brand-discovery

# Brand Discovery Upstream of every brief, identity, and content plan. Discovery answers four questions: who the brand is for, what they need, who else is competing for that need, and where the brand could plausibly stand that competitors do not. --- ## When to use - The very first phase of a new brand or website project - Understanding an audience before any creative work begins - Mapping competitors and category dynamics - Surfacing the problem space the brand will operate in - Generating positioning territories before brief or ideation - When a creative brief was requested but the inputs are missing ## When NOT to use - The audience and category are already well-understood (jump to `creative-brief` or `brand-ideation`) - Validating a specific design or feature with users (use `usability-testing`) - Mapping the customer journey of an existing audience (use `journey-mapping`) - Generating brand names or visual directions (use `brand-ideation`) --- ## Required inputs - The product, service, or organization being branded - Whatever is already known about the audience and category (often very little) - Access to existing materials (sales calls, support tickets, reviews, analytics) - Any constraints (parent brand, regulatory, geographic) - A timeline (a 1-week discovery looks different than a 6-week one) --- ## The framework: 4 dimensions Discovery covers four dimensions. Each has its own sources, methods, and outputs. ### 1. Audience Who specifically does this ser...