Lateral thinking for
129 provocations — inspired by Brian Eno & Peter Schmidt's Oblique Strategies — translated into brand positioning, narrative, differentiation & executional strategies.
Courage!
Commit fully to a polarizing brand point of view rather than defaulting to safe consensus.
Positioning
Define who you are and what you stand for.
Abandon normal instruments
Ditch standard category channels, formats, and boilerplate decks (e.g., skip the traditional slide deck for an interactive artifact).
Accept advice
Integrate raw customer advisory board critique directly into roadmap prioritization and messaging pivots.
Accretion
Build positioning layer by layer around an undeniable core capability rather than executing a disjointed mega-pivot.
Allow an easement (an easement is the abandonment of a stricture)
Relax a strict brand guideline or corporate policy to let localized, responsive storytelling happen naturally.
Always first steps
Maintain an agile, "day one" prototype mentality in public messaging to frame the brand as continuously evolving.
Are there sections? Consider transitions
Audit the end-to-end customer journey to ensure seamless narrative cohesion from awareness to retention.
Ask people to work against their better judgement
Brief creative teams to violate brand comfort zones to discover unconventional positioning territories.
Ask your body
Measure the immediate visceral, gut-check reaction to a campaign hook before over-rationalizing it in focus groups.
Assemble some of the elements in a group and treat the group
Consolidate fragmented product features into a single, cohesive flagship platform narrative.
Balance the consistency principle with the inconsistency principle
Maintain rigid visual and tonal foundations while introducing controlled, unexpected creative disruptions.
Be dirty
Embrace unpolished, raw, lo-fi storytelling (behind-the-scenes, unscripted proofs) over sterile corporate gloss.
Be extravagant
Invest disproportionate brand budget into a single unmissable tentpole activation instead of spreading it thin.
Breathe more deeply
Introduce deliberate negative space and pacing into narrative structure, copy layout, and product interfaces.
Bridges: build, burn
Systematically identify legacy category conventions to abandon and new cultural alliances to forge.
Cascades
Design a messaging architecture where the masterbrand value proposition cascades cleanly into sub-product proof points.
Change instrument roles
Repurpose support assets (e.g., invoices, packaging, 404 pages) as primary brand-building touchpoints.
Change specifics to ambiguities
Elevate a tactical product feature into an expansive cultural movement or philosophical belief.
Children's voices: speaking, singing
Strip positioning language down to elementary simplicity that an eight-year-old can instantly grasp.
Cluster analysis
Segment the audience by shared values and latent motivations rather than standard demographic buckets.
Consider different fading systems
Plan the graceful sunsetting of legacy sub-brands, products, or obsolete brand platforms.
Consult other sources: promising, unpromising
Source strategic insights from entirely unrelated industries (e.g., apply hospitality principles to enterprise SaaS).
Convert a melodic element into a rhythmic element
Take a one-off campaign headline and operationalize it into an ongoing brand ritual or cadence.
Courage!
Commit fully to a polarizing brand point of view rather than defaulting to safe consensus.
Cut a vital connection
Remove a standard category feature or default expectation to create a radical point of difference.
Decorate, decorate
Maximize expressive, distinctive brand codes (typography, sonic cues, iconography) to build high recall.
Define an area as 'safe' and use it as an anchor
Lock down non-negotiable core truths and brand equities before experimenting with radical innovation.
Narrative
Shape the story, voice, and message you tell.
Destroy: nothing, the most important thing
Stress-test the core brand pillar by removing it to see if the overall proposition collapses.
Discard an axiom
Identify the universal unspoken rule in the category and deliberately build a strategy that violates it.
Disciplined self-indulgence
Let the brand indulge its authentic niche obsessions within the strict boundaries of clear brand guardrails.
Disconnect from desire
Focus positioning on genuine customer utility rather than overtly chasing short-term conversion metrics.
Discover the recipes you are using and abandon them
Audit repeatable brand messaging templates and eliminate tired clichés from the playbook.
Distorting time
Position the brand across extreme timeframes: either hyper-immediate real-time relevance or 100-year legacy durability.
Do nothing for as long as possible
Let a cultural moment settle before jumping in, avoiding reactionary, low-value trend-jacking.
Don't be afraid of things because they're easy to do
Embrace direct, simple, and obvious value propositions over convoluted, over-intellectualized frameworks.
Don't be frightened of cliches
Reclaim archetypal human truths and universal rituals that resonate instantly across cultures.
Don't be frightened to display your talents
Lead boldly with the brand's sharpest functional edge and flagship technical superiority.
Don't break the silence
Use absolute minimalism, deliberate pauses, and restraint in communication to command high authority.
Don't stress one thing more than another
Present an ecosystem of brand capabilities with equal weight to showcase systemic, comprehensive scale.
Do something boring
Elevate utilitarian, unglamorous brand operational strengths into proofs of trust and reliability.
Do the words need changing?
Ruthlessly audit brand terminology, eliminating passive voice, internal jargon, and category buzzwords.
