Three-Team Blind Briefing
Disguise the real assignment across parallel teams so creatives are free to make useful mistakes.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 90%
Instead of large brainstorms, Lexicon runs two or three small teams of two on a naming project — but only one team knows the true client. A second team is told they're working for a different company (e.g. Apple instead of Microsoft), and a third is taken out of the category entirely (naming a bicycle, car, or cup). Working on what they know isn't the real assignment frees people to make mistakes, and most winning names emerge from the disguised teams.
Origin
David Placek's method at Lexicon Branding, developed after he found that early large brainstorming groups underperformed and that names actually came from employees and small groups.
Core principles
- 01Large brainstorming sessions do not produce great names
- 02Small two-person teams outperform crowds
- 03Freedom to make mistakes is the engine of creativity
- 04Intangible products must first be made tangible via an unrelated context
- 05Most winning names come from the team that isn't naming the real thing
How to run it
- 1
Split into small teams, not a big brainstorm
Form at least two or three teams of two people each rather than one large group. On significant projects always use three.
Watch out Big brainstorms and freelancer crowds feel productive but historically failed to yield the winning names.
- 2
Give each team a different, partly false briefing
One team gets the full real brief. A second is told they're working for a different (disguised) company — they know it's a disguise, it's not hidden from anyone. A third is pulled out of the category entirely to name something unrelated.
Pro tip For an intangible product (like a coding tool), assign a team a concrete context — e.g. the physical experience of 'flow' and movement in a sport — to make the abstract tangible.
- 3
Harvest from the disguised teams
Because the disguised teams don't feel the weight of the real assignment, they generate freely and make productive mistakes. Expect most usable names to come from the second or third team, then pull them into the real framework.
Pro tip Force synchronicity: have a creative flip through magazines from an unrelated domain (hunting, flying) to collide two unrelated ideas into an unexpected word.
In the wild
The AI coding product (then Codium) was intangible, so Lexicon made it tangible: one team was tasked only with listing everything that communicates dynamic movement and flow — real words, metaphors, and sports. 'Wind surf' was simply sitting on that list. It's a compound (wind + surf), a physical experience, and a multiplier of associations.
→ Windsurf checked every box and the company later renamed the whole company from Codium to Windsurf.
Placek describes replacing the real client so a second team believes they're working for Apple when the actual client is Microsoft — the disguise is acknowledged, not secret, and it lets that team explore without the constraints of the real brand.
→ The disguised and out-of-category teams produce most of the firm's winning names.
Common mistakes
Running a large brainstorm to 'get more ideas'
Placek found crowds and freelancer groups did not produce great names; volume from a big room lacks the depth to survive legal and linguistic screens, whereas small disguised teams do.
Trying to name an intangible product directly
Abstract products (like a coding process) resist naming; without first anchoring the team to a tangible context or experience, the team can't get a hold of what it is and output stays weak.
Is it for you?
Best for
Naming or ideation teams working on abstract or technical products who can afford to run parallel small groups.
Not ideal for
Solo namers or tiny teams with no capacity to split into multiple groups, or trivially tangible products that are easy to name directly.
From the transcript
“we don't use large brainstorming sessions”
“we've moved our process to at least two or three small teams of two people”
“One team knows everything about the project, but the other teams don't”
“the third team, we take it out of computers”
“most of our names have come out of the second or third team”
From the episode
Naming expert shares the process behind creating billion-dollar brand names like Azure, Vercel, Windsurf, Sonos, Blackberry, and Impossible Burger
David Placek (Lexicon Branding)