---
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).
origin: community
---

# 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:

```json
{
  "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"` and 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` (ECC) — if the brand-discovery voice-and-tone module needs a separate, source-derived writing-style profile.