Emphasize differences
Sharpen competitive contrast lines so prospective buyers instantly understand the choice.
Emphasize repetitions
Turn a distinctive brand claim into an unyielding, memorable mantra across every touchpoint.
Emphasize the flaws
Turn a product limitation, constraint, or quirk into a beloved, authentic differentiator.
Faced with a choice, do both
Merge seemingly contradictory attributes (e.g., high luxury and rugged utility; deep security and effortless speed).
Feedback loopings
Turn user-generated content, customer testimonials, and community feedback directly into core marketing creative.
Fill every beat with something
Create a dense, high-energy launch cadence with zero downtime across touchpoints.
First work alone, then work in unusual pairs
Develop initial strategic hypotheses in isolation, then cross-pollinate across disparate internal disciplines.
From nothing to more than nothing
Build a minimal viable brand identity to get into market immediately rather than waiting for perfection.
Get your neck massaged
Reduce internal organizational tension to let creative, intuitive strategic risks surface.
Ghost echoes
Embed subtle references to the founder's origins or classic brand history throughout modern assets.
Give the game away
Publish proprietary frameworks, internal strategies, or transparent pricing to build radical market trust.
Give way to your worst impulse
Write the most provocative, cynical, or aggressive version of the brief to locate its absolute boundaries.
Differentiation
Create tension and stand apart from the category.
Go outside. Shut the door.
Get out of the conference room and observe how consumers actually interact with the brand in the wild.
Go slowly all the way round the outside
Analyze fringe market behaviors, adjacent verticals, and minor competitors before tackling the center.
Go to an extreme, move back to a more comfortable place
Pitch an impossibly radical brand vision first, then dial it back to an actionable, bold reality.
Honor thy error as a hidden intention
Reframe an accidental market perception or product detour as a deliberate strategic evolution.
How would you have done it?
Re-evaluate how historical brand icons or visionary founders would have solved the current modern problem.
Humanize something free of error
Introduce warmth, vulnerability, and human texture into a sterile, automated, or purely technical brand.
Idiot glee (?)
Infuse an element of pure play, delight, and unpretentious joy into the customer experience.
Imagine the music as a moving chain or train
Map the brand narrative as an unstoppable forward momentum engine carrying the customer along.
Imagine the music as a set of disconnected events
Design episodic brand activations that stand entirely on their own without requiring backstory.
Infinitesimal gradations
Execute subtle, micro-optimizations across every single interaction point to compound brand prestige.
Intentions: credibility of, nobility of, humility of
Clarify the brand's authentic purpose: is the motivation believable, lofty, or service-driven?
Into the impossible
Position the brand against a previously unsolvable category dilemma (the "holy grail" problem).
Is it finished?
Determine whether a brand platform has truly run its course or simply needs fresher execution.
Is there something missing?
Identify the glaring category void or unspoken customer desire that competitors ignore.
Is the tuning appropriate?
Adjust the tone of voice to match the emotional stakes of the specific channel and context.
It is quite possible (after all)
Position the brand around pragmatic optimism, making a breakthrough future feel immediately attainable.
Just carry on
Stay the course on long-term brand building despite short-term quarterly metric volatility.
Left channel, right channel, center channel
Map clear channel segmentation: direct response (left), brand narrative (right), community (center).
Listen in total darkness, or in a very large room, very quietly
Strip away visual assets and evaluate whether the core brand voice is distinctive on sound and text alone.
Listen to the quiet voice
Mine edge-case customer support tickets and niche feedback for the next major strategic breakthrough.
Look at a very small object, look at its centre
Focus the brand narrative entirely on a single micro-detail or component that proves ultimate mastery.
Look at the order in which you do things
Invert the typical customer journey (e.g., give away the premium service first, monetize onboarding later).
Look closely at the most embarrassing details and amplify them
Call out the uncomfortable friction in the user experience or business model with total transparency.
Lost in useless territory
Explore unrelated cultural phenomena to spark unexpected brand collaborations and creative angles.
Lowest common denominator check: single beat, single note, single phrase
Identify the single word, sound, or visual mark the brand must completely own in the customer's mind.
Magnify the most difficult details
Emphasize the obsessive complexity of the product's craft, engineering, or sourcing story.
Execution
Build the system and scale it across touchpoints.
Make a blank valuable by putting it in an exquisite frame
Use premium packaging and pristine presentation to elevate a standard everyday product.
Make a sudden, destructive unpredictable action; incorporate
Launch an unexpected PR stunt or category-shaking announcement, then integrate the fallout into the narrative.
Make an exhaustive list of everything you might do and do the last thing on the list
Brainstorm every conventional campaign angle, discard the first 90%, and execute the most counterintuitive one.
Make it more sensual
Elevate the tactile, acoustic, visual, and sensory touchpoints of the product unboxing and interface.
Make what's perfect more human
Introduce deliberate character, quirks, or artisanal textures into clean, automated brand systems.
Mechanize something idiosyncratic
Systematize a founder's bespoke insight or personal touch into an automated, scalable brand operating standard.
