The Black Country Chamber of Commerce
Delivering a Branding Workshop for the Black Country Chamber of Commerce
Eighty3 has been a member of the Black Country Chamber of Commerce Platinum Group for some time, and when the chamber’s marketing forum came around, we were invited to take the lead and share our expertise. The forum is an opportunity for members to exchange knowledge and best practice, and we were keen to make the most of the platform.
The session was kindly hosted at the last minute by Kieron Ansell from the Wolves Foundation in Molineux and organised by Gail Arnold, the chamber’s Head of Premium Membership and a central figure in connecting the Platinum Group’s network. Without both of them, the day simply wouldn’t have happened.
The Challenge:
Marketing is one of those subjects that almost every business owner thinks they understand, at least on the surface. The terminology is familiar, the channels are well known, and most people have some activity in place. But familiarity can be misleading. There’s a significant difference between doing marketing and doing it with a clear, consistent strategic foundation.
Our aim with this branding workshop wasn’t to cover ground people had already walked. It was to explore the areas that often get overlooked, the nuances that sit beneath the surface and that, when addressed properly, make everything else more effective. With two hours and a room full of engaged professionals, we wanted every minute to count.
Our Approach:
We structured the session as two distinct halves, with a comfort break in between, each with its own focus and its own set of practical activities.
The first hour was led by Dan and centred on brand foundation. Rather than presenting theory and moving on, the session was built around participation from the start. Attendees worked through three activities designed to get them thinking concretely about their own brands.
The first used Eighty3’s brand values cards, a bespoke pack developed specifically for this kind of workshop. Each card features a different brand value, and participants work through the deck to identify which values they absolutely are, which they definitely aren’t, and which sit somewhere in between. The process helps cut through vague thinking and brings three core brand principles into focus.
From there, the group moved into Finding Your Frequency, an exercise built around four sliders, each with opposing values at either end. Casual versus formal. Bold versus understated. Participants had to place their brand on each scale, pinpointing where their voice genuinely sits rather than where they’d like it to sit. It’s a deceptively simple exercise that tends to generate a lot of reflection.
The final activity in the first half asked attendees to articulate their values in a structured statement format: our core value is X, which means Y, but not Z. It’s a discipline that forces clarity, and it’s exactly the kind of thinking that shapes consistent, confident brand communication.
After the break, Rebecca took over for the second hour with a focus on brand amplification and what we call the marketing engine. Rather than presenting a list of channels and tactics, the session opened by asking the room what marketing activities they were already doing, capturing responses in a live word cloud that immediately made the breadth of the subject visible.
From there, Rebecca walked through the marketing engine itself, a framework that maps all the key areas of marketing activity and shows how they work together as a connected system rather than a series of isolated efforts. Visibility, content, customer service, advocacy and more, all feeding into and reinforcing each other.
To bring it home, attendees completed an audit of their own marketing activity, rating themselves on a scale of zero to three across each area of the engine. Zero for activities not yet in place, one for those done inconsistently, and three for those being done well. It gave everyone a clear, honest picture of where they stood. The session closed with a personal action plan, asking each attendee to identify their strengths, their quick wins, and one concrete commitment to act on within the next thirty days.
Services We Delivered
The Results:
Marketing is one of those subjects that almost every business owner thinks they understand, at least on the surface. The terminology is familiar, the channels are well known, and most people have some activity in place. But familiarity can be misleading. There’s a significant difference between doing marketing and doing it with a clear, consistent strategic foundation.
Our aim with this branding workshop wasn’t to cover ground people had already walked. It was to explore the areas that often get overlooked, the nuances that sit beneath the surface and that, when addressed properly, make everything else more effective. With two hours and a room full of engaged professionals, we wanted every minute to count.
Client testimonial:
“I had the opportunity to attend the marketing forum by Eighty3 and it was quite informative and interactive. Both Dan and Bec are amazing.”
Anu Singh
Content Creator
Coinadrink
What made this branding workshop work, we think, was the decision to build it around doing rather than telling. Brand values and brand voice can sound abstract until you’re actually working through a card deck or placing your business on a slider. The activities gave people a way in, and once they were in, the conversations took care of themselves.
It was also a reminder of how much value there is in bringing a room of people from different industries together around a shared subject. The word cloud exercise in Rebecca’s session made that visible in real time: everyone is doing something, but rarely with a clear sense of how it all connects.
We came away with a lot too. The interest in the brand values cards as a standalone product was something we hadn’t planned for, and it’s opened up a conversation about how we might develop and offer them more formally. That kind of unexpected outcome is often the most valuable thing a session like this can produce.
We’re grateful to Gail Arnold and the Black Country Chamber for the opportunity and to Kieron Ansell and the Wolves Foundation for their generosity in hosting us. We’re already looking forward to the next one.
Ready to get your brand voice heard?
Interested in bringing a session like this to your team or organisation? We’d love to talk about what a bespoke branding workshop could look like for you. We’re also offering a free marketing audit to help businesses get a clearer picture of where they stand and where the opportunities lie.
Get in touch with the Eighty3 team to find out more.
