During the final Level C Masterclass 1, all teams were tasked with bringing out a new business idea for a coffee shop. The goal was to wow our mentors, lecturer and the legend himself, Marty Neumeier, with the craziness of the idea.
A brand is not a logo, nor a color. It's not a symbol, not a name, not what it's creator says it is.
A brand is what others think it is.
- Marty Neumeier, The Brand Gap, 2003 (paraphrased)
My team, composed of the incredible women, Kayra, Mariel and April, and I, worked together to come up with a really out of the box idea. We didn't want something that was just painting a new idea on the existing formula of coffee shops. In the early part of the ideation process, we pondered the adage of caffeine injected straight to our veins and we took that literally. We ideated a realistic product that could actually be used for mood "management" the way coffee, tea or energy drinks might focus, calm or energize us.
Presentation of the idea was nearly as important as the idea itself, if not more so. We brainstormed for a distinct way to entice people to use our product. To our pleasure we learned that Andy Starr was not a big fan of needles, but we dangled the delight for a quick fix for his mood and our presentation was angled as a pitch to someone passing the shop on the street. With the menu metaphorically shoved under everyone's nose as if to say "how could you not want to try our product?"