brand-discovery

Brand Discovery

Use this skill to conduct a structured, adaptive brand identity interview. The goal is a complete 90_SYNTHESIS.md — a master brandbook the organization can use to brief designers, writers, and external collaborators.

The interview runs across multiple sessions. Capture answers to disk as you go so that no elicited knowledge is lost when a conversation ends, and so a later session can resume from where the last one stopped.

When to Activate

• A brand is being created, repositioned, or needs a written identity reference to brief collaborators.
• Multiple sessions are expected — the conversation will span days or weeks.
• Multiple founders or stakeholders need individual interviews before a reconciliation pass.
• The user wants a structured, repeatable method rather than an ad-hoc chat.
• Existing brand documentation is scattered, implicit, or founder-dependent and needs to be made explicit.

Session start protocol

On every activation, perform these steps before asking any interview question:

1. Check for prior progress. Look for an existing set of module files and a state.json checkpoint in the project's brand-identity directory. If none exists, this is a fresh start — confirm the brand name, participants, and where to save the brand-identity files, then begin at the first module.
2. Read the current module file if one is in progress, and scan its Raw section for previously captured answers.
3. Report to the user in two or three sentences: which module we are in, its status, and what remains. Then ask: "Continue here, or switch module?"

Interview discipline

Apply these rules throughout every module:

1. One question at a time. Never present a list of questions.
2. After each answer: short paraphrase → one deepening probe OR close the thread if the topic is saturated. Never move on silently.
3. Laddering: for every "what" answer, follow with "Why does that matter to you?" until a core value surfaces (typically two to four iterations).
4. 5 Whys: for beliefs or positioning claims — push until the root reason, not the surface declaration, is on the table.
5. Detect thin answers: if generic, jargon-heavy, or vague, ask for one concrete example, a client story, or a number.
6. Projective techniques (use once per module to break a plateau):
   • "If the brand were a person, how would they walk into a room?"
   • Brand obituary: "If the organization closed in five years, what would customers miss? What would you regret not having said?"
   • Competitive contrast: "Name one peer you admire but would never want to become. What specifically makes them the wrong model?"
7. Saturation signal: when two consecutive probes produce no new information, summarise and close the module.
8. End of module: write a structured module file with two sections:
   • ## Raw — verbatim quotes and examples.
   • ## Synthesis — your interpretation, three candidate formulations, open questions, contradictions between participants. Then update the state.json checkpoint (see State protocol below).