Challenge: Describe your challenge, including all relevant information.    As part of my marketing role in my current organization, part of my job is to come up with  the marketing pitch for new product launches for our customers. In a recent new product  launch, one of the tasks I had to perform was to come up with a product tagline, ie the short  and memorable phrase that will be used in the marketing campaign to convey the message  of the new product to the customer. The challenge here is that the product has a various  selling value proposition, and it is important as a team that we align on the one we should  focus on, that will resonate the most with the market needs.    Selection: In your own words, briefly describe the tool you selected (e.g., what it is and  why you selected it for your challenge -- including any appropriate video lecture  references).    One of the tools that I had relied on was brainstorming. As I am from an outside industry  from my new company, it was difficult for me to view the product advantages from my  perspective as I am from the outside. In short, however, an email and a brief were sent out  to all my team members (6 people), and I had asked them about what they thought were  the product valuation propositions were and what would our customers resonate with.    Application: Describe how you applied the tool you selected to your challenge (e.g., what  you did and how the tool was applied effectively or ineffectively).    The brief was sent out with a few short descriptions of what the product technology is,  combined with a few of the tests that we had conducted in the lab to demonstrate the  product performance versus our competitors. At the same time, I had to share visual aid in  the likes of our marketing content and also test results to provoke the thought process of  my colleagues. The outcome ultimately, was for the participants in a paragraph or less, to  describe what they thought the benefits were and key selling points associated with the  products. Once I had collated all the information shared, I sat down with my manager and  counterpart to review the common themes throughout this exercise to determine what  would be the right direction to go forth for the tagline.    Insight: Describe the insight you gained from applying the tool you selected to your  challenge (e.g., how an insight affected your thinking about the challenge and about  design thinking more broadly).    The biggest insight from this exercise was definitely through the diversity of the individuals  that had participated in the topic. As nicely described in the course material, “organizations  with the highest payoffs are not innovating the solution, but in innovating how people work  together to implement the new possibilities they see”. Having alignment and bringing  everyone along this journey has allowed my teammates to feel like that they are part of this  journey, generating better results and engagement for the future launch of the product.    Approach: Describe what you might do differently next time -- applying the same tool you  selected or a different one -- and the reason(s) why.

The only thing I would change next time as to how to write less in the brief. Whilst it is  important to give guidance to the participants on where the direction should be heading,  there is a fine balance between what is too much guidance and what is not enough so that  the creativity and thought process is starting from a “blank page”.

