From Brief to Brand

Pre-dinner~30 minutes

Step 01

Choose your category

Pick one of four product categories: Functional Drink, Dog Food, Sunscreen, or Trail Shoe.

Your brief

A single Australian-made trail shoe. New brand. One silhouette at launch.

Category: Trail running footwear — a fast-growing segment where global performance brands dominate distribution and mindshare. Currently split between mass-market trail shoes from major athletic brands and a handful of specialist brands with cult followings. The whitespace is a brand that's local, considered, and community-rooted before it's commercial.

Competition: Salomon (ubiquitous, performance-first, gorpcore crossover), HOKA (maximalist, comfort, mainstream trail), Nike Trail (brand leverage, style-led), Merrell (outdoor heritage, practical). None of them are Australian-made, and none of them talk to the person who's tired of seeing the same shoes on every trail.

The person: Runs trails seriously but doesn't need a brand to tell them they're serious. Cares about what's on their feet, notices what other people are wearing, and would rather discover a brand than be sold one. Values craft and locality over global scale.

The occasion: Saturday morning, 6am. A trail they know well enough to run alone. Or: the gear forum post where someone asks "what are you actually running in?" and the answer isn't Salomon.

The tension: Every trail shoe brand either chases mass-market scale (Salomon, HOKA, Nike) or stays so niche it's hard to find. Nobody is building an Australian trail shoe that's genuinely good, genuinely local, and available to the people who care — without trying to be the next global brand.

The brief gives you the tension — your job is to resolve it.

Technique	What it does
Prompt chaining	One tool's output becomes the next tool's input — each step builds on the last
Role prompting	Assigning Claude a specific perspective or expertise before you ask your question

Step 02

Write your Personal Brief

Open Claude in OpenWebUI. Claude will interview you — one question at a time — about your role, what you're working on, how you like to communicate, and what you want AI to help you with. When it has enough, ask it to compile everything into a Personal Brief.

Save it in your OpenWebUI system settings. Paste a copy into your Google Doc.

H+Co ChatGPT

I need you to interview me so you can write my Personal Brief — a short document about who I am and how I work that I'll paste into AI conversations to get better, more relevant output. Here's how this works: - Ask me one question at a time. - Keep it conversational — no forms, no bullet-point lists of things to fill in. - Probe deeper where it's useful. If I say something vague, ask a follow-up. - Stop when you have enough to write the brief. You need to cover: - My role and what I actually do day-to-day - Any specialist knowledge or expertise I bring - How I communicate — formal or casual, direct or detailed - What I value in good work - What frustrates me or wastes my time - What kinds of tasks I'd use AI for When you're done interviewing me, write my Personal Brief as a concise third-person document (e.g. "[Name] is a…") under 200 words. No filler, no flattery. Every sentence should be useful. The goal is to give AI enough context about me that its output is immediately more relevant. Start by asking me your first question.

Step 03

Launch your research

Open Gemini Deep Research and brief it to investigate your category — competitive landscape, white space, audience mindsets, cultural tensions, and what existing brands are getting wrong.

Select Deep Research from the Tools menu

Hit go. This runs during dinner.

This is prompt chaining — using the output of one tool as the input for the next. What Gemini finds becomes the raw material Claude works with after the break.

Google Workspace

I need a comprehensive research report on the Australian trail running shoe market and the broader gorpcore/outdoor performance footwear movement. This is for a brand strategy project — I'm looking for strategic insight, not just a list of players. Please investigate three areas: 1. Competitive landscape Who are the key brands in the trail running shoe space, with particular attention to the Australian market? For each, I need: their positioning, their visual identity approach, the language they use, and the audience they're targeting. Pay attention to what they all say — and what none of them say. I'm looking for claimed territory and open whitespace. Include: Salomon, HOKA, Nike Trail, Merrell, New Balance Trail, On Running, inov-8, and any emerging Australian-made or independent trail shoe brands. Also look at relevant gorpcore-adjacent brands and small-batch footwear makers that signal where the category is heading. 2. The cultural moment What's happening in trail running culture, gorpcore, and the intersection of performance gear and fashion right now — particularly in Australia? I need to understand the cultural tension — are people buying into mass-market trail brands or looking for alternatives? What's the mood in trail running communities, gear forums, and outdoor culture? Look at consumer sentiment, media coverage, social conversation, and any relevant trend data. 3. Naming and visual conventions What naming patterns dominate the trail shoe category? What's overused? What visual tropes appear on every brand — colour palettes, typography styles, photography approaches, packaging formats? I want to know what the default looks like so we can avoid it. Organise your findings under these three headings. For each section, end with a short "so what" — the strategic implication of what you found.

Gemini generates a research plan and starts working

20-minute break

Dinner

Gemini is researching while you eat.

Post-dinner~50 minutes

Step 04

Extract what mattersPrompt chaining

Your research is back. Paste the full output into your Google Doc, then into Claude and ask it to extract the most interesting audience mindsets, the strongest brand enemies, the cultural tension in the category, and any white space that feels unclaimed.

