I’ve found myself sitting in a lot of workshops recently and since it’s something a lot of us have to do and more to the point sometimes have to run, I thought it might be worth sharing a couple of tricks and techniques I’ve come across so you can pass them off as your own 
First up, Simon Cowell as CEO…. Not ours, your brand’s. Yes, it’s related worlds but picking (strong) personalities (rather than categories or brands) and asking yourself what mission/role they would give your brand, how they’d define and treat the brand’s audience, what tone/imagery they’d use and what channels, gets you to some really interesting places and feels easier and more fun than other ways of doing similar things. Try it next time you’re doing a stretch session….
Next up, tennis… So here you have people/teams ‘serving’ ideas (in our case brand territories) at each other across a metaphorical net. One side is trying to land their idea and win with it, the other side is trying to slam it down. Basically each takes turns to try and find what’s great/weak about the idea, just a fun way of torture testing ideas- and even better if you have someone defending an idea they clearly hate….
Brand categories- less of a technique this, more of a philosophical question and one that’s already raised hackles in team binns…. What category does your brand really play in? Ikea as family experience rather than furniture anyone? Marmite as food enhancement not spreads? The olympics as global movement not a sporting event? Is it defined by what you actually sell/make as a brand or the space in which you’re useful and interesting to your consumers? And does it really matter as long as it helps you think about who or what you’re really competing with and how you can win?
And finally, because often getting started is the hardest bit of a workshop, a couple of nice warm-ups/ice-breakers.
List out some different categories- food, city, job, river, sports star, body part might work for starters- and then get one person to name a letter. Everyone then has 1 minute to write down something for each category beginning with that letter. You score 1 for each answer, 2 if no-one else had the same as you. Great for weeding out the intellectual snobs and pedants in the room.
And to finish up, a neat way of mixing people up a bit is to get them to line up round the room in order of anything you like- what month they were born, number of their house, whatever- they have to talk to each other to find out where they should be and they can’t all stick with their mates for the rest of the session. I’ve seen someone make the mistake of doing this by what time people had gone to bed the night before- turned out the clients had been out on a team piss-up so apart from causing a bit of speculation and a few red faces, it also meant you had a load of uselessly knackered people stuck together….
Let us know how you get on and pass on any favourite tricks of your own….
