The Frame Pro
Strategic platforms and creative territories.
"Brands are remembered through a single dominant association, because memory favours what is fast, clear, and easy to retrieve."
The Core Insight
The Frame is where strategy becomes tangible. It takes strategic direction and forges it into a creative territory and strategic platform that creative teams can actually use. This bridges the gap between strategic thinking and creative execution.
The Science of Brand Memory
Associative Network Theory: Memory operates as interconnected nodes. When one activates ("Nike"), it spreads to connected nodes ("athletics", "Just Do It", "swoosh").
Mental Availability: Byron Sharp showed brand growth is driven by the probability a brand comes to mind. This depends on quantity, quality, and freshness of associations.
The Dominance of Single Associations: While brands have many associations, one tends to dominate. The strategic question isn't "how do we communicate everything?" but "what single association do we want to own?"
Cascade Mode vs Free Roam
The Frame operates in two modes:
Cascade Mode
In Cascade Mode, The Frame receives complete strategic context from all four upstream tools: problem reframe (Story), audience tension (Audience), position statement (Message), and strategic direction (Plan). It synthesises these into a communications framework with strategic guardrails.
Key behaviours in Cascade Mode:
- Brand context auto-filled from entire cascade
- Strategic Confidence score reflects full 5-tool quality
- Pitch Readiness Check runs before deck generation
- Generate Comms Plan creates slides from all 5 tools
- Lock Pitch saves final platform to cascade
Pitch Readiness Check: Before generating your comms plan, The Frame analyses your entire 5-tool cascade and provides a scored assessment (0-100) across five dimensions: Brief Alignment, Coherence, Differentiation, Deliverability, and Evidence Base. You'll see vulnerability points (client objections you should prepare for), strengths to lean on, and a "Before You Present" checklist. This takes 10-15 seconds and helps you prepare for tough client questions. See the Pitch Readiness section below for details.
Free Roam
Use The Frame independently to develop creative territories for existing brands or explore platform ideas without cascade context.
Key differences:
- All fields manual entry (no cascade data)
- Save button instead of Lock Pitch
- No Strategic Confidence score
- No Pitch Readiness Check
- Standard export only (not full comms plan)
In a pitch? Use Cascade Mode to complete your cascade with a communications framework. Exploring territories? Use Free Roam for standalone work. See our Quality Indicators guide for confidence score details.
How It Works
Step 1: Brand Input
In Cascade Mode: The Frame pre-fills your strategic context from the cascade:
- Brand: From Story
- Problem: From Story's reframe
- Convention: From Story's sector messaging convention
- Audience: From Audience's tension statement
- Position: From Message's position statement
- Direction: From Plan's direction
Add Research (Optional): Upload brand guidelines, positioning studies, creative briefs, or campaign retrospectives to ground the platform generation. The Frame extracts brand personality, tone, and territory guidance. Accepted formats: PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint. Max 10MB per file.
Most useful: Brand books, creative strategy documents, past campaign briefs, competitor creative audits.
Click "ANALYSE BRAND →" to proceed.
Step 2: Brand Analysis
The Frame analyses how the brand is currently perceived versus how it sees itself. This surfaces the strategic challenge:
Core Association: The single thing people actually remember (max 6 words)
Internal Perception: How the brand sees itself (max 15 words)
External Perception: How people actually remember it (max 15 words)
Alignment Status: ALIGNED (amplify existing) or DIVERGENT (bridge the gap)
Why this matters: If perceptions align, the communications framework can amplify what already exists. If they diverge, the platform must bridge nostalgia with modern credibility or shift associations strategically.
Example (Boeing):
- Core Association: "Indestructible old phones"
- Internal: "We build practical smartphones for real life reliability"
- External: "That brand with the unbreakable brick phones from years ago"
- Status: DIVERGENT - "Bridge nostalgia for durability with modern smartphone credibility"
Click "FIND TERRITORIES →" to generate options.