Ask for options, not conclusions. You're not asking Claude to make your strategy — you're asking it to surface possibilities. The decisions are yours.

Paste Claude's extraction into your Google Doc.

H+Co ChatGPT

You are a senior brand strategist at an independent Australian advertising agency. You specialise in finding whitespace in crowded categories. You have zero patience for obvious thinking. I ran a deep research sprint on the Australian trail running shoe market and gorpcore movement. Below is the full research output. I need you to extract strategic insights from this research — not summarise it. Here's what I need: 1. Claimed territory What does every competitor in this category say? What are the recurring themes, messages, and positions? Identify the patterns — the things that are so common they've become wallpaper. 2. Whitespace What does nobody say? What territories are unclaimed? What audience needs or cultural tensions are being ignored? Be specific — I want gaps I can build a brand in, not vague observations. 3. Three audience mindsets Based on the research, identify three genuinely distinct types of people who might buy an Australian-made trail shoe — not demographics, but mindsets. How do they think about gear, about running, about what they put on their feet? What do they currently do instead? What would make them switch? Give each mindset a short name and 2-3 sentences of description. Make them meaningfully different from each other. 4. Three brand enemies Propose three beliefs, behaviours, or cultural norms that a new Australian trail shoe brand could fight against. Not competitors — ways of thinking. Each enemy should be something real that exists in the culture, not a strawman. Give each a short name and 2-3 sentences explaining what it is and why it's worth fighting. 5. One cultural tension What single unresolved tension in the category gives a new brand permission to exist? Frame it as a contradiction people tolerate but shouldn't have to. Be sharp and opinionated. I'd rather you be wrong and interesting than right and boring. --- [PASTE YOUR GEMINI DEEP RESEARCH OUTPUT HERE]

Step 05

Make four decisionsRole prompting

Work through these in order. For each one, assign Claude a role before you ask — this is role prompting. Same question, different expertise, different answer.

1 Pick your audience

Ask a cultural strategist for three distinct audience options. Review them, pick one. Claude will push back and ask you to justify it. Sit with it before you confirm.

H+Co ChatGPT

You are a senior brand strategist who has spent 15 years building challenger brands in competitive Australian markets. You understand how to turn an audience insight into a brand that actually connects. I'm building a new Australian trail shoe brand. From my research, I've chosen this audience mindset: [PASTE YOUR CHOSEN AUDIENCE MINDSET HERE] Expand on this audience. I need to understand: - Who is this person really? Not demographics — describe their worldview, their daily reality, how they think about what they consume. - What do they believe that most people in the category ignore? - What are they currently doing instead of buying an Australian trail shoe? What's the substitute behaviour? - What would make them switch? What would a brand need to say or do or feel like to get their attention? Before confirming, push back. Offer one alternative I might not have considered. Ask me why this audience over the others. Be specific and grounded. No aspirational nonsense — I want to recognise a real person in your description.

2 Pick your enemy

Ask a brand strategist for three things this brand could position itself against. Not a competitor — an attitude, a behaviour, or a category cliche. Pick one.

H+Co ChatGPT

You are a cultural critic who writes about brands, consumerism, and the stories companies tell. You're sharp, slightly cynical, and always looking for who benefits from the status quo. I'm building a new Australian trail shoe brand. I've chosen this as my brand enemy — the belief or behaviour my brand is fighting against: [PASTE YOUR CHOSEN BRAND ENEMY HERE] Sharpen this enemy for me: - Why does this belief or behaviour exist? What sustains it? - Who benefits from it staying the way it is? - What would it actually look like to challenge it — not in advertising, but in how a brand behaves? - What's the risk of fighting this enemy? Where could it go wrong? Before confirming, push back. Suggest one reason this enemy might be wrong. Ask me to defend my choice. Don't soften it. I need to understand what I'm up against.

3 Pick your tone

Three options only: irreverent, understated, or earnest. Ask Claude to make the case for each given your audience and enemy. Pick one.

Irreverent

Confident, slightly cheeky, willing to poke fun at the category. Doesn't take itself too seriously.

"Everyone's wearing Salomons. You noticed."

Understated

Quiet confidence. Says less, means more. Premium without performing it.

"Made here. Runs there. That's it."

Earnest

Genuine, warm, direct. Believes in what it's doing without being preachy about it.

"We made this because we wanted a trail shoe worth caring about. We think you will too."

4 Pick your word

If this brand could own one word in the mind of the consumer, what would it be? Ask for three options with the logic behind each. Pick one.

These four decisions are where sixty people in the room become sixty different brands. Same brief, same tools — the decisions compound.

H+Co ChatGPT

I'm building a new Australian trail shoe brand. Here are the strategic decisions I've made so far: Audience: [PASTE YOUR CHOSEN AUDIENCE] Enemy: [PASTE YOUR CHOSEN ENEMY] Tone: [YOUR CHOICE: irreverent, understated, or earnest] Based on these decisions, propose five single words this brand could own in the customer's mind. Not taglines. Not phrases. Single words. For each word: - State the word - Write one sentence defending why it's the right word for this specific audience, against this specific enemy, in this specific tone After I pick a word, push back. Tell me what's risky about it. Suggest one word I didn't ask for. The words should be genuinely different from each other — not five synonyms. I want range so I can make a real choice.