Move towards the unimportant
Build a distinct brand campaign around the seemingly minor footnotes or secondary rituals of product use.
Mute and continue
Remove the logo and tagline from your marketing assets to see if the brand is still instantly recognizable.
Not building a wall but making a brick
Focus entirely on mastering a single touchpoint or product module before attempting a full-scale ecosystem launch.
Only a part, not the whole
Tease modular components of the brand narrative to build intrigue rather than over-explaining everything upfront.
Only one element of each kind
Impose radical identity minimalism: one typeface, one brand color, one hero message, one primary channel.
Overtly resist change
Double down on heritage, analog processes, and timeless permanence in an era of fleeting digital trends.
Paean to pasta
Celebrate everyday, unpretentious, foundational nourishment and utility in the brand's core offering.
Put in earplugs
Block out competitive noise and industry trend reports to protect the brand's singular vision.
Question the heroic approach
Shift the narrative hero from the brand/founder to the everyday user quietly solving their own problem.
Remember those quiet evenings
Anchor messaging in reflective, intimate, and emotionally restorative consumer micro-moments.
Remove ambiguities and convert to specifics
Replace abstract corporate mission statements with hard, measurable operational commitments.
Remove specifics and convert to ambiguities
Broaden a narrow product definition into an evocative, universal lifestyle territory.
Repetition is a form of change
Maintain a relentless core message while varying the cultural contexts and storytelling formats around it.
Retrace your steps
Audit historical campaigns and original brand equity to resurrect what made the company iconic in the first place.
Revaluation (a component is deliberately given a new status)
Elevate a secondary byproduct or operational mechanism into the primary hero feature.
Reverse
Take the dominant industry narrative and run in the exact opposite direction (e.g., un-bundling vs bundling).
Short circuit (example: a man eating peas with the idea that they will make him hear better)
Connect an unexpected benefit to a product action to reframe consumer perception and ritual.
Shut the door and listen from the outside
Evaluate brand perceptions exclusively through third-party community channels (Reddit, Discord, TikTok) unmediated by brand presence.
Simple subtraction
Eliminate extraneous product tiers, sub-brands, or features to achieve stark positioning clarity.
Spectrum analysis
Map the entire competitive landscape across unexpected dimensional axes (e.g., sacred vs profane).
Take a break
Implement intentional brand silence or hiatus to build anticipation and clear the cultural palate.
Take away the elements in order of apparent non-importance
Strip away brand assets one by one until only the load-bearing, essential equity remains.
The inconsistency principle
Deliberately drop a surprising, out-of-character creative activation to shake the brand free of predictability.
The tape is now the music
Treat the medium, distribution platform, or operational infrastructure as the primary message itself.
Think of the press
Craft the brand launch strategy around the exact headline and cultural critique you want journalists to write.
Tidy up
Clean up the brand architecture, kill off zombie sub-brands, and unify the visual design system.
Trust in the you of now
Make rapid, decisive strategic calls based on current operational clarity rather than endless forecasting.
Turn it upside down
Flip the traditional business model on its head (e.g., pay-what-you-want, open-source luxury, buyer-curated supply).
Twist the spine
Fundamentally alter the central narrative premise mid-campaign to subvert audience expectations.
Use 'unqualified' people
Bring non-marketers (engineers, supply chain managers, frontline staff) directly into the brand strategy room.
Use an old idea
Revive an archived, classic positioning hook and recontextualize it for modern market realities.
Use an unacceptable color
Choose an aesthetic palette, visual identity, or tonal style that deliberately clashes with category conventions.
Use fewer notes
Distill the brand's core strategic narrative into a punchy three-word positioning platform.
Use filters
View all brand outputs strictly through a defined philosophical lens (e.g., radical utility, zero friction).
Water
Make the brand adaptable, fluid, and responsive to cultural currents without losing its core identity.
What are you really thinking about just now? Incorporate
Inject the immediate, real-world internal anxieties or cultural dynamics directly into the brand narrative.
What is the reality of the situation?
Strip away corporate optimism and ground the brand strategy in brutal, unvarnished commercial facts.
What mistakes did you make last time?
Systematically design the new brand playbook around avoiding previous launch errors and strategic missteps.
What would your closest friend do?
Translate the value proposition into honest, jargon-free advice you would give someone you care about.
What wouldn't you do?
Establish explicit anti-goals and ethical boundaries that define what the brand will never compromise on.
Work at a different speed
Break industry cadence by moving with extreme real-time agility or hyper-deliberate, generational patience.
Would anybody want it?
Subject every brand claim to a hard utility test: does this actually solve a meaningful human problem?
You are an engineer
Approach brand building as a precise, measurable structural system of inputs, mechanisms, and outcomes.
You can only make one dot at a time
Focus execution on driving a single, singular brand behavior before attempting ecosystem expansion.
You don't have to be ashamed of using your own ideas
Trust internal institutional intuition over derivative industry benchmarks and generic trend decks.