Strategic workshops are an effective way to gain a deep understanding of a company. Valuable information is obtained directly from the people responsible for its key elements. Insight and listening skills on the part of the moderator are essential, as is a carefully prepared workshop plan. How is information gathered, and what do the workshop outputs include?
Step 1 – Reconnaissance and preparation for the strategic workshop
At the initial stage, the branding agency focuses on understanding the needs and expectations of those managing the brand, defining the current situation, and analyzing the brand’s communication. This is why collaboration with the agency starts with the workshop.
Before the workshop itself, a strategic reconnaissance is conducted, forming the knowledge base for defining brand-appropriate solutions. The agency prepares a list of materials and key documents provided by the client, such as sales data, previous research, and recent brand activities. Information is also gathered from online sources (online desk research). Site visits to both the client and competitors are conducted. Finally, the objectives and areas for further action are defined, along with the workshop scenario, tools, and the list of key participants.
Step 2 – Tailored strategic workshop
The successful completion of step one allows the agency to design and conduct a workshop tailored to the brand’s needs and challenges. The workshop provides a substantive forum for actions that strengthen the brand and gain recognition from the target audience. It involves discussing the brand’s current situation, its future, and its aspirational vision.
Methods commonly used in workshops:
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Design Thinking: A structured approach to innovation based on a deep understanding of user needs. It encourages looking at problems from different perspectives, breaking established patterns, and testing hypotheses. Interdisciplinary teams generate diverse and precise ideas.
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Idea Creation: Participants are guided to generate and organize new ideas around problems and opportunities using tools such as brainstorming, role-playing, or the Delphi method (expert forecasting).
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Customer Journey: Mapping customer interactions with the brand to identify strengths and weaknesses along the service or sales path. Information from feedback, complaints, and satisfaction research is collected to create a detailed map of customer touchpoints.
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Co-Creation Workshop: A collaborative process between the brand and its users to generate creative solutions, combining efforts to achieve innovative and relevant outcomes.
Analysis topics during workshops:
From a visual communication perspective, several areas are critical for analysis: defining the brand’s challenges, extracting its essence, evaluating the current brand image, and positioning using methods such as Bulls Eye. Through empathic exercises from design thinking, the agency steps into the consumer’s perspective: what they hear, see, say, do, feel, and think. Customer journey mapping is reviewed, and market context is considered, including trends and competitor practices. Analytical and empathic approaches are combined to develop optimal solutions for the brand.
Step 3 – Strategic report and follow-up meeting
After the workshop, the agency prepares a document summarizing observations and conclusions from the previous stages. The report includes recommendations and a timeline for brand-related actions.
The report is presented and discussed in detail by the strategist and brand consultant at the client’s headquarters. Clients receive it in both printed (A4) and electronic formats (PDF or PowerPoint). The stage concludes with refining the report based on feedback from the follow-up meeting.
Well-planned, coordinated actions across all three stages provide the client with solutions to potential brand challenges. Strengthening brand recognition and authority requires a comprehensive organization of the brand and a clear roadmap for future actions—both of which are fully addressed during the strategic workshop.
