Brand Success Starts With Strategy
What is Brand Strategy and How to Spot a Great Strategist
Need a good laugh? This hilarious TikTok has been circulating and I’ve watched it a dozen times. I mean, we all know this guy, right? There’s someone like him in every large company. He’s a ‘big picture’ guy but deflects when asked about the objectives, details and actions needed to make the big picture a reality.
In the era of fractional work (I’m a huge fan, by the way. As a founding member of THE BOARD, I do believe this is the model of the future), we’ve witnessed a mass exodus of executives from corporate America who are now in the “freelance” market, offering their C-level expertise to businesses large and small, from startups to conglomerates. With this has come an explosion of professionals who call themselves strategists. Many of them are, but it’s a nebulous title without a clear job description, which can lead to disappointment and underperformance.
As a career strategist, I built an agency centered around Brand Strategy as the first step in any Brand Development or Go To Market project. Over the course of 10 years, my team and I developed and refined our unique Brand Strategy Methodology, which I still use and continue to refine to this day. More on this in a minute. First, what does Brand Strategy even mean?
What’s Brand Strategy, and What it’s Not
Ask 10 strategists how they define Brand Strategy and you’ll get 10 different answers. Hopefully they will all agree that a Brand Strategy’s objective is to define your position in the market. But how they approach it, how they prove it, and how much detail they provide is what separates the experts from the amateurs.
Before I get into what Brand Strategy is, a quick checklist of what it’s not:
It’s not the products
It’s not a logo
It’s not just the Brand Identity
It’s not just the Mission, Vision, and Values
It’s not just the Personality, Voice and Tone
It’s not just a Unique Value Proposition
It’s not just the Distribution Strategy
It’s not just the Brand Message
Brand Strategy is not just one of these, but rather how all of these live together in the mind and heart of your customer.
This definition is what guides my 8-point Brand Strategy framework:
Defining Your Why
Clearly identifying and communicating a unique Why (purpose) is the essence of a brand. Without it, there’s no reason for being, and no North Star. My process begins with a deep dive into the founder/backstory, significant personal or cultural moments that shaped their worldview, and the beliefs and values of the company. This becomes the foundation of the Brand DNA and Brand Narrative, which are steps 2 and 3 of Brand Development.
Industry Insights
Accessing industry news publications, white papers, global trend reports, and consumer insights across beauty, wellness and lifestyle and tech, I identify the shifts that are most important in shaping the industry in real time. This requires daily upkeep, as the landscape is constantly shifting.
Economic, Cultural and Technological Thermals
Every brand exists within a broader economic, cultural and technological environment, and shifts in these areas can impact a brand’s success. Of-the-moment happenings as well as large shifts can influence markets and buyer behavior. I identify these ‘hot zones’ that are impacting the beauty and wellness categories today.
Customer Analysis
Customer demographics and psychographics are simply not nuanced enough to capture the complexity of today’s buyer. I aim to understand how customers shop across channels, what their pain points are, who is in their sphere of influence, and what they value most. I seek to understand the trends in customer expectations, which segments are useful to target, and how well their needs are being met by competitors.
Competitive Landscape
I assess the competitive landscape of relevant brands across DTC and retail, analyze their pricing and distribution strategies, and identify what ways they are serving the market.
Competitive Advantage
Based on the data and insights gleaned from a brand’s competitive landscape, I outline how the brand stacks up against the competition, and where it’s uniquely positioned to win.
Price and Distribution Strategy
The product offering and target customer begin to reveal your pricing and distribution strategy. This analysis happens in tandem with customer analysis, and competitive benchmarking. Often, I’ll test various scenarios around pricing and distribution and consider their implications on the business before making my final recommendation.
Positioning
Positioning isn’t one thing; it’s the outcome of combining a brand’s WHY with its unique product offering, market and category analysis, consumer and community analysis, competitive landscape and advantage, and finally pricing and distribution. The single statement makes a compelling case for the brand’s white space and its opportunity to grab market share.
This 8-point framework is Step 1 of Brand Strategy. Brand DNA, Brand Identity and Design, Storytelling Architecture and Marketing Strategy build upon this foundation. If you talk to other strategists, they may have a similar but different methodology. Based on where they come from (agency, CPG, startup), they may have a different vernacular or slightly different definitions. While there’s not one way to approach this, there are ways to separate the wheat from the chaff, invest wisely in the right person, and ensure you never work with this guy.
5 Signs of a Great Strategist
They’re An Industry Expert
A great strategist has years (more likely decades) of experience being deeply immersed in the industry, working cross-functionally and collaborating with all kinds of roles, functions and teams. They are experts on the category, the consumer, the competition and the culture that surrounds the industry. They must also have a sharp instinct about trends, and access to relevant data and insights with regards to economic, technological and political shifts that may be affecting the industry. A great strategist reads everything, is at the conferences and trade shows, is listening to (or a guest on) industry podcasts and is generally aware of the up-to-the-minute industry news. They are a walking antenna, constantly taking in information, tuning into what matters and tuning out the noise.
They Have a Methodology
A great strategist has researched various strategic frameworks and has ultimately developed and refined a proven process that has worked time and time again. All Brand Strategies should aim to answer 1. Why are you here, 2. who are you for, 3. how will you stand out, and 4. where will you succeed? But there isn’t just one way to approach it. What matters is that the strategist can speak to their process and clearly communicate what their process will deliver, with case studies to prove it. Because Brand Strategies are delivered in writing (with visuals to support), it’s essential that the strategist is an excellent communicator, with a gift for the written word.
They Deliver Incredibly Specific Strategies
One of my favorite professors at Columbia Business School, Willie Pietersen taught a class on Strategic Leadership, and he was adamant that the best strategies are communicated in 10 pages or less. I love this and aspire to it. That said, this does not mean that a strategy (or a proposal for that matter) should be cursory. Quite the opposite. A Brand Strategy should succinctly and specifically communicate the market opportunity for the brand - why does it exist, who is it for, where will it compete, and how will it win. The strategy should take you on a journey deep into the very essence of the brand, making a clear and compelling case for its existence. Every word has weight, every page has a purpose, and at the end, you should have no question about who you are, who you’re for, and how you’ll succeed.
They’re Obsessed with Your Customer
As an industry expert, the strategist is also a customer within the industry. They must be able to dive below the waves of demographic and psychographic data to the deeper waters where cultural influence, taste and unconscious needs are revealed. A great strategist should be adept at mapping out consumer journeys and have a deep instinct about their buying behavior across channels, including resistances, objections and turn-offs. A great Brand Strategy shows the path to building brand desirability, and that is rooted in the psyche and experience of the customer.
They Have a Vast Network
Great brand strategists come from all corners of the industry. They may have cut their teeth at an agency, rose through ranks at a big CPG company or global brand, or they’ve worn all the hats at a startup. Ultimately, they realize they are uniquely gifted and passionate about all things Brand - creating developing, launching, shaping, growing, transforming, and evangelizing them. And, they also realize that the success of a brand is determined by the caliber, creativity and commitment of its team. Great strategists surround themselves with top-tier talent across all functions, and are able to help you find the right people to implement and execute the strategy.