What is a brand strategy?
It’s simple: a brand strategy is a roadmap. It outlines how your business communicates itself to the world — by actions and words — with clarity. All roads lead to how the world perceives you.
Brand strategies are crucial to set you apart from your competitors, to build loyalty, and ensure your business leaves the right kind of impact. Not to mention, it helps people understand what they can expect when interacting with your brand, setting expectations with every interaction.
Ultimately, a brand strategy avoids the gamble that comes from a “she’ll be right” mentality with thinking that everything just falls into place.
A considered and consistent experience across all touchpoints will have your brand seen as authentic and identifiable — the two things that money and shouting from the rooftops simply cannot buy.
Why is a brand strategy important?
Positioning yourself in the market through a curated brand strategy ensures long term brand success.
Just like building a house, your brand’s foray into existence needs a strong platform. The brand strategy comes in before everything on the outside comes into play: your logo, your visual branding, and every touchpoint. A strong brand strategy makes sure these connect, look appealing and stand the test of time.
Your opportunities and threats are solved — and unearthed — with a brand strategy. You know what’s in your lane, what sits outside of it and what exactly is ahead of you.
Letting it fall to chance as your business moves through the world can leave money and opportunities on the table — costing you more than a branding project ever could.
That’s why refining your strategy as your business evolves is one of the most important things you can do for a brand.
Here are four reasons why having a brand strategy is key:
- Standing out from competitors – finding your sweet spot in the market, and how to move to get there.
- Identity – the verbal and visual essence that tells people how you interact with the world.
- Customer experience – staying relevant is essential to survival.
- Longevity and growth – seeing the bigger picture to make better informed business decision.
From the famous words of branding expert Walter Landor
"Products are made in a factory but brands are created in the mind"
Who should consider a brand strategy?
Often placed in the “too hard” or “too expensive” basket, a brand strategy can easily get pushed aside in favour of grass-root operations. The good news is that you can go as deep as you like to align your brand, and it’s direction.
Sprint strategies are a quick and more affordable way to create strategic brands, costing a fraction of the normal strategic branding, but still delivering on the clear articulation and direction you need for long term success.
Regardless of your stage and size, having strategy matters for:
- New businesses and start-ups — business is aspirational and based on the goals, hopes and dreams of the founder(s).
- Established businesses over the five-year hump — they often start to suffer from their own identity crisis and will need to question if they are still resonating with audiences. There are huge advantages a brand has at this stage to really nail its brand strategy because established businesses know what they do well and what they don’t well.
- Scaling businesses — branding plays an important role in ensuring all those ‘things' needing to scale up a brand are successful. With any type of transition, refinement of the core brand fundamentals are required to successfully meet brand promises and goals for the future.
An identity crisis
Finding that brands are all looking the same? You're not the only one thinking this.
Are too many companies playing it safe or cutting costs? Is the algorithm and always-online world to blame for this?
Here’s why: consumers are always making judgments. It’s their subconscious shortcut to navigate through a new world of infinite choices. What looks to be on-trend, the safer option, more aligned to their sense of identity and is seen as reputable is what consumers click with.
One trend we’re seeing off the back of this is ‘blanding’: the cross-market phenomenon of brands adopting similar aesthetic cues. The result? Generic brand identities that follow the same repetitive trends — doing so in the name of ‘modernity’. With blanding, authenticity and differentiation falls by the wayside.
Logos for example have moved from being seen as a big deal — well designed, even with a hidden meaning — to being reduced to a choice of typography or colour palette.
We’re in an age where the definition of what makes a good logo is now subject to change because of the ‘blanding’ trend.
It’s easy to say blanding is happening because we want to play it safer in the online world of chaotic algorithms. After all, aligning with peers has become a branding strategy in itself.
However, blanding is a short term band-aid that will hurt brands long term.
That’s why carving out a meaningful, memorable brand that stands for something in your customer’s mind is tough — but essential to supercharging your brand’s lifetime value.
"Branding is the process of connecting good strategy with good creativity"
Marty Neumeier; writer, speaker and expert on topics of branding, design and creativity
If you’re not clear about your brand then it’s impossible to communicate it to your customers. Differentiation, market visibility and personality are impossible for them to pick up on.
We know today that consumers crave unique experiences and an emotional connection – viewing brands now as people, not brands. That’s why brands new and old of the world must start thinking more broadly about their overall style instead of playing it safe.
Staying relevant and competitive is essential for brands to keep a finger on the pulse and move through the ever-evolving landscape with confidence, grace and ease — and your customers’ perceptions doing the same.
That’s why keeping on top of your brand strategy helps you go forward.
While it’s fun to keep an eye on what’s trending, it’s more important to remember that what makes a good brand isn’t primarily its trendiness, rather how unique and on-message it is in the hyper-cluttered world, long term.
Being memorable and unique — with integrity — is far more powerful than blending into the background.
Businesses must be strategic to survive and thrive in a rapidly changing world.
If you’re looking to take your business to the next level and staying future-proofed, consider crafting and implementing a brand strategy.
After all, ‘Be brave or be forgotten.’