Step 06

Build your Brand Strategy document

Ask Claude to compile everything into a one-page Brand Strategy document — your audience, enemy, tone, one word, and the cultural tension the brand lives inside.

Paste it into your Google Doc.

H+Co ChatGPT

Compile my brand strategy into a single clean document. Here are the decisions I've made: Audience: [PASTE YOUR CHOSEN AUDIENCE — the expanded version] Enemy: [PASTE YOUR CHOSEN ENEMY — the expanded version] Tone: [YOUR CHOICE: irreverent, understated, or earnest] One word: [YOUR CHOSEN WORD] My defence of this word: [YOUR OWN SENTENCE] Cultural tension from research: [PASTE THE CULTURAL TENSION FROM THE EXTRACTION] Write this as a one-page Brand Strategy document. Use these exact sections: 1. The Person — who this brand is for (one paragraph) 2. The Enemy — what this brand is against (one paragraph) 3. The Tone — how this brand speaks (one sentence plus a short "sounds like / doesn't sound like" comparison) 4. The Word — the one word this brand owns, with the defence 5. The Tension — the cultural tension that gives this brand permission to exist Keep it tight. No repetition, no padding. This document will be the foundation for naming, visual identity, and every asset I build over the next three weeks.

Before next Thursday

Your Google Doc is your record — make sure everything is in there
Set up your brand project folder in OpenWebUI
Full documentation is on its way — if you didn't finish something tonight, complete it before Session 2

Next week: naming, visual identity, and building an AI assistant that knows your brand inside out.

Techniques you used tonight

Technique	What it is
Prompt chaining	Using the output of one tool as the input for the next
Role prompting	Assigning Claude a role before asking — changes the angle of the answer

What you'll need

Pre-dinner~30 minutes

Step 01

Choose your category

Pick one of four product categories: Functional Drink, Dog Food, Sunscreen, or Trail Shoe.

Your brief

A lightly sparkling, adaptogen-based functional drink. Australian-made. 330ml cans. Three flavours at launch.

Category: Functional beverages — the fastest-growing segment in Australian non-alcoholic drinks. Currently dominated by two extremes: clinical wellness brands that lecture you about ingredients, and energy drinks that treat your body like a machine.

Competition: Remedy (gut health, friendly, approachable), Nexba (sugar-free, clean, functional), Liquid Death (attitude-first, punk water), Red Bull (performance, extreme, unapologetic). None of them talk to the person who's outgrown energy drinks but hasn't bought into the wellness aesthetic.

The person: Works hard, thinks carefully about what they consume, but doesn't make a performance of it. Not a wellness warrior. Not a gym bro. Someone who wants to feel sharp without feeling like they've joined a movement.

The occasion: 2pm on a Tuesday. The meeting that won't end. The afternoon where coffee feels like too much and water feels like not enough. Or: the Saturday morning replacement for the hangover coffee.

The tension: Every functional drink either talks to you like you're sick (wellness) or like you're a machine (energy). Nobody talks to you like you're a person who wants to feel good and get on with their day.

The brief gives you the tension — your job is to resolve it.

Technique	What it does
Prompt chaining	One tool's output becomes the next tool's input — each step builds on the last
Role prompting	Assigning Claude a specific perspective or expertise before you ask your question

Step 02

Write your Personal Brief

Save it in your OpenWebUI system settings. Paste a copy into your Google Doc.

H+Co ChatGPT

Step 03

Launch your research

Open Gemini Deep Research and brief it to investigate your category — competitive landscape, white space, audience mindsets, cultural tensions, and what existing brands are getting wrong.

Select Deep Research from the Tools menu

Hit go. This runs during dinner.

This is prompt chaining — using the output of one tool as the input for the next. What Gemini finds becomes the raw material Claude works with after the break.

Google Workspace

I need a comprehensive research report on the Australian functional beverage category. This is for a brand strategy project — I'm looking for strategic insight, not just a list of players. Please investigate three areas: 1. Competitive landscape Who are the key brands in the Australian functional drink space? For each, I need: their positioning, their visual identity approach, the language they use, and the audience they're targeting. Pay attention to what they all say — and what none of them say. I'm looking for claimed territory and open whitespace. Include: Remedy, Nexba, Liquid Death (Australian presence), Red Bull, Kombucha brands, any emerging adaptogen or nootropic drinks. Also look at relevant international brands that signal where the category is heading. 2. The cultural moment What's happening in Australian attitudes toward wellness, productivity, energy, and functional food and drink right now? I need to understand the cultural tension — are people buying into wellness branding or getting tired of it? What's the mood? Look at consumer sentiment, media coverage, social conversation, and any relevant trend data. 3. Naming and visual conventions What naming patterns dominate the category? What's overused? What visual tropes appear on every shelf — colour palettes, typography styles, illustration vs photography, packaging formats? I want to know what the default looks like so we can avoid it. Organise your findings under these three headings. For each section, end with a short "so what" — the strategic implication of what you found.

