Ideally a Brand Strategy is the first task of Marketing and Communications, informed by the overall business strategy and business model. 

As we get into the details of your audiences, and marketplace it can reveal new insights that may spark changes in your overall business strategy or model. 

The logo and brand identity is an visual expression of all that we have captured in the brand strategy process. We use the insights to inform the design brief for the visual brand. 

Marketing strategy and tactics can be implemented once the brand process is complete. 

This usually starts with the website and key collateral. Then finding the right channels to connect with your key audiences. 

Why do I need it? 

Without a brand strategy, there’s often a fuzziness in the business around – what’s our message? Where should we spend marketing dollars? How can we get more business?

There’s also sometimes a mis-match between who you are, and how you are portrayed through your brand identity. In my experience, it’s usually more of an under-sell than an over sell. It really doesn’t do your business justice, or confuses the audience, so they go elsewhere. 

You’ll work off hunches, or intuition, but always feel like you’re reinventing the wheel or rewriting copy for proposals or marketing because you’re not sure it’s capturing the right things.

Your web designers, social media team and marketing partners will keep asking lots of questions and will feel a lack of clarity in what they should be saying and doing.

When is a good time to undertake a brand strategy?

In an ideal world, a brand strategy would be part of the early stages of the business planning, as it explores the customer, the market and how you will differentiate. 

However, many businesses get started slowly and grow over time. Typically, the essence of the brand strategy and business values come from within the founder. It’s almost an extension of who they are, and their story. 

At some point, usually around the 3 year mark, if not well defined, the brand will start holding the business back, and there can be some stagnation. Or, on the other hand, the business owners can feel like they are run off their feet, but they are not doing the work they want, it feels random and opportunistic.  

What started as a strong culture and brand experience can start becoming inconsistent and watered down, as new people are bought into the business. Hiring the right people can be difficult, as there’s not clear definition around the brand and what it stands for.

At this point a brand strategy really helps to bring clarity, unity and direction. It takes the learnings of the past to help inform the future. It lifts everyone’s eyes above the everyday and explores where to position the brand into the future. 

My clients often feel a great sense of relief and renewed energy, as they have a clear path forward and feel confident about decision making, hiring new people, and attracting the right business.

The first couple of weeks of this COVID-19 upheaval was very stressful with lots of worries and decisions to be made. My husband has health issues and really cannot be exposed to this virus, which meant pulling our kids out of school and him out of work about 10 days before the government made the call. This doesn’t seem like a long time but it was hard as we assessed the information available, looked at the options and made decisions on our own.

As a solo entrepreneur and consultant I woke up on the following Monday to a very different world and potentially no work. However, my clients were all in a state of shock too, and needed to act quickly to communicate, leverage digital channels and change their position. As a brand and communications specialist, I was honoured to help. At the same time, we were having conversations about the viability of the current projects we had agreed on, and how we might continue. I am thankful for their foresight, commitment and willingness to adapt that has seen all of my active projects continue.

I’m now helping clients connect with new audiences with new offerings, shifting to online delivery and navigating the technology to adapt my workshops to be delivered online. Not to mention, my husband and I are learning to home school!

All of this requires a calm and relaxed mind. While it’s true that pressure and necessity can stimulate innovation, you also need a presence of mind to think clearly and creatively. To be open and reflective, but have the ability to make decisions with speed and certainty. Dancing with ambiguity, walking alongside others and their concurrent rollercoasters of emotions, having space to think without the mind being crowded with fear and anxiety.

This does not come naturally to me. But I have found that spending time in the morning to ground myself, to meditate and pray has been vital. Each day has brought new challenges, and sometimes they’ve ‘hit me for six’ (to use an Aussie Cricket phrase). Other days, when I have dedicated the morning to this quiet time it has transformed my thoughts and approach, bringing fresh perspectives and a calm atmosphere to my interactions with people. It’s a daily process.

My work is mostly spent helping clients to uncover their purpose and their story, and find their authentic voice. I find it hard at the end of the day to reflect on my own thoughts and voice. In this quiet moment, before anyone else is up, this is what I’ve been pondering. Finding the calm, finding it again. Each day.

Everyone can be a designer. It’s not just for people who are good at drawing or painting. Oxford Dictionary defines the word ‘design’ as: ‘to make or draw plans for something.’ When we apply a designer’s approach to problem solving we call this ‘design thinking’. Whether it’s to tackle a social problem, design a product or develop a business strategy, design thinking can help teams to see things differently, collaborate and achieve better results.

It’s about being  empathetic, (check out this great explanation from Brene Brown) listening to understand and creating solutions that combine logic with imagination. A culture of design thinking allows space to see things from other people’s point of view, freedom to experiment, (read freedom to fail) and an emphasis on testing and refining. This is where true transformation can happen.

What is design thinking?

I think this quote says it perfectly

“Design thinking begins with skills designers have learned over many decades in their quest to match human needs with available technical resources within the practical constraints of business. By integrating what is desirable from a human point of view with what is technologically feasible and economically viable, designers have been able to create the products we enjoy today. Design thinking takes the next step, which is to put these tools into the hands of people who may have never thought of themselves as designers and apply them to a vastly greater range of problems.”

