# brand-foundation

**Mode skill.** Default-enabled on the Brand specialist.

## When to use

Use any time a brand decision is on the table and the **onlyness statement** is not yet locked in `TEAM_MEMORY.md`. This mode runs *before* any visual work, naming work, or voice-rule work. If a teammate hands you a brief that jumps straight to "pick the colors" or "design the logo," run this mode first and report back.

Trigger phrases:

- "Help me build a brand for…"
- "What should our positioning be?"
- "We need a tagline / one-liner."
- "Why aren't people remembering us?"

If onlyness is already locked (Brand has stamped it in `TEAM_MEMORY.md`), skip this mode and run `visual-system` next.

## Procedure

**1. Map the alternatives.** Ask the user: *"When someone is about to buy from you, what else are they choosing between?"* Demand at least three named alternatives, including the option of doing nothing or building it themselves. If Research has posted a competitive scan in `TEAM_MEMORY.md`, pull from there.

**2. Force a single dominant attribute.** Ask: *"If a buyer described you to a friend in one word — not a list — what word do you want them to use?"* Push back on every list. *"Premium and approachable"* is two words, which means none. The dominant attribute is the one word that, if a competitor tried to claim it, would feel wrong on them.

**3. Draft the onlyness statement.** Use the frame:

> *Our [offer] is the only [category] that [unique benefit] for [audience] who [need], in a time when [trend or shift].*

Fill every bracket with a specific noun. *"Solo bookkeepers"* not *"small businesses"*. *"Charge by the engagement, not the hour"* not *"deliver value."*

**4. Stress-test it.** Three checks, in order:

- **The competitor swap.** Substitute the name of the nearest competitor into the sentence. If the sentence remains plausible for them, "only" is not true. Tighten.
- **The friend test.** Could a customer who likes the brand say the sentence to a friend out loud without sounding like a brochure? If not, the words are corporate. Rewrite in plain speech.
- **The five-year test.** Will the sentence still be true in two to five years? If it locks the brand to a feature shipped last month, raise it a level.

**5. Lock it.** Post the surviving sentence to `## Brand` in `TEAM_MEMORY.md` under a dated `### YYYY-MM-DD — Onlyness statement` entry. Add the dominant attribute on a second line. This is the artifact every other brand decision answers to.

## Decision rules

- **One sentence, not a paragraph.** If it needs a comma-spliced second clause, it isn't done.
- **Difference beats betterness.** *"Better than X"* is a comparative claim that requires constant proof. *"The only X that Y"* is a categorical claim that owns a position. Pick the categorical.
- **Onlyness is owned at the intersection.** *"The only meal kit for renters with one square foot of counter space"* — the audience-and-context combination is where ownership lives, not on any single feature.
- **If the user can't fill the [audience] bracket with a specific person, escalate to Research.** No audience, no onlyness — only wishful thinking.
- **If the user can't fill the [trend or shift] bracket, the statement is still draftable but flag it.** A brand built without a "why now" still sells, but loses urgency in marketing copy.

## Anti-patterns

- Letting the user pick a dominant attribute that any competitor in the category would also claim ("trustworthy," "quality," "reliable"). These describe table stakes, not difference.
- Drafting the onlyness statement from your own taste instead of the user's market reality. The Brand specialist's job is to extract, not impose.
- Stacking adjectives. *"Bold, premium, modern, joyful"* is a fog. One word.
- Skipping step 4. An untested onlyness statement reads true to the founder and meaningless to the buyer.
- Treating onlyness as a tagline. Onlyness is an internal-compass sentence. The tagline is a shorter, public-facing line Copy writes from the onlyness.
- Designing colors, logos, or decks while step 5 is still empty. Visual work without onlyness is decoration.

## Before / after

**Brief:** *"We're a productivity app for creatives. Help us find our brand."*

**Before** (adjective fog):
> *We're a modern, intuitive, beautifully designed productivity tool for creative professionals who want to do their best work.*

That sentence is true of every productivity app shipped since 2014. It locates nothing.

**After** (onlyness statement, locked):
> *We're the only daily planner that forces you to schedule the messy middle of a creative project, for solo illustrators who shipped a launch last year and can't face starting another one.*

Dominant attribute: *unflinchingly honest*. Every visual and voice choice from this point on answers to that one word.
