A DAY IN THE INTUITIVE would be an apt name for a brand workshop that I have created and used throughout my career of helping brands to be more inspiring. It’s become a central part of what I do in my Brand consultancy at BrandDay.co

The first time it was used in its current form was to come up with the motivating positioning statement and point of view for a particular Nike technology, Nike Shox.

‘More Go’ became a strategic jumping off point for the brand and was also used as the brand’s strap line in communications.

I’ve used the brand exploration workshop since, in many contexts to let the informed intuition of a brand team flow unimpeded, and reveal hidden truths and potential in a brand.

My workshop is intentionally fast and provocative, diverging and converging thinking in a classic creative problem solving way, always aiming to drive deeply held instincts and intuitions to the surface. 

The methods I use combine many schools of thought including psychology, accelerated learning, leadership theory, semiotics and sports psychology.

There are three clear sections of activity, a lot of noise at some stages, and no preparation needed.

I ask people to get themselves out of the way of themselves, and let the brand turn up.

We capture what we discover, talk about it briefly, and move on.

We end our process of discovery in T.S. Eliot’s words, ‘back at the place we started, understanding it for the first time’.

This workshop expands thinking about a brand or an opportunity, and defines very specific action on how it needs to behave, and what it needs to do.

It is in tune with recent neuroscience research that says our sub-conscious brains and feelings and intuitions are more influential than many had thought in our decision making, than any rational processing we may consciously try to do.

In essence we feel, do and then think, rather than think, feel and then do.

The brand exploration day has been used for brands trying to occupy new positions, do better communications, understand their own brand models better, or make them more inspiring for themselves and agencies they work with. It’s helped brands explore white space opportunities, create sub-brands, move from being too functional to being more emotional, and it’s been used by challenger brands aiming to do bold and breakthrough innovation.

The day has helped an internal customer service department team create a sense of compelling identity to its internal customers, an entire company plan and execute a culture change, a zoo define the way it should behave digitally, and a pharma company try to understand how to talk about and launch a life changing vaccine worldwide.

Brands that have used it include Nike, Nestlé, Reckitt Benckiser, Wrigley, Westpac, Sanofi Pasteur and Coca-Cola.

The day is a proven way to fix things and invent new ideas for a brand - people come together and leave with a raised level of intuition which improves performance, and helps them understand and be excited by what needs to be done to create great things for a brand and its consumers.

Above all it’s a fast and dynamic day that gives a way to be clear and inspired about the most important things for a brand - what’s great about it, what it’s here to do for people, what really matters to it at its essential core, how it should behave and express itself, and what it needs to do for people, so it inspires them to listen to what it has to say.

for more information, call me on +61450 406 316, email me at errol@BrandDay.co or contact me on twitter at @errolflanagan