# The Creative Process of Brand Building: Connecting Consumers & Companies through Stories - review & insight | Gareth B. Davies Source: https://garethbdavies.com/course-insights/the-creative-process-of-brand-building-connecting-consumers-and-companies-through-stories/ [← All courses](https://garethbdavies.com/course-insights/) Graphic Design · Quick win · Rated 7 /10 # The Creative Process of Brand Building: Connecting Consumers & Companies through Stories By Gareth B. Davies · Updated July 2026 Stanley Hainsworth · Founder of Tether All levels · 46 min A former Nike and Starbucks creative director shows the real Awake Chocolate case file in 46 minutes flat, no filler. [Get a Free Month on Skillshare](https://skillshare.eqcm.net/c/3155494/298081/4650?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.skillshare.com%2Fclasses%2Fthe-creative-process-of-brand-building-connecting-consumers-and-companies-through-stories%2F453432465) New to Skillshare? Your first month is free, enough to take this course at no cost. ## What the course actually covers Stanley Hainsworth structures this class as a single case study rather than a generic curriculum. After a brief introduction to his background at Nike, Lego, and Starbucks, he moves straight into the real project his agency Tether did for Awake Chocolate, a caffeinated chocolate bar that originally looked like an energy drink wearing a chocolate wrapper. The class follows that project's actual sequence: assess the competitive landscape, define the audience, build a brand outline of vision, mission, promise, and personality traits, generate name candidates, then move into visual execution and client presentation. Each lesson closes with an assignment that mirrors the stage just covered, asking the viewer to apply the same steps to a brand of their own choosing. The brand outline section is the strongest piece of instruction here. Hainsworth walks through vision, mission, promise, and personality traits as distinct, ordered questions rather than a vague mood board exercise, and he shows the actual answers Tether landed on for Awake: a promise of "get more out of life," traits like energetic, helpful, witty, encouraging, and positive, plus a set of brand guardrails that spell out what the brand is not. Seeing those specific words next to the reasoning behind them gives the framework more weight than most brand-strategy explainers manage. ## Where it thins out The visual execution lesson is more narrative than instructional. Hainsworth describes how the team arrived at Nevil the owl and walks through packaging revisions, but the actual design decision-making, why one sketch worked over another, how color or type choices tied back to the brand traits, gets summarized rather than demonstrated. Viewers looking for a repeatable visual method will come away with anecdotes, not a process they can apply step by step. The presenting-your-work lesson is similarly light. Its most useful point, that clients should be limited to a fixed number of feedback rounds, arrives almost as an aside. The rest leans on general advice about trust and compromise that any working creative already knows. ## Verdict At under 50 minutes, this class does not try to be comprehensive, and it mostly avoids the trap of stretching thin material to fill runtime. What it delivers well is a compact, real-world model of how a positioning document turns into a finished product line, backed by verifiable results: distribution growing from roughly 1,000 stores to over 20,000, awards, and media coverage. The closing clip from the brand's Dragons' Den pitch is a nice touch that grounds the case study in a business outcome rather than just a design outcome. The tradeoff is depth. Anyone hoping for a repeatable toolkit for naming, color theory, or packaging layout will find those topics gestured at rather than taught. The course works best as an argument for a way of thinking about brand strategy, illustrated by one well-chosen example, not as a skills workshop. Viewers should treat the assignments as a chance to reverse-engineer the Awake framework against their own project rather than expect detailed technique instruction along the way. The standout The walkthrough of turning a single sketch into Nevil the owl, then using him as a recurring spokes-character across packaging, Twitter, and campus tours, shows concretely how one visual idea can carry an entire activation strategy. ## What you will learn - · How to build a brand vision, mission, promise, and personality traits into one cohesive brand outline - · How to generate and narrow brand name options using quick visual context around each candidate - · How to translate a written brand story into a visual system, including creating a mascot character - · How to extend a core identity into packaging, a mini brand book, and social and campus activation ideas - · How to structure client presentations with limited feedback rounds and frame revisions as compromise, not defeat - · How to read real distribution and press results back into the brand's original strategy Best for: Early to mid-career designers, marketers, or writers who want to see a real branding project's full arc from positioning to client presentation in one sitting. Skip it if: Anyone wanting hands-on software instruction, formal design theory, or a slow, exercise-heavy class with detailed feedback on their own work. Engaging Teacher Helpful Examples Audio & Video Quality Organization of Lessons [Get a Free Month on Skillshare](https://skillshare.eqcm.net/c/3155494/298081/4650?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.skillshare.com%2Fclasses%2Fthe-creative-process-of-brand-building-connecting-consumers-and-companies-through-stories%2F453432465)