Gemini generates a research plan and starts working

20-minute break

Dinner

Gemini is researching while you eat.

Post-dinner~50 minutes

Step 04

Extract what mattersPrompt chaining

Ask for options, not conclusions. You're not asking Claude to make your strategy — you're asking it to surface possibilities. The decisions are yours.

Paste Claude's extraction into your Google Doc.

H+Co ChatGPT

You are a senior brand strategist at an independent Australian advertising agency. You specialise in finding whitespace in crowded categories. You have zero patience for obvious thinking. I ran a deep research sprint on the Australian functional drink category. Below is the full research output. I need you to extract strategic insights from this research — not summarise it. Here's what I need: 1. Claimed territory What does every competitor in this category say? What are the recurring themes, messages, and positions? Identify the patterns — the things that are so common they've become wallpaper. 2. Whitespace What does nobody say? What territories are unclaimed? What audience needs or cultural tensions are being ignored? Be specific — I want gaps I can build a brand in, not vague observations. 3. Three audience mindsets Based on the research, identify three genuinely distinct types of people who might buy a functional drink — not demographics, but mindsets. How do they think about energy, wellness, and productivity? What do they currently do instead? What would make them switch? Give each mindset a short name and 2-3 sentences of description. Make them meaningfully different from each other. 4. Three brand enemies Propose three beliefs, behaviours, or cultural norms that a new functional drink brand could fight against. Not competitors — ways of thinking. Each enemy should be something real that exists in the culture, not a strawman. Give each a short name and 2-3 sentences explaining what it is and why it's worth fighting. 5. One cultural tension What single unresolved tension in the category gives a new brand permission to exist? Frame it as a contradiction people tolerate but shouldn't have to. Be sharp and opinionated. I'd rather you be wrong and interesting than right and boring. --- [PASTE YOUR GEMINI DEEP RESEARCH OUTPUT HERE]

Step 05

Make four decisionsRole prompting

Work through these in order. For each one, assign Claude a role before you ask — this is role prompting. Same question, different expertise, different answer.

1 Pick your audience

Ask a cultural strategist for three distinct audience options. Review them, pick one. Claude will push back and ask you to justify it. Sit with it before you confirm.

H+Co ChatGPT

You are a senior brand strategist who has spent 15 years building challenger brands in competitive Australian FMCG categories. You understand how to turn an audience insight into a brand that actually connects. I'm building a new Australian functional drink brand. From my research, I've chosen this audience mindset: [PASTE YOUR CHOSEN AUDIENCE MINDSET HERE] Expand on this audience. I need to understand: - Who is this person really? Not demographics — describe their worldview, their daily reality, how they think about what they consume. - What do they believe that most people in the category ignore? - What are they currently doing instead of buying a functional drink? What's the substitute behaviour? - What would make them switch? What would a brand need to say or do or feel like to get their attention? Before confirming, push back. Offer one alternative I might not have considered. Ask me why this audience over the others. Be specific and grounded. No aspirational nonsense — I want to recognise a real person in your description.

2 Pick your enemy

Ask a brand strategist for three things this brand could position itself against. Not a competitor — an attitude, a behaviour, or a category cliche. Pick one.

H+Co ChatGPT

You are a cultural critic who writes about brands, consumerism, and the stories companies tell. You're sharp, slightly cynical, and always looking for who benefits from the status quo. I'm building a new Australian functional drink brand. I've chosen this as my brand enemy — the belief or behaviour my brand is fighting against: [PASTE YOUR CHOSEN BRAND ENEMY HERE] Sharpen this enemy for me: - Why does this belief or behaviour exist? What sustains it? - Who benefits from it staying the way it is? - What would it actually look like to challenge it — not in advertising, but in how a brand behaves? - What's the risk of fighting this enemy? Where could it go wrong? Before confirming, push back. Suggest one reason this enemy might be wrong. Ask me to defend my choice. Don't soften it. I need to understand what I'm up against.

3 Pick your tone

Three options only: irreverent, understated, or earnest. Ask Claude to make the case for each given your audience and enemy. Pick one.

Irreverent

Confident, slightly cheeky, willing to poke fun at the category. Doesn't take itself too seriously.

"Your kombucha is trying too hard. We're just a drink."

Understated

Quiet confidence. Says less, means more. Premium without performing it.

"Feel good. Get on with your day."

Earnest

Genuine, warm, direct. Believes in what it's doing without being preachy about it.

"We made this because we wanted something better. We think you will too."

4 Pick your word

If this brand could own one word in the mind of the consumer, what would it be? Ask for three options with the logic behind each. Pick one.

These four decisions are where sixty people in the room become sixty different brands. Same brief, same tools — the decisions compound.

