branding
kostja94/marketing-skills
Define and audit brand strategy—purpose, values, positioning, storytelling, and voice across touchpoints.
What is branding?
This skill guides the creation and refinement of brand strategy, including purpose, values, positioning, storytelling, voice, and narrative identity. Use it when defining a new brand, auditing consistency, or aligning messaging across website, social, product, and other touchpoints.
- Define brand purpose, values, positioning, and differentiation
- Develop origin stories and hero's journey narratives aligned to customer needs
- Establish brand voice, tone, and preferred terminology for consistency
- Map brand archetypes (Creator, Caregiver, Ruler, etc.) to customer personality
- Create brand guidelines as a single source of truth
- Generate design tokens (colors, typography, spacing) for implementation across web, slides, and print
How to install branding
npx skills add https://github.com/kostja94/marketing-skills --skill brandingHow to use branding
- 1.Identify your scope: are you creating a new brand, auditing an existing one, or aligning messaging?
- 2.Gather existing assets (brand guide, logo, style guide, contextus.md if available)
- 3.Define the five brand strategy pillars: purpose, values, target audience, positioning, and differentiation
- 4.Develop your brand story: origin story, hero's journey, and narrative arc
- 5.Establish brand voice and tone, including terms to avoid and preferred terminology
- 6.Create or refine brand guidelines as a single source of truth
- 7.Generate design tokens (colors, typography, spacing) for consistent implementation across touchpoints
Use cases
- Launching a new company or product with a cohesive brand identity
- Auditing an existing brand for consistency across website, social media, and product UI
- Aligning messaging and voice across marketing, product, and customer support teams
- Developing a brand story and positioning statement to differentiate from competitors
- Creating a brand guidelines document or style guide for internal and external teams
- Founders and startup leaders defining brand identity
- Marketing and communications teams auditing brand consistency
- Product managers aligning product messaging with brand strategy
- Design and content teams implementing brand guidelines
- Agencies developing brand strategy for clients
branding FAQ
This skill covers brand strategy, storytelling, voice, and narrative identity. brand-visual-generator handles visual implementation: typography, colors, design tokens, and frontend visuals. Use this skill first to define strategy, then brand-visual-generator to implement the visual specs.
Yes, if it helps. Aligning your brand to one of the 12 archetypes (Creator, Hero, Caregiver, etc.) strengthens storytelling and ensures consistent personality across touchpoints.
Purpose and values, positioning statement, origin story, voice and tone, logo usage rules, color palette, typography, and imagery guidelines. It's your single source of truth for consistency.
Set the slide master background and default fonts from your token table, map theme colors to primary/secondary/background/text, and reuse one accent color per deck section for consistency.
Use available project material or ask for missing information. Do not create a parallel context system. The skill will work with whatever brand information you provide.
Full instructions (SKILL.md)
Source of truth, from kostja94/marketing-skills.
name: branding description: When the user wants to define, audit, or apply brand strategy—purpose, values, positioning, storytelling, voice, narrative (not only visuals). Also use when the user mentions "brand strategy," "brand story," "brand storytelling," "brand voice," "brand identity," "brand guidelines," "brand purpose," "brand values," "origin story," "brand narrative," "brand personality," "brand archetype," "slide deck branding," "PPT brand colors," or "document style guide." For typography, colors, design tokens, and frontend visuals, use brand-visual-generator. license: MIT metadata: version: 1.2.0
Strategies: Branding
Guides brand strategy: purpose, values, positioning, storytelling, voice, and visual identity. Companies with consistent branding see 23–33% revenue lift; people remember stories ~22× more than facts alone. Use this skill when defining a new brand, auditing consistency, or aligning messaging across touchpoints.
Keywords: brand strategy, brand guidelines, visual identity, storytelling, brand voice, design tokens, slide deck, corporate identity, style guide, positioning
When invoking: On first use, if helpful, open with 1–2 sentences on what this skill covers and why it matters, then provide the main output. On subsequent use or when the user asks to skip, go directly to the main output.
Scope
- Brand strategy: Purpose, values, positioning, differentiation, target audience
- Brand storytelling: Origin story, hero's journey, narrative arc, brand archetypes
- Brand voice & tone: Voice, tone, avoid terms, preferred wording
- Brand visual identity: Colors, typography, logo rules—strategy layer; implementation in brand-visual-generator, logo-generator
Initial Assessment
Project context: Read root contextus.md when present and load only the modules relevant to this task. Without Contextus, use available project material or user-provided facts and ask for missing information; do not create a parallel context system.
