Welcome to Summer School! This week, we’re diving into brand strategy, the essential first steps in any brand building journey. In today’s competitive landscape for hearts, minds and funds, a well-defined brand strategy is pivotal for standing out, cultivating engagement and driving growth. Whether you’re launching a new brand or revitalizing an established one, this guide will walk you through the foundational elements of brand platform development, from conducting a brand audit or analysis to crafting a compelling strategy.
Brand Analysis
First, we start with brand analysis to uncover the core insight that will shape strategy development. That insight lies at the intersection of the environmental context, audience needs and organizational strengths. That’s why we evaluate:
- Context: What is competitive?
- We conduct trends reports, peer audits and benchmarking to identify marketplace opportunities
- Constituents: What is compelling?
- We lead qualitative interviews and quantitative surveys to identify and prioritize target audiences, their motivators and barriers for engagement
- Capabilities: What is credible?
- We perform strategic materials reviews, communications audits and stakeholder interviews to uncover defining assets, attributes and ambitions
- We perform strategic materials reviews, communications audits and stakeholder interviews to uncover defining assets, attributes and ambitions
Brand Strategy
We harness insights gathered during the analysis phase to inform the development of a brand strategy platform — the lens that guides how an organization thinks, acts and communicates. Here are the key elements of a brand strategy platform:
- Purpose/Promise: Crystallizes what we stand for, how we’re different and why audiences should engage. A strong purpose or promise statement is clear, compelling and competitive, and should guide everything an organization says and does
- Pillars: Capture our defining strengths and guiding behaviors. If our purpose is the “why” we do what we do, then our pillars are the “how.” Pillars support our purpose and shape messaging and other verbal or written communications
- Personality: Codifies our tone and style across visual and verbal communications. Personality attributes should reinforce the pillars, to ensure that expressions and experiences are full aligned. Remember, the personality of a brand, like people, is multi-faceted and should be modulated for contexts and channels
- Value Proposition: Clarifies the value that you deliver to your audience(s) and makes the case for consideration or choice. Think of it as your business case or pitch: why your brand (vs. a peer)
Implications
Because the brand strategy guides everything an organization says and does, it needs to consider the organization’s people, programs/products, expressions and experiences.
Socialization
When developing the brand strategy platform, make sure to get buy-in from key stakeholders throughout the process. As the people who live with the brand every day, their input is critical — not only in informing the strategy development, but also in its adoption and activation. Beyond early process updates and input conversations, we recommend facilitating interactive workshops along the way to cultivate a spirit of collaboration and co-creation. If helpful, consider using the following framework to evaluate key insights and ideas and explore areas for refinement:
- Clear: Simple and actionable
- Compelling: Resonant with your audience
- Competitive: Differentiates you from peers
- Credible: Realistic, aspirational and ownable
By following these steps, you’ll develop a brand strategy that not only differentiates you from your peers but also resonates deeply with your audience, driving engagement and loyalty.
