The Game of Branding

There are two events in business that constantly amaze me. The first is the development of a new process. I am often energized by reading about, or being exposed to, a new way of doing something. Envisioning how this new process can improve my job performance— and the team’s performance—is, I believe, a key to moving forward. The second event is how many Kickstarter campaigns succeed and fail… and, sadly, how many I have discovered after they have closed. I have been privy to all three of those occasions.

The most recent too-late discovery that I stumbled upon was something called, “The Brand Deck,” by Chicago’s own Scott Thomas. His Kickstarter campaign goal was to fund a new branding discovery game. In any brand discovery meeting, the agency needs the client to be comfortable to open up so that authentic core ideas, phrases and values can be extracted. BatesMeron frequently uses wordplay and word association exercises during discoveries with clients for these exact reasons.

Scott Thomas has taken this process and invented a card game to take clients through a brand discovery: a deck of adjectives and directions to lead the client and team to that brand’s core values.

Thankfully, it was beyond fully funded—I’m looking forward to supporting The Brand Deck when it’s produced. Check it out: