The business and its audience
A brand project gets easier once that agreement exists. Capture disagreements, because they are often more useful than a quick consensus built from vague words.
- What does the business offer today, in words a new customer would understand?
- Which customers are the best fit, and which requests are outside scope?
- What problem causes a customer to look for this offer now?
- What do customers ask before they decide? Which answer is hardest to give clearly?
- Where does the brand need to show up: website, sales materials, packaging, email, or another surface?
Position and proof
- What alternatives does a buyer compare, including doing nothing or keeping the current provider?
- What is different about your method, scope, or operating model that a customer can observe?
- Which claims can you support with a permitted example, process, document, or result?
- Which words or claims should the brand avoid because they are inaccurate, regulated, or overused?
- What must someone understand before they can judge whether you are right for them?
Do not answer “we care more” unless you can name the behavior that makes care visible. What does the customer actually experience?
Voice and visual direction
- If the brand speaks directly to a customer, does it sound calm, urgent, technical, warm, formal, or conversational? Choose a few traits and give a real sentence for each.
- Which current words feel honest and useful? Which feel unlike the business?
- What must the design help people find or do, beyond looking recognizable?
- Which existing marks, colors, images, or materials are owned and usable? Which have rights or quality questions?
- What accessibility needs and content formats should the system support?
Decisions and implementation
- Who makes the final decision, who supplies facts, and who reviews legal or regulated claims?
- What has already been approved and should remain stable?
- What needs to change first, and what can wait?
- How will the team maintain the brand across new pages, campaigns, and documents?
- What would make you say the work succeeded, without inventing a metric you cannot measure?
Circle the answers that need evidence. Assign someone to resolve them before design or copy turns them into public promises. Use the homepage copy prompt when the offer and audience are clear. Read brand strategy if the answers expose a deeper positioning problem.