H+Co ChatGPT

I'm building a new Australian functional drink brand. Here are the strategic decisions I've made so far: Audience: [PASTE YOUR CHOSEN AUDIENCE] Enemy: [PASTE YOUR CHOSEN ENEMY] Tone: [YOUR CHOICE: irreverent, understated, or earnest] Based on these decisions, propose five single words this brand could own in the customer's mind. Not taglines. Not phrases. Single words. For each word: - State the word - Write one sentence defending why it's the right word for this specific audience, against this specific enemy, in this specific tone After I pick a word, push back. Tell me what's risky about it. Suggest one word I didn't ask for. The words should be genuinely different from each other — not five synonyms. I want range so I can make a real choice.

Step 06

Build your Brand Strategy document

Ask Claude to compile everything into a one-page Brand Strategy document — your audience, enemy, tone, one word, and the cultural tension the brand lives inside.

Paste it into your Google Doc.

H+Co ChatGPT

Before next Thursday

Your Google Doc is your record — make sure everything is in there
Set up your brand project folder in OpenWebUI
Full documentation is on its way — if you didn't finish something tonight, complete it before Session 2

Next week: naming, visual identity, and building an AI assistant that knows your brand inside out.

Techniques you used tonight

Technique	What it is
Prompt chaining	Using the output of one tool as the input for the next
Role prompting	Assigning Claude a role before asking — changes the angle of the answer

What you'll need

Pre-dinner~30 minutes

Step 01

Choose your category

Pick one of four product categories: Functional Drink, Dog Food, Sunscreen, or Trail Shoe.

Your brief

A premium, Australian-made dry dog food. Natural ingredients. Three recipes at launch.

Category: Premium pet food — one of the fastest-growing segments in Australian retail. Currently dominated by two extremes: clinical vet-endorsed brands that guilt you into spending more, and supermarket brands that hide behind happy dog photos.

Competition: Royal Canin (vet-endorsed, clinical, premium), Black Hawk (Australian, natural, mid-premium), Advance (science-led, functional), Ivory Coat (grain-free, holistic). None of them talk to the person who loves their dog but doesn't want to be talked to like a helicopter parent.

The person: Loves their dog. Feeds them well. But doesn't define their identity around being a "pet parent." Not into grain-free anxiety or raw-food evangelism. Just wants good food, clearly made, no guilt trips.

The occasion: Standing in the pet food aisle on a Saturday, overwhelmed by claims. Or: reordering online and wondering if they should switch from the brand that's been steadily getting more expensive.

The tension: Every premium dog food either talks to you like you're neglecting your dog (vet brands) or like you're buying a lifestyle (boutique brands). Nobody just makes good food and lets you get on with it.

The brief gives you the tension — your job is to resolve it.

Technique	What it does
Prompt chaining	One tool's output becomes the next tool's input — each step builds on the last
Role prompting	Assigning Claude a specific perspective or expertise before you ask your question

Step 02

Write your Personal Brief

Save it in your OpenWebUI system settings. Paste a copy into your Google Doc.

H+Co ChatGPT

Step 03

Launch your research

Open Gemini Deep Research and brief it to investigate your category — competitive landscape, white space, audience mindsets, cultural tensions, and what existing brands are getting wrong.

Select Deep Research from the Tools menu

Hit go. This runs during dinner.

This is prompt chaining — using the output of one tool as the input for the next. What Gemini finds becomes the raw material Claude works with after the break.

Google Workspace

I need a comprehensive research report on the Australian premium pet food category, with a specific focus on premium dry dog food. This is for a brand strategy project — I'm looking for strategic insight, not just a list of players. Please investigate three areas: 1. Competitive landscape Who are the key brands in the Australian premium dog food space? For each, I need: their positioning, their visual identity approach, the language they use, and the audience they're targeting. Pay attention to what they all say — and what none of them say. I'm looking for claimed territory and open whitespace. Include: Royal Canin, Black Hawk, Advance, Ivory Coat, Open Farm, Scratch, Lyka (fresh food competitor), any emerging Australian-made or DTC dog food brands. Also look at relevant international brands that signal where the category is heading. 2. The cultural moment What's happening in Australian attitudes toward pet ownership, pet food, humanisation of pets, and premium pet spending right now? I need to understand the cultural tension — are people buying into the "pet parent" identity or getting tired of it? What's the mood? Look at consumer sentiment, media coverage, social conversation, and any relevant trend data. 3. Naming and visual conventions What naming patterns dominate the category? What's overused? What visual tropes appear on every shelf — colour palettes, typography styles, illustration vs photography, packaging formats? I want to know what the default looks like so we can avoid it. Organise your findings under these three headings. For each section, end with a short "so what" — the strategic implication of what you found.

Gemini generates a research plan and starts working

20-minute break

Dinner

Gemini is researching while you eat.

Post-dinner~50 minutes

Step 04

Extract what mattersPrompt chaining

Ask for options, not conclusions. You're not asking Claude to make your strategy — you're asking it to surface possibilities. The decisions are yours.

Paste Claude's extraction into your Google Doc.