Identify:
- Scope: New brand, audit, or alignment
- Touchpoints: Website, social, product UI, directories, content
- Existing assets: Brand guide, logo, style guide
Brand Strategy Pillars
| Pillar | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Brand purpose | Why the brand exists beyond profit; one sentence |
| Brand values | 4–5 core values; what you stand for; differentiators |
| Target audience | Who you serve; ICP; jobs to be done |
| Positioning | For [customer] who [need], our [product] is a [category] that [benefit]. Unlike [competitor], we [differentiator] because [reasons] |
| Differentiation | Why you, not alternatives; concrete, not vague |
Brand Storytelling
Origin Story
- What: Journey, founding, milestones, personal experiences that shaped the company
- Why: Emotional connection; 58% of customers buy based on company values
- Elements: Who founded it; why created; challenges overcome; vision; how it evolved
Hero's Journey (Customer as Hero)
| Element | Content |
|---|---|
| Hero | Your customer; their needs, wants, context |
| Problem | What they face; how they solve it now |
| Inciting insight | Reframing that creates urgency |
| Brand's role | Guide, tool, or partner—not hero; how you enable resolution |
| Transformation | What better future looks like; proof (case studies, testimonials) |
Brand Narrative Arc
- Protagonist: Customer facing a challenge
- Stakes: What happens if nothing changes
- Proof: Data, case studies, testimonials
- CTA: Place call to action in the story; provoke action
Brand Archetypes (12 Types)
| Archetype | Tone | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Creator | Innovative, imaginative | Adobe |
| Caregiver | Nurturing, supportive | Johnson & Johnson |
| Ruler | Authoritative, premium | Mercedes-Benz |
| Innocent | Simple, optimistic | Coca-Cola |
| Sage | Wise, knowledgeable | |
| Explorer | Adventurous, independent | Patagonia |
| Outlaw | Rebellious, disruptive | Harley-Davidson |
| Magician | Transformative, visionary | Disney |
| Hero | Courageous, determined | Nike |
| Lover | Passionate, sensual | Chanel |
| Jester | Playful, fun | M&M's |
| Everyman | Relatable, down-to-earth | IKEA |
Align archetype to customer personality; strengthens storytelling.
Brand Voice & Tone
| Element | Definition | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Voice | Brand personality; consistent across touchpoints | Professional / Friendly / Technical / Bold |
| Tone | How you say it; adapts to context | Confident but not arrogant; helpful; concise |
| Avoid | Buzzwords, terms to never use | "streamline," "revolutionize," "synergy" |
| Preferred | Terms to use consistently | "audit" not "analysis"; "customer" not "user" |
Contextus brand module: Maintain project-specific voice, tone, prohibited language, and preferred terms in Contextus.
Brand Visual Identity (Strategy Layer)
| Element | Strategy | Implementation |
|---|---|---|
| Colors | Primary, secondary, CTA; industry mapping | brand-visual-generator |
| Typography | Display + body; hierarchy; pairing | brand-visual-generator |
| Logo | Variants, clear space, minimum size | logo-generator |
| Imagery | Tone, subject matter, visual mood | Brand guidelines |
| Consistency | Same identity across web, social, product | All touchpoints |
For full visual specs (fonts, HEX, spacing), see brand-visual-generator. For logo placement and implementation, see logo-generator.
Brand Guidelines Structure
Single source of truth. Include:
- Purpose & values: Why you exist; what you stand for
- Positioning: One-liner; differentiation
- Story: Origin story; hero's journey summary
- Voice & tone: Voice, tone, avoid, preferred
- Logo: Usage rules, clear space, variants (light/dark)
- Colors: Primary, secondary, CTA (HEX, RGB, CMYK)
- Typography: Font families, hierarchy, sizing
- Imagery: Photography tone; iconography style
Visual Specification Delivery (Design Tokens)
When the user needs actionable specs (not only strategy)—for web, slides, or print—produce a token table the team can paste into a design system, media kit, or slide master. Align with brand-visual-generator for full web/CSS detail.
| Token category | What to document | Example fields |
|---|---|---|
| Colors | Named roles + values for light/dark if applicable | Primary #______, text primary #______, background #______, accent 1–3, CTA, border, error/success |
| Typography | Family, weight, size scale, line-height | Display / H1–H3 / body / caption; web-safe or system fallbacks |
| Spacing | Base unit and scale | e.g. 8px base; section gaps; logo clear space in em or px |
| Non-text accents | Charts, shapes, dividers | Rotate accent colors; avoid arbitrary one-off hues outside palette |
Applying tokens across surfaces
- Web / product: CSS variables or design tokens; see brand-visual-generator.
- Slides (PowerPoint, Google Slides, Keynote): Set slide master background + default title/body fonts from token table; map theme colors to primary/secondary/background/text; reuse one accent per deck section where possible.
- Documents (Word, Google Docs, PDF): Define paragraph styles (Title, Heading 1–3, Normal, Caption) with fonts and colors from tokens; set default page background if brand uses off-white.
If the user pastes an existing brand PDF or bullet list, extract and normalize into this token table before suggesting implementation.
Output Format
- Brand strategy (purpose, values, positioning, differentiation)
- Story (origin story, hero's journey, narrative arc)
- Voice & tone (voice, tone, avoid, preferred)
- Archetype (if applicable)
- Visual (high-level; defer to brand-visual-generator for web specs)
- Design token table (colors, type scale, spacing) when deliverable must be implementation-ready
- Slide/document notes (master fonts, theme colors) when touchpoints include decks or docs
- Contextus for maintained project-specific brand and visual identity
Related Skills
- about-page-generator: About page implements brand story, mission, values
- homepage-generator: Homepage implements value prop, differentiation, brand voice
- logo-generator: Logo placement, implementation; branding defines logo rules
- brand-visual-generator: Typography, colors, spacing; branding defines visual strategy
- media-kit-page-generator: Media kit hosts brand guidelines
- directory-submission: Directory copy uses brand voice; Section 8 Brand & Voice
- title-tag, meta-description: Metadata uses brand voice
- integrated-marketing: Brand awareness across PESO
- domain-selection: Domain choice (Brand/PMD/EMD, TLD); do before or with branding when choosing domain
- domain-architecture: Domain structure implements brand architecture (Branded House vs House of Brands)
- rebranding-strategy: Rebrand execution; domain change, 301, announcement
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