercises for that brand. Using this approach with the strategic thinking questions, we created a tremendous jumpstart for a B2C brand whose brand manager admitted struggling with differentiating itself from its closest direct competitor.
The group's responses to the strategic thinking questions and their brand innovation ideas filled many easel-sized Post-it pages.
7 Keys to Creating a Brand Toolkit for Brand Innovation
The voluminous poster-based output led one participant to ask what we do AFTER the strategic thinking questions and exercises to document the Brainzooming results.
That's something I don’t typically cover in workshops, especially since most involve participants working on exercises individually.
After reviewing the poster photos to begin documenting a session, here are the next strategic thinking questions we ask ourselves to create actionable report outs:
- What big ideas jump off the page (or stand out in our memories) as natural big messages?
- What are big ideas people overlooked that should be brought to the forefront?
- Are there big themes that emerge when we aggregate multiple ideas from across exercises?
- How do we best call attention to the expected deliverables and outcomes from the workshop?
- If we are putting results into a table or matrix, are there obvious dimensions for organizing them? Are there less obvious dimensions to organize them in new ways?
- Were there any ideas that took my breath away when they were suggested? (From our Brand Strategy Conference workshop, one attendee shared an insight that could be a million dollar idea for a differentiated brand position. Those ideas make me gasp when they emerge.)
- Are there interesting parts of ideas that emerged during different exercises that need to be put together?
Asking and answering strategic thinking questions such as these helps develop what we characterize as a “strategic brand toolkit.” A brand toolkit (in electronic form) provides a brand manager so many possibilities for ongoing brand innovation.
Does that sound like what your brand needs?
Let’s talk about making it happen for your brand! – Mike Brown
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