H+Co ChatGPT

You are a senior brand strategist at an independent Australian advertising agency. You specialise in finding whitespace in crowded categories. You have zero patience for obvious thinking. I ran a deep research sprint on the Australian premium pet food category. Below is the full research output. I need you to extract strategic insights from this research — not summarise it. Here's what I need: 1. Claimed territory What does every competitor in this category say? What are the recurring themes, messages, and positions? Identify the patterns — the things that are so common they've become wallpaper. 2. Whitespace What does nobody say? What territories are unclaimed? What audience needs or cultural tensions are being ignored? Be specific — I want gaps I can build a brand in, not vague observations. 3. Three audience mindsets Based on the research, identify three genuinely distinct types of people who might buy a premium dog food — not demographics, but mindsets. How do they think about feeding their dog, about pet ownership, about spending? What do they currently do instead? What would make them switch? Give each mindset a short name and 2-3 sentences of description. Make them meaningfully different from each other. 4. Three brand enemies Propose three beliefs, behaviours, or cultural norms that a new premium dog food brand could fight against. Not competitors — ways of thinking. Each enemy should be something real that exists in the culture, not a strawman. Give each a short name and 2-3 sentences explaining what it is and why it's worth fighting. 5. One cultural tension What single unresolved tension in the category gives a new brand permission to exist? Frame it as a contradiction people tolerate but shouldn't have to. Be sharp and opinionated. I'd rather you be wrong and interesting than right and boring. --- [PASTE YOUR GEMINI DEEP RESEARCH OUTPUT HERE]

Step 05

Make four decisionsRole prompting

Work through these in order. For each one, assign Claude a role before you ask — this is role prompting. Same question, different expertise, different answer.

1 Pick your audience

Ask a cultural strategist for three distinct audience options. Review them, pick one. Claude will push back and ask you to justify it. Sit with it before you confirm.

H+Co ChatGPT

You are a senior brand strategist who has spent 15 years building challenger brands in competitive Australian FMCG categories. You understand how to turn an audience insight into a brand that actually connects. I'm building a new Australian premium dog food brand. From my research, I've chosen this audience mindset: [PASTE YOUR CHOSEN AUDIENCE MINDSET HERE] Expand on this audience. I need to understand: - Who is this person really? Not demographics — describe their worldview, their daily reality, how they think about what they consume. - What do they believe that most people in the category ignore? - What are they currently doing instead of buying a premium dog food? What's the substitute behaviour? - What would make them switch? What would a brand need to say or do or feel like to get their attention? Before confirming, push back. Offer one alternative I might not have considered. Ask me why this audience over the others. Be specific and grounded. No aspirational nonsense — I want to recognise a real person in your description.

2 Pick your enemy

Ask a brand strategist for three things this brand could position itself against. Not a competitor — an attitude, a behaviour, or a category cliche. Pick one.

H+Co ChatGPT

You are a cultural critic who writes about brands, consumerism, and the stories companies tell. You're sharp, slightly cynical, and always looking for who benefits from the status quo. I'm building a new Australian premium dog food brand. I've chosen this as my brand enemy — the belief or behaviour my brand is fighting against: [PASTE YOUR CHOSEN BRAND ENEMY HERE] Sharpen this enemy for me: - Why does this belief or behaviour exist? What sustains it? - Who benefits from it staying the way it is? - What would it actually look like to challenge it — not in advertising, but in how a brand behaves? - What's the risk of fighting this enemy? Where could it go wrong? Before confirming, push back. Suggest one reason this enemy might be wrong. Ask me to defend my choice. Don't soften it. I need to understand what I'm up against.

3 Pick your tone

Three options only: irreverent, understated, or earnest. Ask Claude to make the case for each given your audience and enemy. Pick one.

Irreverent

Confident, slightly cheeky, willing to poke fun at the category. Doesn't take itself too seriously.

"Your vet's premium pick costs $90 a bag. We just made good food."

Understated

Quiet confidence. Says less, means more. Premium without performing it.

"Good food. Happy dog. That's it."

Earnest

Genuine, warm, direct. Believes in what it's doing without being preachy about it.

"We made this because we wanted something better for our dogs. We think you will too."

4 Pick your word

If this brand could own one word in the mind of the consumer, what would it be? Ask for three options with the logic behind each. Pick one.

These four decisions are where sixty people in the room become sixty different brands. Same brief, same tools — the decisions compound.

H+Co ChatGPT

I'm building a new Australian premium dog food brand. Here are the strategic decisions I've made so far: Audience: [PASTE YOUR CHOSEN AUDIENCE] Enemy: [PASTE YOUR CHOSEN ENEMY] Tone: [YOUR CHOICE: irreverent, understated, or earnest] Based on these decisions, propose five single words this brand could own in the customer's mind. Not taglines. Not phrases. Single words. For each word: - State the word - Write one sentence defending why it's the right word for this specific audience, against this specific enemy, in this specific tone After I pick a word, push back. Tell me what's risky about it. Suggest one word I didn't ask for. The words should be genuinely different from each other — not five synonyms. I want range so I can make a real choice.

Step 06

Build your Brand Strategy document

Ask Claude to compile everything into a one-page Brand Strategy document — your audience, enemy, tone, one word, and the cultural tension the brand lives inside.

Paste it into your Google Doc.

