Bare Brand Strat - March 2025

No fluff, no flake, just Bare Brand Strat

Packed with practical content, real-life projects and actionable takeaways that can be applied to working design-based businesses, Bare Brand Strat is a four-week online learning program lifting the lid on the reality of pitching, planning and doing brand strategy in the real world

Designed for creatives, studios and teams looking to make their work stronger, their value higher and their voice matter more where it counts.

Program Includes

• 4 x live online workshops
• 3 x group QnA sessions
• Program Recap Session
• Access to all recordings and pres slides
• Miro workshop template
• BBS Slack channel community
• One on one Consult Session

What they say

"Bare Brand Strat is the strategy course I'd been searching far and wide for. Straightforward, practical and honest, it delivered the perfect amount of insight, structure and real world considerations to feel confident in better understanding and implementing brand strategy"

Gabi Fountain, Independent Designer

"Bare Brand Strategy with Richie is a game-changer for designers and marketers passionate about branding. As designers, we often rush to the visual output, but the course taught me the power of research, workshops, and narrative frameworks. The practical strategies I've learned are now integral to my own branding projects. Highly, highly recommend."

Geordie Launder​​​​, Senior Brand Designer, Always Live

"Richie's course has honestly been one of the most useful courses I have done in my career. His transparency regarding his process, along with super practical content, meant I was able to immediately get value out of the course and apply it directly to the work I am doing for clients."

Chontelle Cripps, Creative Director, Gloo

Workshop Outline

Week #1: Research

Starts with hard work, ends with champagne! In the first workshop of the program, we’ll be learning how to kick-start your brand strategy properly with an in-depth look at the all-important research and discovery stage of a brand or rebrand project. This will include conducting audits, analyzing data, exploring your competitor landscape and conducting interviews with internal and external stakeholders - who to ask, what to ask, how to ask it, all that good stuff. We’ll also look at the business side of things, including how to scope, cost, pitch and plan your project.

Thursday, 6th March, 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM AEDT

• Sydney (AEDT): 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM, Thursday, 6th March
  
• Tokyo (JST): 8:00 AM - 10:00 AM Thursday 6th March
• Los Angeles (PST): 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM, Wednesday, 5th March
• Mexico City (CST): 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM, Wednesday, 5th March
• New York (EST): 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM, Wednesday, 5th March

Week #2: Workshop Design, Facilitation and Strategy Playback

Get me in a room! In week two, we’ll look at how to extract, test, align and impress with a step-by-step guide to organising, designing and facilitating custom brand strategy workshops that hit the sweet spots with the top dogs on any given project. We’ll look at how to use your research insights to design bespoke exercises and activities to run during the workshop and how to spark and steer the right kind of discussions. We’ll also cover presenting a ‘strategy playback’ to your client or team that documents your research and outlines the path for the next stages of your project.

Thursday, 13th March, 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM AEDT

• Sydney (AEDT): 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM, Thursday, 13th March
  
• Tokyo (JST): 8:00 AM - 10:00 AM Thursday 13th March
• Los Angeles (PDT): 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM, Wednesday, 12th March
• Mexico City (CST): 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM, Wednesday,12th March
• New York (EDT): 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM, Wednesday, 12th March

Week #3: Frameworks, Naming and Narratives

Get ready to hone in on the main meal in week 3. No endless decks of waffle, ‘your brand is a Volvo’ or pointless arrows and diagrams. Instead we’ll focus on how to develop a practical and useful brand framework covering personas, positioning, architecture and more. We’ll explore the complex world of developing a name for a new brand and go deep into writing a compelling narrative, message and story that forms the foundation of a brand’s verbal identity (including how to harness ChatGPT). Finally, we’ll cover how best to present all this work back to those that matter in your project.

Thursday, 20th March, 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM AEST

• Sydney (AEDT): 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM, Thursday, 20th March
  
• Tokyo (JST): 8:00 AM - 10:00 AM Thursday 20th March
• Los Angeles (PDT): 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM, Wednesday, 19th March
• Mexico City (CST): 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM, Wednesday,19th March
• New York (EDT): 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM, Wednesday, 19th March

Week #4: Brand ID Design, Rollouts and Brand Operating Systems

It’s alive! To make sure your brand gets the birth it deserves in week 4, we’ll be focusing on feeding all your strategy work into the development of your brand’s new or revamped identity. In this workshop, you’ll learn how to present the new concept, master the rollout process and develop key brand touch points across on and offline channels. We’ll also cover ways to document your strategy, narrative and identity with clear, robust and practical application guidelines to keep it strong, fit and healthy for many, many moons. 

Thursday, 27th March, 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM AEDT

• Sydney (AEDT): 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM, Thursday, 27th March
  
• Tokyo (JST): 8:00 AM - 10:00 AM Thursday 27th March
• Los Angeles (PDT): 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM, Wednesday, 26th March
• Mexico City (CST): 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM, Wednesday,26th March
• New York (EDT): 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM, Wednesday, 26th March

Program Recap Session

After a 2 week gap to let all the learning sink in, and time to rewatch the workshop recordings, we meet again! In the recap session we'll go over some of the key areas from all 4 workshops. We'll delve into the most important bits and have an opportunity for questions and discussion, so that everyone is ready and able to hit the ground running.

Thursday, 3rd April, 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM AEDT

• Sydney (AEDT): 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM, Thursday, 3rd April
  
• Tokyo (JST): 8:00 AM - 10:00 AM Thursday 3rd April
• Los Angeles (PDT): 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM, Wednesday, 2nd April
• Mexico City (CST): 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM, Wednesday, 2nd April
• New York (EDT): 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM, Wednesday, 2nd April

QnA Sessions

As well as the workshop session, all attendees get access to join 3 live group QnA session to unpack the content from each week, ask questions, listed to others and talk about topics important to them. 

Group QnA #1
Tuesday 11th March 10am-11am AEDT

Group QnA #2
Session 1 - Tuesday 18th March 10am-11am AEDT

Group QnA #3
Session 1 - Tuesday 25th March 10am-11am AEDT