Step 3: Strategic Territory Selection
The Frame generates 4 territory options per batch. Each territory is evaluated across three dimensions:
| Dimension | What It Measures |
|---|---|
| STRETCH | How much it asks the brand to evolve (low/medium/high) |
| BELIEVABILITY | How credible it is given brand history (low/medium/high) |
| GROWTH | Market size and business potential (low/medium/high) |
Territory cards show:
- Territory name (e.g., "Anti-Obsolescence", "Professional Reliability")
- Description and strategic rationale
- Stretch / Believability / Growth ratings with colour coding
- Strategic commentary in italics
- Badges: ✅ Recommended (AI's top pick) or ⭐ Sweet Spot (perception map winner)
Multiple viable options: The Frame typically generates 3-4 territories with genuine strategic value-not one good answer and three mediocre ones. Each represents a different risk/reward profile. Your job as strategist is to choose based on organisational capability, risk appetite, and conviction. The AI recommends, but you decide.
Territory Perception Map: Below the territory options, you'll see a visual scatter plot positioning each territory on two axes:
- X-axis: Brand Aspiration (0.0 = safe, 1.0 = ambitious stretch)
- Y-axis: Consumer Perception (0.0 = brand-focused, 1.0 = consumer-resonant)
Three zones marked:
- Promising (High risk, high reward) - Top left, yellow dots
- Balanced (Sweet spot) - Centre/top right, blue dots, marked with ⭐
- Safe (Low risk, low growth) - Bottom right, dark dots
What the map tells you: Territories in the Promising zone require significant brand evolution but offer transformative potential. Safe zone territories are lower risk but may lack growth ceiling. Sweet Spot territories balance credibility with ambition-these are often the strongest choices for established brands with reputational risk.
Recommended vs Sweet Spot: The ✅ Recommended badge shows the AI's top pick based on brief alignment, research integration, and strategic coherence. The ⭐ Sweet Spot marker shows the territory with optimal risk/reward positioning on the perception map. These may be different territories-use your strategic judgment to choose. In the Boeing case study, the AI recommended "Professional Reliability" but the Sweet Spot was "Real-World Testing" (lower stretch, higher believability).
Batch navigation: "← PREVIOUS 4" and "NEW BATCH →" buttons let you generate multiple sets of 4 territories if the first batch doesn't resonate. In testing, strategists often generate 2-3 batches (8-12 total territories) before selecting. This creates genuine strategic optionality-you're not limited to the first 4 suggestions.
Manual territory input: See "Have your own territory in mind?" with text input field. Enter your custom territory if you prefer strategist judgment over AI suggestions. The Frame will still generate the complete platform, but using your territory as the starting point. This respects that you may have conviction about a specific direction based on client conversations or category expertise the AI doesn't have.
Additional Context (Optional): Add constraints, must-haves, or strategic boundaries before platform generation. Examples: "Must avoid sustainability messaging-tested poorly with our audience" or "Board strongly prefers B2B positioning over consumer" or "Cannot reference competitors directly in public-facing materials."
Click "FORGE PLATFORM →" to generate final output.
Step 4: Strategic Platform
The Frame generates a complete strategic platform with editable sections:
Platform Summary Card (top of page):
- ORGANISATION: Boeing
- TERRITORY: Real-World Testing
- STRATEGY: awareness / brand
Editable Platform Sections:
- THE STRATEGIC PLATFORM: The core organising thought (e.g., "Boeing earns trust through evidence, not assertion")
- THE TENSION: The cultural or human tension this idea exploits
- THE INSIGHT: The consumer truth that makes this resonate
- HOW IT COMES TO LIFE: The strategic principle for expressing the platform (not specific executions)
Click any section to edit before finalising. Use "⟳ REFINE LANGUAGE" to regenerate phrasing while keeping core meaning.
Step 5: Final Platform Output
Scroll down to see the complete platform deliverable:
BRAND ATTITUDE: How the brand shows up in communications (tone, character)
TERRITORY VISUAL: Detailed scene description for production teams or AI image generation
WHAT THIS IS NOT: Strategic guardrails to prevent drift
CLIENT PITCH: One-sentence sell for presentations
THE ORGANISING THOUGHT (Forced Output): The single idea that unifies all brand expression - shown in golden box
Strategic Confidence: Shows final cascade quality score (e.g., 81% EXCELLENT) with hover breakdown.
