What is a Brand Sprint Workshop?

Before you dive in to creating a new brand identity, it’s worth pausing to think about what really needs to be in place for the work to succeed. A rebrand is one of the biggest investments a marketing leader will make, and the pitfalls are rarely in the creative output itself. More often, the problems come afterwards – when organisations aren’t ready to manage what’s been created. Here are some considerations before you begin.

Ownership and governance

Who will steward the brand day to day? Not at a strategic level, but in the detail. Making sure when new icons are introduced, their weights and proportions match; that photo treatments stay consistent; that “almost right” colours don’t creep into decks. Each of those things might feel close enough, but line them up against the brand you paid for and the drift is obvious. And the impact is rarely instant – it’s two years of small shifts that erode value. Brands should always evolve, and guidelines should be exactly that – guidelines – but making sure the integrity of the brand you've created remains in-tact is a full-time team job.

Brands should always evolve, and guidelines should be exactly that – guidelines – but protecting the integrity of the system is a full-time job.

Capacity

As much as you may want to have an identity that rivals your favourite brand, making sure what’s created is realistic for the team you have in place is paramount. If your internal team is small, the identity needs to be simple to manage, with assets and templates that can be applied quickly without heavy oversight. If the approach is too complex, it will quickly break down in practice. Be realistic and clear from the outset about how asset creation and updates will actually be handled, and approach the brand system accordingly.

Agency alignment

Beyond the work, is your chosen agency or studio people you can have the right conversations with? Branding involves decisions that are rarely black and white, and so clarity often comes from pushing through difficult discussions. The right fit isn’t about portfolio alone – it’s about whether you trust them to be in the room with you for those conversations.

Scope of Assets

Finally, be clear on scope. A rebrand is never just a website refresh. It reaches into email signatures, white papers, editorial grids, social templates, presentations, signage, even the way fonts are distributed internally. Each of those touchpoints has implications for time and resources. If you don’t map the full scope upfront, you risk discovering gaps mid-rollout when momentum has already slowed. Think about this upfront, and save yourself the headache later on.

Final thoughts

A rebrand lives or dies in how it is carried forward. The creative process produces the system, but it’s ownership, governance, team capacity, agency fit, and a clear view of scope that decide whether it stays intact in the years that follow. Put those things in place, and the work you invested in has the best chance of holding together and delivering value long after launch.

The Benefits Ladder

Other than making your business a tonne of money of course, your product exists for a reason –to help your customers solve a problem, to help their job to be done. As the saying goes, people don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill –they want a quarter-inch hole. If you're listing features instead of benefits, and talking more about how great your underlying technology is than the problem it solves, you're fundamentally missing the reason they're considering your product in the first place. This is where the benefits ladder comes in.

1. Features

Say “An AI dashboard with automated reports.”

What your product has or does. This is as basic as you can get. If you’re explaining your product at this level, you’re making the customer do the work of figuring out why it matters. Features are raw facts and they belong in technical specs, not as the headline of your website.

2. Functional benefits

Say “Cut reporting time by 10 hours a week.”

The practical outcome those features deliver. This is where website copy starts to work harder. Functional benefits make it clear what problem you solve right now, in a way that is measurable and concrete. They tell the customer not just what the feature is, but why the feature exists in the first place.

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Emotional benefits explain why the outcome matters, connecting the practical gain to human needs such as confidence, control, or peace of mind.

3. Emotional benefits

Say “Stay in control with zero last-minute panic.”

How the customer feels once an outcome of the feature is achieved. Functional benefits on their own can feel just that – functional – a time saved or a cost reduced. Emotional benefits translate it into lived experience. They explain why the outcome matters, connecting the practical gain to human needs such as confidence, control, or peace of mind. This is where website copy starts to resonate more, and where decisions are actually made.

4. Aspirational benefits

Say “Free your team to focus on strategy and innovation.”

The bigger goal that outcome unlocks. This is the top rung. Aspirational benefits tie your product to a customer’s wider ambitions. They are powerful if they feel earned, but dangerous if over-claimed. Do not open with them, build up to them.

In short: features describe, benefits persuade. Strong website copy helps climbs the ladder quickly, moving past features to functional and emotional payoffs and, when credible, points to the aspirational goals your customer cares about.

Benefits x Brevity

It's tempting to explain everything about a product on every single page of a site; leave nothing ambiguous, write "for SEO". But when copy is dense, you risk losing the customer in the weeds before you've had a chance to show them the real value. Brevity forces clarity. And when there's 5 tabs open comparing solutions, clarity wins every time. Choose the most important benefits, articulate them in a sentence or two each, and trust that the detail can live elsewhere. Website pages, whether it is your homepage, a product overview, or a solutions page, are still top of funnel. They are first impressions and decision filters. Product demos, blogs, explainers, and whitepapers are where customers go when they want more depth. Make those easy to find too, and trust they'll look for the deeper detail when they're ready.

In Summary

The benefits ladder works because it shifts the focus from what a product is to why it matters. Features alone force the customer to do the translation. Functional and emotional benefits make the value instantly clear, and aspirational benefits show the bigger picture when they are credible.

Brevity is what makes this climb possible. By stripping out noise, you move the reader up the ladder quickly and land the message where it matters most. Search gets you found, brevity and clarity gets you chosen. Long-form content should exist, just not in the places where prospects are making their initial decisions.