H+Co ChatGPT

Before next Thursday

Your Google Doc is your record — make sure everything is in there
Set up your brand project folder in OpenWebUI
Full documentation is on its way — if you didn't finish something tonight, complete it before Session 2

Next week: naming, visual identity, and building an AI assistant that knows your brand inside out.

Techniques you used tonight

Technique	What it is
Prompt chaining	Using the output of one tool as the input for the next
Role prompting	Assigning Claude a role before asking — changes the angle of the answer

What you'll need

Pre-dinner~30 minutes

Step 01

Choose your category

Pick one of four product categories: Functional Drink, Dog Food, Sunscreen, or Trail Shoe.

Your brief

A daily-wear SPF50+ sunscreen. Australian-made. Lightweight formula. Three variants at launch (face, body, tinted).

Category: Suncare — one of the most trusted and most boring categories in Australian retail. Currently dominated by two extremes: pharmacy brands that feel like medical compliance, and beauty brands that treat sunscreen as skincare with SPF tacked on.

Competition: Cancer Council (trusted, institutional, duty-driven), Bondi Sands (lifestyle, beach, aspirational), Ultra Violette (beauty-first, premium, Gen Z), Banana Boat (family, fun, mass market). None of them talk to the person who wears sunscreen every day but doesn't want it to feel like either a chore or a beauty ritual.

The person: Wears sunscreen because they know they should. Doesn't need convincing about UV damage. But doesn't want sunscreen to be a whole thing — not a 12-step skincare routine, not a beach lifestyle, not a guilt trip from a cancer charity.

The occasion: 7:30am on a weekday. Getting ready for work. Sunscreen is the last step before keys and phone. Or: Saturday morning before taking the kids to sport. It should be as automatic as deodorant.

The tension: Every sunscreen brand either makes you feel guilty (health brands) or makes you feel like you need to be beautiful (beauty brands). Nobody just makes sunscreen for people who wear it every day because it's the smart thing to do.

The brief gives you the tension — your job is to resolve it.

Technique	What it does
Prompt chaining	One tool's output becomes the next tool's input — each step builds on the last
Role prompting	Assigning Claude a specific perspective or expertise before you ask your question

Step 02

Write your Personal Brief

Save it in your OpenWebUI system settings. Paste a copy into your Google Doc.

H+Co ChatGPT

Step 03

Launch your research

Open Gemini Deep Research and brief it to investigate your category — competitive landscape, white space, audience mindsets, cultural tensions, and what existing brands are getting wrong.

Select Deep Research from the Tools menu

Hit go. This runs during dinner.

This is prompt chaining — using the output of one tool as the input for the next. What Gemini finds becomes the raw material Claude works with after the break.

Google Workspace

I need a comprehensive research report on the Australian suncare and sunscreen category. This is for a brand strategy project — I'm looking for strategic insight, not just a list of players. Please investigate three areas: 1. Competitive landscape Who are the key brands in the Australian sunscreen space? For each, I need: their positioning, their visual identity approach, the language they use, and the audience they're targeting. Pay attention to what they all say — and what none of them say. I'm looking for claimed territory and open whitespace. Include: Cancer Council, Bondi Sands, Ultra Violette, Banana Boat, La Roche-Posay (Australian presence), Hamilton, Invisible Zinc, and any emerging daily-wear SPF brands. Also look at relevant international brands that signal where the category is heading. 2. The cultural moment What's happening in Australian attitudes toward sun protection, daily SPF use, skin health, and the intersection of suncare and skincare right now? I need to understand the cultural tension — are people buying into the beauty-fication of sunscreen or getting tired of it? What's the mood? Look at consumer sentiment, media coverage, social conversation, and any relevant trend data. 3. Naming and visual conventions What naming patterns dominate the category? What's overused? What visual tropes appear on every shelf — colour palettes, typography styles, illustration vs photography, packaging formats? I want to know what the default looks like so we can avoid it. Organise your findings under these three headings. For each section, end with a short "so what" — the strategic implication of what you found.

Gemini generates a research plan and starts working

20-minute break

Dinner

Gemini is researching while you eat.

Post-dinner~50 minutes

Step 04

Extract what mattersPrompt chaining

Ask for options, not conclusions. You're not asking Claude to make your strategy — you're asking it to surface possibilities. The decisions are yours.

Paste Claude's extraction into your Google Doc.