Action buttons:
- ← BACK: Return to territory selection
- ⟳ REFINE LANGUAGE: Regenerate phrasing
- ← RESTORE PREVIOUS VERSION: Undo changes (appears after refining)
- EXPORT: Download as Word or PDF
- 📊 GENERATE PITCH DECK: Create full 5-tool pitch presentation (Cascade Mode only)
- LOCK PITCH: Save and complete cascade (Cascade Mode only)
Pitch Readiness Check
Available in Cascade Mode only. When you click "Generate Comms Plan", The Frame runs a strategic audit of your entire 5-tool cascade and scores it across five dimensions:
| Dimension | What It Checks |
|---|---|
| Brief Alignment | Does your strategy answer the brief? |
| Coherence | Does the cascade flow logically from problem to platform? |
| Differentiation | Is the positioning genuinely defensible? |
| Deliverability | Can the brand actually execute this? |
| Evidence Base | Are claims backed by uploaded research? |
You will receive a 0-100 overall score, specific vulnerability points clients may challenge, strengths to lean on, and a pre-pitch checklist. Green badges indicate strengths, gold indicates areas to review, red flags issues to fix.
The goal is preparation, not blocking progress. You always have the option to proceed regardless of the score.
Generate Comms Plan
Available in Cascade Mode only. Creates a complete pitch presentation with slides from all 5 cascade tools.
What's Included
The deck generation modal lets you select which sections to include:
- ☑ 1. The Real Problem (Story)
- ☑ 2. The Audience (Audience)
- ☑ 3. The Position (Message)
- ☑ 4. The Direction (Plan)
- ☑ 5. The Platform (Frame)
- ☐ Include workspace logo on title slide
- ☑ Include Creative Handoff - AI-generated briefing for creative teams (1-2 additional slides)
Creative Handoff: When enabled, generates supplementary slides that translate your strategic platform into creative team language: key takeaways, mood/tone, what to avoid, and springboard questions for ideation.
Click "GENERATE PITCH DECK" to create PowerPoint file. Download opens automatically.
How It Fits The Suite
- In Pitch Flow (Pro): The fifth tool, receiving inputs from Plan
- Standalone (Lite): Works independently with manual context input
- Feeds into Spark: Territory becomes input for social concept generation
- Feeds into Prototyper: Territory becomes input for concept hypothesis
Best Practices
- Upload brand research before generating-territory quality depends on understanding current brand perceptions
- Use Cascade Mode for client work-Readiness Check prepares you for tough questions
- Review the Territory Perception Map-Sweet Spot territories balance ambition with believability
- Generate 2-3 batches before choosing-in the Boeing case study, 12 territories were explored before selecting Real-World Testing. More options = better strategic conviction in your final choice
- Use manual territory input when you have strong strategist conviction
- Pay attention to DIVERGENT vs ALIGNED status-it determines your strategic approach
- Keep the Core Association to 6 words maximum - if it's longer than 6 words, it needs more focus
- Pay attention to alignment status - divergent perceptions require different strategies
- The Organising Thought should be memorable and distinctive, not generic
- Use "What This Is Not" to prevent creative drift downstream
- Run Pitch Readiness Check even if you think strategy is solid-it spots blind spots
- Address "Deliverability" red flags before pitch-clients will ask about execution capability
Common Mistakes
- Skipping research uploads-brand analysis without data is just AI assumptions about perception
- Accepting first territory batch without exploring-generate 2-3 batches to compare options
- Ignoring Readiness Check warnings-red flags predict client objections
- Choosing HIGH STRETCH territories without deliverability proof-ambition needs credibility
- Writing platforms that could apply to any brand-specificity matters
- Skipping "What This Is Not"-guardrails prevent creative teams drifting off-strategy
- Choosing territories that are too broad ("Innovation", "Quality")
- Ignoring the perception gap between internal and external views
- Writing Organising Thoughts that could apply to any brand
- Not quantifying claims in Readiness Check-"Pragmatic Upgraders" needs segment sizing
"Most briefs describe what the brand wants to say. A strategic platform describes what the brand wants to be remembered for."
Exporting Your Platform
The Frame provides two professional export formats:
PowerPoint Export (PPTX)
- Professional presentation with title slide and context
- One slide per territory (up to 5 slides)
- Territory name, definition, why it works prominently displayed
- Cultural tension and rationale in speaker notes
- Clean white design, pitch-ready layout
Word Document Export (DOCX)
- Complete strategic platform documentation
- All territories with rationale and cultural tension
- Professional formatting suitable for client delivery
- Ideal for detailed strategy documents
How to export: Click the Export button after generating your platform, then choose PPTX or DOCX.