Building A Brand – Defining The Customer, Episode 2

What is a discovery session? How do you develop a brand strategy? What questions do you ask a client? How do you create user profiles and user personas? How do you identify your customers? Why must you define a strategy before you design?

The discovery meeting is the backbone of the entire project. It is what defines the brand strategy moving forward. In episode 2 of Building a Brand, Matthew and Ben from Blind sit down with Josh and Crysten from Hamilton Family Brewery to define Hamilton’s brand strategy moving forward.

In this meeting, they'll define the goals of the business, identify the customers driving revenue, create user personas, and define the brand attributes. All of these exercises will help the branding team at Blind, develop a successful strategy for the business.

0:55 – Episode 1 recap
1:18 – What is a discovery session?
2:00 – What's everyone's goals?
3:20 – Excercise 1: Defining the Goals
6:48 – Excercise 2: Identifying the Customers
9:20 – Busines 101: Know your customers
9:41 – Excercise 3: User Profile 1
13:26 – Excercise 3: User Profile 2
17:21 – Excercise 4: Defining the Brand
20:20 – When the client gets stuck
20:43 – Ben Burns pulls an Ace out of his sleeve
21:18 – Looking at Stylescapes
22:33 – Discovery session recap. Next steps
23:30 – Reflecting on the discovery session
24:31 – On the next episode of Building a Brand

“Building a Brand” is a series where we take you behind the scenes as Blind helps to rebrand Hamilton Family Brewery. Hamilton Family Brewery was founded in 2014 by husband and wife team Josh and Crysten Hamilton. Since then, their little brewery in Rancho Cucamonga, California has ballooned in size because of its growing popularity. The Hamilton's are looking to take the next step into retail, but Josh, who has been doing the design for the company up to this point, does not feel confident in creating a recognizable, stand out brand for that next phase.

In this series, we'll give you a behind the scenes look at this process, from start to finish. You'll see how ideas are shaped and take the form of a new identity system, packaging, messaging, website, and ultimately see the brand launch.

Follow us:
@mrbenburns
@matthewencina
@thefuturishere

Learn more about Hamilton Family Brewery:

#BuildingABrandShow #BrandStrategy #Discovery #TheFutur #MatthewEncina #MrBenBurns #BizOfDesign

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—
Host– Chris Do
Content Director– Matthew Encina
Cinematography– Aaron Szekely, Mark Contreras, Ricky Lucas, Stewart Schuster, Jona Garcia
Editor– Stewart Schuster, Kevin Ramlal
Social Team: Elle Money, Alex Burlui
Typefaces: Futura, DIN, Helvetica Neue, Calibre
Futur theme song— Adam Sanborne

[parthsoni]

I'm 18 year old logo designer and I have started my career by designing logos on contests. I've been doing that for 5 years but after understanding the process I feel obsessed to work directly with clients. I believe this series will change my life. Lots of love from India.

[shivanidesai]

@24:16
When Josh says' "I think we have a product that deserves better representation".
That's the best sign of success for a designer working with a client, I feel. So gratifying.

Absolutely cannot wait to see the next episode. Kudos to the team for bringing in this series! Very very grateful :)

[sarahsw]

So great "sitting in" on this session. Nice job Mr. Ben Burns, for thinking on your feet! 👏 I think that helped your client to get into the groove of talking about design. It can be tricky to put these ideas into words. Matthew's years of speaking about design really shows. Thank you all times a billion!

[notaspretty]

This series is intuitive, smart, and thorough. I especially love the honest commentary from Ben and Matthew. You guys are voicing my internal dialog when sitting with clients--it's is nice to know that I'm not the only one that seems to be rolling with the punches. Keep at it. You're awesome.

[mattwatsonguitar]

This series is filling the void for me after Game of Thrones ended. Keep it up!

[schanemassey]

I watched this while sitting in the county jail. (Don't ask how I got a phone in here) I'm on my last 2 months for a probation violation but i'm taking notes on all this stuff. As soon as I get out i'm putting it all into play! Building my brand from the ground up. Thanks Guys for keeping me motivated and inspired to get through!

[dailybobo]

Always wondered what a proper meeting with a client looked like. You guys did an amazing job documenting it and I learned a lot about what questions to ask myself when coming up with my own personal branding. Amazing video!^^

[TristanBailey]

Good pace on this one to be able to think along with you and them. Showing that the client needs time to think and roll up the profiles without just having them. Not sure they didn’t just pick their own self or friend though. But with the things named makes next stages better and can adjust them.

[halokosovo]

This channel changed my view completely to design. Thank you for keeping millions of heads clear off their asses!

[IntermarkGroupAgency]

It's great to see how you followed your intuition to get up and move around after they were drawing blanks. "You have to have something to react to visually instead of developing the words out of thin air"-well put

[Eviebopper]

I've asked so many Clients to name brands they identify with and they rarely can think of anything, that was an amazing tip to use visuals to draw out the kinds of things they want to emulate.

[NRDimapilis]

Been a futur fan for more than a year now, been applying what ever i can pick up on your videos and apply them as well. i currently work in a digital creatives agency here in the Philippines and currently got promoted as managing director and all i can say in the past 2 weeks being in this position is. this is such a big challenge for me at the same time it fuels me since it challenges and pushes me out of my comfort zone

[cesarcastro]

I watch every EP with pen and paper handly to write down every single step and apply it for my new born business around digital marketing and graphic design. I love @TheFutur

[flamingorock]

This was great. I think this series is going to be a hit. The way it's executed is perfect. Being able to see the relationship between client and designer and the whole process is so insightful and so much fun to watch. Good job guys.

[mayraortiz]

Hey @Matthew Encina and @MrBenBurns! Like everyone else, this brand process series is amazing and was exactly what I was looking for. I'm a huge fan of The Futur and I always put into practice your tips and they always bring me great results. I've been designing for a while now and have worked my way into doing brand strategy without even noticing I was doing it. For the past year, I've noticed I'm doing more marketing than design and any design project I get, I send it to other freelancers. I've been studying a lot of brand strategy and it's an area I want to improve in. Definetely when it comes to finding who my clients target audience is. Right now, I have a huge client that they hired me as a sub contractor to run the marketing department for their custom homes company. I just had a brain storming meeting with all the big dogs you can say, and I don't think they knew exactly how to describe a demographic of their persona or client. The only thing they said is a homeowner that can afford the custom homes they sell. I would like to know how you research to find the target audience? Where do you go? What tools do you use? I want to provide them 2-3 ideas of their potential customer. Sorry for the lengthy comment!

[chaianddogs]

God help me, you guys are great (Matt & Ben) I am loving up'ing my knowledge on branding process (although we all roll differently ) but this is so amazing, it helps I further my skill with detailed consults aka discovery with my own clients - especially the MOST important questions to ask a client in regards to their business & ultimately getting to the HEART at who they are, why they do what they do, what moves do they want to make in their market & what makes their customer tick! THIS IS LIFE thank you! Saturday night & I am putting together another proposal & if this one is also accepted that will be booked out for June! You guys are a hugeeee part of my education &, lovepicking up what you put down xx Loz Chai (Australia) xx

[timothytumwine]

Exceptional series, I think this is what youtube was made for, thanks guys for the insight. Keep em coming.

[tylerdolbin]

I love the series and videos thus far! Keep up the great work and I look forward to watching the upcoming videos in the series to see how you guys are able to help the Hamilton Family Brewery achieve their goals.

[blau]

Amazing content, thank you! I like how Ben openly talks about being nervous, he hides it really well.

[LongTran-wsoi]

I feel like I've totally been changed my mind on how to building a brand! Thank you so much for your great work and share!