– Tim Brown, Change by Design, Introduction

Where does ‘design thinking’ come from?

Design thinking is not new. Great innovators throughout the ages have approached problems from design perspective. It’s been only recently however, that the Design Thinking methodology has been brought into a broader discussion with business and government and those who wouldn’t identify themselves as designers.

The Institute of Design at Stanford university (d.school) has led the way with their proposed five stage Design Thinking model and how it can help to solve all kinds of problems.

Key stages of design thinking

Here’s a quick run down of the process of Design Thinking. This is the process I take when developing a brand strategy, or a marketing strategy or any project for that matter.  You can learn more at IDEO and Stanford d.school

EMPATHIZE

Using empathy to view the world as your customers do, in the context of what you are trying to solve. It’s about exploring, listening, capturing insights, thoughts and feelings.

DEFINE

This is where you capture the essence of the problem and get to the bottom of what is actually required. It’s about clarity, focus and actionable insights.

IDEATE

This is where the magic happens – where you combine your learnings, logic and analysis with your imagination. You first need to push past the obvious answers and think creatively to come up solutions that meet the customer need and are achievable within the constraints and context.

PROTOTYPE

This is about putting legs on your ideas and experimenting with them and potential customers.

TEST

This is about putting your prototype into realistic scenarios to gain insight and feedback on how well the idea solves the issue. Using the learning, the process can be repeated.

Design thinking is for everyone

Another of my favourite coined terms is ‘User Experience’ coined by Don Norman, who has this to say about Design Thinking: “…the more I pondered the nature of design and reflected on my recent encounters with engineers, business people and others who blindly solved the problems they thought they were facing without question or further study, I realized that these people could benefit from a good dose of design thinking. Designers have developed a number of techniques to avoid being captured by too facile a solution. They take the original problem as a suggestion, not as a final statement, then think broadly about what the real issues underlying this problem statement might really be (for example by using the “Five Whys” approach to get at root causes). Most important of all, is that the process is iterative and expansive. Designers resist the temptation to jump immediately to a solution to the stated problem. Instead, they first spend time determining what the basic, fundamental (root) issue is that needs to be addressed. They don’t try to search for a solution until they have determined the real problem, and even then, instead of solving that problem, they stop to consider a wide range of potential solutions. Only then will they finally converge upon their proposal. This process is called “Design Thinking.”

– Don Norman, Rethinking Design Thinking

When you apply design thinking to all levels of business, organisations and governments you can transform and create new futures for society and workplaces.

Let’s design for a better world.

More reading:

What is design thinking and why is it so popular

Design thinking

The designer who changed airbnbs entire strategy

This term – ‘Brand Strategy’ can sometime confuse people. ‘Isn’t my brand my logo? What’s so strategic about that?’. Well I thought you’d never ask… Here’s my thoughts on both the idea of branding and of strategy.

A Brand is….

A brand is essentially your reputation. A combination of your purpose, your personality and values and your people. It’s represented in all kinds of ways from the feeling you give people when they speak to your team, the visuals, the way you speak, act and follow through.

A strong brand will attract the right customers, bring higher profit margins, build loyalty, advocacy and attract the best talent and partnerships.

Why is branding so important?

Because it makes an emotional connection with your audience. A good brand is an authentic representation of your business, AND connects with your ideal audience, or your ‘people’.

When people are confronted with the conflict between thinking and feeling, the brain operates to make feeling triumph over thinking. Think about those significant times in your life when a decision had to be made, like buying a house or car.

Once you have fallen in love with it, you will find a rational reason to defend any negatives, you will try and change the order of importance to prove to yourself that you’re making a good decision. Therefore, you want your audience to feel positively towards your product, and to stop there. Once they start to overthink, they will come up with reasons to compare, delay or reconsider their purchase decision.

“we are much more driven by intangible, emotional forces; the need to be recognised and to feel ownership, to feel a sense of accomplishment, to find security in a long-term commitment and a sense of shared purpose, to feel as if our labours and lives matter in some way.”

– Dan Ariely

A strategy is….

The word strategy gets used a lot, and sometimes the actual meaning of the word gets a little lost.

The definition of the word ‘strategy’ is: “a high level plan to achieve one or more goals under conditions of uncertainty.” Its origins come from the military and represented the high level decision making for how to win the war.  It was about how you were going to approach and win each battle – the bigger picture objectives, the battlefield, the enemy, the conditions, your troops and ammunition.

I prefer to think of it in a less deadly way. I use the sporting analogy:

An understanding of the playing field, the players, your team, your goals, your game plan.

Chances are, you have some sort of a strategy in your head, if you don’t have one on paper. It’s based on who you are, what you care about, why you’re in business, and what you know about your customers. You intuitively know a lot of things we address in a brand strategy but there will be others you may not have even considered or have some risky assumptions about.

This is a chance to lift your eyes up and see the big picture.

A brand strategy…

A Brand Strategy provides you with clarity and a way forward to create a brand that truly reflects you and your business, while positioning for growth. It matches your business with a deep understanding the various audiences and how to best reach them.