H+Co ChatGPT

You are a senior brand strategist at an independent Australian advertising agency. You specialise in finding whitespace in crowded categories. You have zero patience for obvious thinking. I ran a deep research sprint on the Australian suncare category. Below is the full research output. I need you to extract strategic insights from this research — not summarise it. Here's what I need: 1. Claimed territory What does every competitor in this category say? What are the recurring themes, messages, and positions? Identify the patterns — the things that are so common they've become wallpaper. 2. Whitespace What does nobody say? What territories are unclaimed? What audience needs or cultural tensions are being ignored? Be specific — I want gaps I can build a brand in, not vague observations. 3. Three audience mindsets Based on the research, identify three genuinely distinct types of people who might buy a sunscreen — not demographics, but mindsets. How do they think about sun protection, skincare, and daily habits? What do they currently do instead? What would make them switch? Give each mindset a short name and 2-3 sentences of description. Make them meaningfully different from each other. 4. Three brand enemies Propose three beliefs, behaviours, or cultural norms that a new sunscreen brand could fight against. Not competitors — ways of thinking. Each enemy should be something real that exists in the culture, not a strawman. Give each a short name and 2-3 sentences explaining what it is and why it's worth fighting. 5. One cultural tension What single unresolved tension in the category gives a new brand permission to exist? Frame it as a contradiction people tolerate but shouldn't have to. Be sharp and opinionated. I'd rather you be wrong and interesting than right and boring. --- [PASTE YOUR GEMINI DEEP RESEARCH OUTPUT HERE]

Step 05

Make four decisionsRole prompting

Work through these in order. For each one, assign Claude a role before you ask — this is role prompting. Same question, different expertise, different answer.

1 Pick your audience

Ask a cultural strategist for three distinct audience options. Review them, pick one. Claude will push back and ask you to justify it. Sit with it before you confirm.

H+Co ChatGPT

You are a senior brand strategist who has spent 15 years building challenger brands in competitive Australian FMCG categories. You understand how to turn an audience insight into a brand that actually connects. I'm building a new Australian daily sunscreen brand. From my research, I've chosen this audience mindset: [PASTE YOUR CHOSEN AUDIENCE MINDSET HERE] Expand on this audience. I need to understand: - Who is this person really? Not demographics — describe their worldview, their daily reality, how they think about what they consume. - What do they believe that most people in the category ignore? - What are they currently doing instead of buying a daily sunscreen? What's the substitute behaviour? - What would make them switch? What would a brand need to say or do or feel like to get their attention? Before confirming, push back. Offer one alternative I might not have considered. Ask me why this audience over the others. Be specific and grounded. No aspirational nonsense — I want to recognise a real person in your description.

2 Pick your enemy

Ask a brand strategist for three things this brand could position itself against. Not a competitor — an attitude, a behaviour, or a category cliche. Pick one.

H+Co ChatGPT

You are a cultural critic who writes about brands, consumerism, and the stories companies tell. You're sharp, slightly cynical, and always looking for who benefits from the status quo. I'm building a new Australian daily sunscreen brand. I've chosen this as my brand enemy — the belief or behaviour my brand is fighting against: [PASTE YOUR CHOSEN BRAND ENEMY HERE] Sharpen this enemy for me: - Why does this belief or behaviour exist? What sustains it? - Who benefits from it staying the way it is? - What would it actually look like to challenge it — not in advertising, but in how a brand behaves? - What's the risk of fighting this enemy? Where could it go wrong? Before confirming, push back. Suggest one reason this enemy might be wrong. Ask me to defend my choice. Don't soften it. I need to understand what I'm up against.

3 Pick your tone

Three options only: irreverent, understated, or earnest. Ask Claude to make the case for each given your audience and enemy. Pick one.

Irreverent

Confident, slightly cheeky, willing to poke fun at the category. Doesn't take itself too seriously.

"Your skincare routine has eleven steps. Ours has one."

Understated

Quiet confidence. Says less, means more. Premium without performing it.

"SPF50+. Every day. Done."

Earnest

Genuine, warm, direct. Believes in what it's doing without being preachy about it.

"We made this because sunscreen shouldn't feel like a sacrifice. We think you'll agree."

4 Pick your word

If this brand could own one word in the mind of the consumer, what would it be? Ask for three options with the logic behind each. Pick one.

These four decisions are where sixty people in the room become sixty different brands. Same brief, same tools — the decisions compound.

H+Co ChatGPT

I'm building a new Australian daily sunscreen brand. Here are the strategic decisions I've made so far: Audience: [PASTE YOUR CHOSEN AUDIENCE] Enemy: [PASTE YOUR CHOSEN ENEMY] Tone: [YOUR CHOICE: irreverent, understated, or earnest] Based on these decisions, propose five single words this brand could own in the customer's mind. Not taglines. Not phrases. Single words. For each word: - State the word - Write one sentence defending why it's the right word for this specific audience, against this specific enemy, in this specific tone After I pick a word, push back. Tell me what's risky about it. Suggest one word I didn't ask for. The words should be genuinely different from each other — not five synonyms. I want range so I can make a real choice.

Step 06

Build your Brand Strategy document

Ask Claude to compile everything into a one-page Brand Strategy document — your audience, enemy, tone, one word, and the cultural tension the brand lives inside.

Paste it into your Google Doc.

H+Co ChatGPT

Before next Thursday

Your Google Doc is your record — make sure everything is in there
Set up your brand project folder in OpenWebUI
Full documentation is on its way — if you didn't finish something tonight, complete it before Session 2

Next week: naming, visual identity, and building an AI assistant that knows your brand inside out.

Techniques you used tonight

Technique	What it is
Prompt chaining	Using the output of one tool as the input for the next
Role prompting	Assigning Claude a role before asking — changes the angle of the answer

What you'll need