During my first week here at Hunter Public Relations, I sat in on a new product brainstorm. It was like nothing I’d ever seen before. Tons of exercises that were called “excursions,” everyone stated their ideas starting with “I wish” and “how to.” But within minutes, there were TONS of brilliant, organic ideas flying around.
I was so intrigued to learn more about this process and much to my avail, I found out that Hunter’s annual offsite employee training was going to focus on this exact brainstorm process.
Fast forward to Full Moon Resort, where the entire Hunter PR staff was greeted by ThinkShop, a leading team of innovation consultations that help large companies develop new brands, flavors, labels, etc.
So now that I’m a proud graduate of the training, here’s how it works:
You first learn how to conduct an excursion, which is an activity that gets the group thinking about the brainstorm’s objective. Lets say the objective is to find a new summer occasion for a wine brand.
My personal favorite excursion is called “worlds.” This is where the brainstorm facilitator asks everyone to think about “X” within the world of “X.”
Here’s an example: Let’s think about “grilling” within the world of “wine”.
The facilitator would then let everyone shout out words that matched that phrase. People can say anything that comes to mind: “BBQ,” “chicken,” “shish kebobs,” “Fourth of July.” The facilitator usually writes down about 20 words. Then, the facilitator chooses three or four key words from that 20 and tells the group to come up with campaign ideas that reflect the objective. And these ideas must be communicated as “I wish” or “how to” statements. For example, someone might say, “I wish X wine brand would have a shish kebob grilling contest on the Fourth of July, where participants must also pair their dish with one of the wines.”
From there, you deliver those ideas to the client. This process can repeat as many times as you like – some brainstorms are one hour and others are two days.
Needless to say, I don’t wonder how this process works anymore – I’m part of it!
Lauren