This is where we explore the world in which your brand lives. It’s about capturing insights, clarifying and defining your brand proposition and story. Using empathy to view the world as your customers do and using design thinking to capture the magic. Staking your position in the changing marketplace.

All sales and marketing activities become easy when you know where you are headed, who you want to work with and how you plan to get there.

Hearts and minds

A brand strategy requires both heart; intuition, emotions and imagination as well as mind; analytical, decisive, logical thinking. This is a living, breathing document, something that will evolve and take shape as you go.

Values that drive you and your brand

One of my favourite parts of the brand strategy process is hearing the heart behind peoples business. I find it incredibly inspiring to hear peoples stories. I prepared this for a talk I did at Christmas with Soar Collective and thought I’d share it as a blog post.

At this time of year, we’re busy. Really busy. But if we stop to think, the increased activities are often rooted in some of our core values. (or perhaps they work against your core values! – if those are things like simplicity or solitude…)

But for me? Thanking teachers for their hard work, filling hampers for those in need, buying presents for friends and family. Catching up with work friends, old friends, new friends to celebrate Christmas. The reason I make time for these things? Because I value things like friendship, generosity, celebration, gratitude.

I thought it was a good time to reflect for a minute on your personal values. most everyone would generally agree on the examples i used. but what are your three core values? can you name them easily?

Why are we talking about personal values?

Personal values are a foundation for the internal aspects of your brand – they should be a driving force behind the reason you started your business, how you run it, and what makes it special.

While a logo is the most obvious representation of a brand, it’s only one of many. Brands are portrayed in colours, words, sounds, smells, and how you make people feel.  That’s because a brand is intangible. Its about all the interactions,  attributes and values which present themselves in tangible ways.

YOU MIGHT BE THINKING – WELL THAT’S NICE AND ALL, BUT I NEED TO FOCUS ON MAKING MONEY.

But as I said before, your values lay the foundation for your business. It helps you to make good decisions, hire the right staff and ultimately will attract the right customers. Having strong values in your brand is key to gaining new customers, and keeping them.

What’s more, living out your values through your work gives great self-satisfaction, being true to yourself.  “In a world with a lot of disappointment and mistrust, you can nurture an environment that builds trust and engages people more meaningfully.” (excerpt from Digital Doughnut’s article on How Brands can Navigate a World of Mistrust, Misinformation and Multiple Mindsets)

SO BACK TO YOUR OWN BRAND VALUES.

I’ve got a couple of exercises I use in my brand strategy workshops to help extract values. Grab a pen and paper if you like, and have a think about these…

1.     CHILDHOOD INSTILLED VALUES

What are the most significant values your parents or a significant adult taught you as a child? Are these the same values you still hold high?

Examples:

My Dad: This weekend as I was painting my house I could hear my dad in my head “If it’s not worth doing properly, it’s not worth doing” – See he clearly values quality workmanship. And as a result, this is a high one for me too.

My mum:  I went with her to deliver meals on wheels, helped make easter chocolates for neighbours, gingerbreads at Christmas – and from her I have inherited her values of celebration and hospitality, making people feel welcome.

2.     TRY THINKING ABOUT THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT YOU VALUE

Example – you might say…

I HATE when people are late = You probably value Reliability, Punctuality, Dependability

I HATE when a business makes me feel inferior or nervous =  Your values might be things like welcoming, friendly, safe

3.     MORE LIKE…. THAN…

Sometimes it’s hard not to avoid really obvious adjectives which are really just taken as a given. Things like “We’re Professional”, “We care about our customers”, it’s kinda just blah blah blah. Try to describe yourselves with a bit of personality. Be silly even.

Example: A recent Brand Strategy for a law firm I did included a value called “no dickheads”. This summarised for them the values of respect, collaboration and being motivated for things outside of themselves. In reality they decided this was maybe too edgy, so they settled with “No Drama”.

Another helpful tool is to use an analogy comparing two similar but different things. It could be another brand or it could be something more generic.

Example: More like Volkswagen than Porsche (This was also used in the law firm’s brand strategy. While a lot of law firms would have values like Porsche – Prestige, Status they wanted to differentiate and saw themselves more like Volkswagen – more approachable, but with very high focus on quality and worksmanship)

Another one might be: More like beer than champagne. Or more like Champagne than Passion Pop…

so… are your values reflected in your brand?

Building your brand is a long term process. It’s about how your business interacts with your customers over time. From the the visual brand identity, to the way someone answers the phone to how you package up your parcels.

I had a think about this myself. Sometimes you start a business quite organically, but as you get busy or get more staff, you may have let things slip. Mostly in the little ways…

So if you’re one of the people who valued reliability but you don’t have a system to reply to customer emails promptly, you are not delivering on your brand values.

Or if you value hospitality, or friendliness – but your staff don’t smile and welcome visitors into your shop, you are not delivering on your values. It’s important that everyone in the business knows what the brand values are, and have tangible ways of expressing them.

So what can you do?

Im not sure what the new year holds for you. But maybe take some time to reflect on your values, and making them the driving force behind your brand. Decisions will be simpler, you’ll attract the right people and you’ll feel much more fulfilled in your work.