Brand strategy
What is a brand strategy?
A brand strategy is the decision about what a brand stands for: who it is for, who it competes against, what it promises and what makes it different. It is written before the visual work, because it decides what the logo, the site and the advertising have to say. Without it, design turns into a matter of taste and the message changes with every campaign.
Example
A workwear supplier sells to small building firms. On one side sit the importers of cheap clothing, on the other two large distributors with catalogues of thousands of items. The strategy picks a third place: delivery to the site within 24 hours, and a size exchange without an argument.
Everything else follows from that. The home page promises the delivery time rather than “quality at a good price”. The photographs are taken on site, not in a studio. The quotation lists stock by size, because stock is the proof. One temptation drops out as well: the monthly discounts that would lower the price but would make the promise about availability meaningless.
Positioning
The core of a strategy is positioning: the place a brand holds in a buyer’s head next to the alternatives. It fits in one sentence — who the brand is for, which category it belongs to, what makes it different and what proves it. If the same sentence is true of a competitor, the positioning is not finished.
Why it matters for a business
A strategy makes later decisions cheaper. Which typeface, which channel, which photograph, which offer — all of them get answered faster once there is a measure to answer against. It is also a filter for what not to do, and the things it rules out usually save more than the advertising brings in.
What to ask
- What evidence is the positioning built on: customer interviews, sales data, a review of competitors?
- What does the strategy exclude — which customers, channels and offers are out?
- How will we know in six months that it is working?
- Does it come with the words as well, or only with the position?
- Who maintains it, and when is it reviewed?
Strategy is the first part of branding: it decides what the identity has to say before anything is drawn.