Dave is asked to "admit he has a problem" and "be willing to join in with our program."
He replies "yes."
That triggers a rare bit of corporate bonding, a boisterous group hug.
Following a buffet lunch, Dave is asked to make a pivotal choice. Does he want his company to function as a branded house or a house of brands? A branded house would make him like Dove--which manages and markets its soaps, shampoos, and facial washes all under one brand. As a house of brands, he'd operate in the mode of Procter & Gamble (NYSE:PG) and its freewheeling mosaic of brands, each with a distinctive design and marketing campaign.
"It would certainly be easier to have a branded house," Dave says, thinking aloud. "Everything would flow more naturally, and it's more cost effective. But there's a hitch. If we're a branded house, the brand would probably be Insanity, because that's where our equity is." That worries him because of the demographic divide between his core Insanity fans (which include ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons, who has his shirt pockets resewn to perfectly pouch one of Dave's travel-size hot sauce bottles) and buyers of his pasta sauces and preserves and ice cream toppings. The former tend to be male and younger; the latter female and tipping more toward middle age.
Hot sauce collector Neary, who wears a patch of chin whiskers, sees no problem. "I think, really, the brand is you. That name: Dave. Not Dave's Insanity. The word insanity may be the most famous one, but it doesn't have to be on everything. I think you can break it apart to make it Dave's. We'll get to the core--what is the core of you? Whatever the core is, let's say, incredible, or fun, other nomenclature can emanate from that, like insane does. But insane has to come from someplace."
To get at that place, everybody soon heads upstairs to harvest onions. Deskey, Dave learns, anchors its creative efforts with a visual tool it calls an onion. The Deskey onion, printed on poster-size sheets of white paper, has three layers: an outer ring labeled Brand Character, a middle ring called Strategic Equity and Positioning, and a center dubbed Overall Equity. To fill these layers with defining adjectives quickly, they split into three groups and head for corner rooms off the big open floor. Each room starts to buzz as words and phrases fill the air and get written inside onions taped to the walls.
In Dave's group, led by Neary, strings of words are geysered toward the outer ring of the onion: honesty, intensity, passion, easygoing, omniperson, regular guy, down to earth, casual, authentic.
Across the way, in a sun-dappled corner room, Miki Reilly-Howe, a VP of brand strategy, collects core-value words and phrases: honesty, fun, authentic, uncompromised, making it yours, the moment, seeking specialness. A bit later, trolling for words for the middle ring of the onion, she asks: "What's the positioning? Where can he play? What does he want to stand for? What would he want on his tombstone?"
"Make the most of it."
"Not hot sauce. The hottest sauce."
"Yeah, never settle."
"I think," says Reilly-Howe, turning to Dave but speaking to everyone, "that Insanity is going to be your difficult-to-control child."
After about 45 minutes they reconvene, and each group presents and explains its onion, reached by consensus. The first onion looks like this: Brand Character: polarizing, irreverent, true, optimistic. Strategic Equity: make the most of it. Overall Equity: don't postpone joy.
Another group, calling its effort the Flavor Nation Funion, offers: Brand Character: true, passion, uninhibited. Strategic Equity: flavor nation, real ingredients for a rave in your mouth at every meal. Overall Equity: fearless food fanatics.
Dave listens from a beanbag-style chair, sinking considerably closer to horizontal than vertical as each presentation concludes with applause. Because of airport delays, he didn't arrive at his hotel until 1 a.m. He was up at 7 a.m.--4 a.m. San Francisco time.
"At its core, it's all about curiosity," says Neary, explaining his group's onion, "…and a word that never seems to make any Brand Character, but if there's any word that seems to sum up the whole thing, it's cool. How do you get that into everything you make?"
At 2:30, a second exercise divides the group anew. IS/IS NOT is an exploration of brand-character words from the various onions. Those words are written at the top of sheets of paper taped to the walls in each room; beneath each character word are IS and IS NOT. Everybody is soon leafing through magazines--a veritable newsstand of them, everything from U.S. News to Marie Claire to Bassmaster--searching for photos to paste beneath the IS and IS NOT headings.
Deskey has found this a helpful way of bringing the emerging brand into sharper focus. In one of the rooms, Passionate attracts a picture of George Lucas, a wedding cake, and a glass of wine beneath the word IS. Uninhibited IS a woman wearing sunglasses and a radiant smile; Uninhibited IS NOT Borat wearing a lime green thong that continues over his shoulders. True IS Stonyfield yogurt; True IS NOT a product called Sex in a Can.
In the late-afternoon wrap-up Reilly-Howe tells Dave that when he returns in a couple of weeks, they'll present him with the fruits of this exploratory day of branding: a final onion capturing the essence of his company and "a clear strategy based on what we did today."
