brand-discovery

name	brand-discovery
description	Use when a brand needs to discover or articulate its identity through structured multi-session interviews. Covers purpose, positioning, audience, personality, voice, narrative, and founder-brand tension across 8 modules using laddering, 5 Whys, and projective techniques. Produces a resumable session with disk-persisted state and a master brandbook (90_SYNTHESIS.md).

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).

Module sequence

File	Label	Frameworks used
10_purpose-why.md	Purpose / Why	Sinek Golden Circle, Lencioni
20_positioning.md	Positioning	Dunford "Obviously Awesome", Moore template
30_audience-niche.md	Audience & Niche	Baker "Business of Expertise", ICP
40_personality-archetype.md	Personality & Archetype	Mark & Pearson 12 archetypes, J. Aaker 5 dims
50_voice-tone.md	Voice & Tone	Brand voice guidelines
60_narrative-story.md	Narrative / Story	Neumeier trueline, brand story arc
70_founder-tension.md	Founder Brands vs Studio Brand	Enns "Win Without Pitching"
90_SYNTHESIS.md	Master Brandbook	Kapferer prism, Aaker brand system

Complete modules in order. Honour a user request to jump modules and note the skip in state.json.

State write protocol

After each module reaches saturation or done status, write two files:

Module file at modules/{moduleFile} — full Raw and Synthesis content.

state.json — a lightweight checkpoint so a later session can resume. Update completedModules, inProgressModule, nextModule, lastUpdated. Schema:

{
  "session": "{brand_name}-brand-{YYYY-MM}",
  "outputPath": "{path_to_brand_identity_directory}",
  "completedModules": [],
  "inProgressModule": "10_purpose-why.md",
  "nextModule": "20_positioning.md",
  "participants": ["founder-A"],
  "lastUpdated": "{ISO-8601}"
}

After writing, confirm: "Module X saved. State updated. Next: Y."

Terminal module (90_SYNTHESIS.md): when writing the final synthesis, set inProgressModule to "90_SYNTHESIS.md" and nextModule to null in state.json. After writing, set completedModules to include "90_SYNTHESIS.md", then set inProgressModule to null — leaving it populated would cause a future resumption to treat the completed brandbook as still in progress. Confirm: "Brandbook complete. All modules saved."

Multi-founder mode

When more than one founder participates, write each founder's answers to founders/{participant}.md instead of the main module files. Validate the participant name before writing: accept only alphanumeric characters and hyphens (e.g. founder-a, anna); reject names containing path separators (/, \, ..) or special characters. Validate moduleFile against the enumerated module sequence (10 through 90 only). Validate outputPath to ensure it is an absolute path within the project directory — reject relative paths and paths that escape via .. segments. After all founders complete a module, run a reconciliation pass: summarise convergences and divergences in the module file, flag "productive tensions" for the group alignment workshop.

Anti-Patterns

• Starting without reading state first. Every session must open by checking for existing module files and state.json. Skipping this loses all continuity from prior sessions.
• Asking multiple questions at once. One question at a time is not optional — lists produce checklist answers, not real insight.
• Moving to Synthesis before saturation. If the last two probes produced no new information, the module is done. If they did — it isn't.
• Skipping multi-founder reconciliation. When multiple stakeholders are involved, individual interviews must complete before reconciliation. Discussing the brand collectively first introduces anchoring bias.
• Treating this as a one-shot session. This skill is designed for multiple sessions. Rushing to 90_SYNTHESIS.md in one conversation produces shallow output.

Related Skills

• competitive-platform-analysis — after brand-discovery establishes the positioning brief, use this to scope and categorise the competitor set.
• brand-voice (HCP) — if the brand-discovery voice-and-tone module needs a separate, source-derived writing-style profile.