What is Brand Strategy

We live in a world full of brands, but not all are created equal. So, what makes a brand great? What makes it stick in our minds and earn our loyalty? It’s not just a cool logo or a catchy tagline – it’s also what they stand for. We call this a brand’s strategy.

As a brand strategist at Design Bridge and Partners, I usually explain brand strategy as a brand’s ‘north star’. It’s the guiding light that shapes every interaction your audience has with your brand, influencing how they perceive you and whether they would choose you over the competition. One of my favourite quotes is… “The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do” - Michael Porter.

A world class brand strategy isn’t surface level. It’s all about tapping into the feelings and emotions brands need to evoke in their audiences. What feelings should your brand inspire? What makes you different and relevant in a world of so many choices? This is where the magic happens. By defining what your brand stands for, you can create powerful, lasting impressions. Building trust, loyalty, and ultimately, drive purchasing decisions.

In this article, we’ll break down the essentials of creating a winning brand strategy and provide actionable ways to develop one that really resonates and drives results.

Why brand strategy matters: Maximising marketing effectiveness

Imagine going on a road trip without a route. That’s what it’s like to market a brand without a solid strategy. A well-defined brand strategy is like a compass, pointing all of your marketing activities in the right direction. Getting the absolute most out of them. Combining forces to multiply the impact.

Defining your target audience: Always start with the ‘who’

A brand builds the bridge between a business and its audience(s). So, in order to build a brand, having a clear definition of who its audiences are, is absolutely critical.

Many brands have a multitude of audiences to consider. Customers, partners, regulators, employees, prospective talent, the general public… (and on and on) Each may have totally different relationships with the brand, meeting totally different needs (emotional and rational). All need to be considered when building the brand. There are many strategic tools that can be used to define these groups, to name a few:

• Audience segmentation models: Grouping a brands multiple audiences into a number of key groups based on a comparable variable
• Audience personas / pen portraits: Hypothetically written descriptions of an audience member within each group (often with a fictional name and back story)

The variables used to group audiences can vary widely…

Traditional segmentations often use ‘hard’ variables such as: age, gender, location, education, profession, socio-economic level, etc. More contemporary segmentations often utilise ‘soft’ variables to build richer creative targets that may span traditional demographic groups.

‘Soft’ variables may include personal values, cultural behaviours, etc.

Key components of a winning brand strategy: Defining what the brand Stands For

A successful brand strategy is a journey, with each component playing a crucial role in reaching the destination – a cohesive and impactful brand.

Different brands require different components, depending a on a multitude of different factors. Including their industry, maturity, audience types, market position, etc.

Let’s break down some of the key statements that can define what brands stand for:

Why a brand exists:

• Brand purpose: Why does the brand exist? What is its reason for being, beyond financial gain? What societal need(s) does it address?
• Brand mission: How does the brand work towards achieving their purpose? What does it need to do? How does the business serve the direction?
• Brand vision: What does ultimate success look like? What big, tangible step would need to happen to progress towards achieving the purpose?

What the brand offers the world:

• Brand values: How does the brand’s organisation behave? What beliefs dictate their actions?

Where it plays relative to the rest:

• Brand positioning: How does the brand do a better job of meeting the needs of its audiences? How is the brand defensibly different to its competitors?

How it delivers:

• Brand belief: What is the brand’s category-transcending point-of-view on the world that it shares with its audience?
• Customer value proposition: What tangible and intangible value does the brand provide to its customers? Why would you buy what they’re selling, today?
• Employer value proposition (EVP): What is the promise(s) the business makes to existing and potential talent – and what is expected in return?

These statements can be incredibly powerful, when well defined. Some brands may only use a few of these components within their brand model/framework, while others may use most of them. In either case, it is critical that every component fits together into one clear and coherent story.

When this story is well defined, it can supercharge the brand in a number of ways:

• Highlighting value: What is authentically and universally good about the brand.
• Differentiating from competition: What makes the brand special and unique.

• Demonstrating relevance: How the brand relates to its audiences’ needs.

  Putting a brand strategy into action: Defining how the brand Stands Out

  If the brand strategy sets the direction for a brand’s marketing activities, there are a number of other tools required to put that direction into action.

  Including visual identity, verbal identity and brand experience. Tools that bring a brand’s strategy to life coherently and consistently, whether that be through how it looks, how it talks or how it feels.

  When applied consistently and effectively, these tools set a brand apart from its competition, make it distinctive, make it memorable, make it sticky and ultimately make it easy to choose.

  
  

  Visual identity: How the brand looks
  

• Naming: The word(s) the brand’s audiences know it by
• Design concept: Visual metaphor at the centre of the identity system
• Design assets: The graphic imagery that expresses this design concept
• Logo: Wordmark and/or graphic mark that stands as the brand’s visual shortcut
• Colours: The core colour pallet that your brand consistently uses
• Typography: The fonts your brand uses across all its touchpoints
• Photography: Style and subject of the photos your brand uses
• Illustration: Style and subject of the drawings your brand uses
• 3D / Motion: How your identity comes to life across other dimensions
• Sonic / Audio branding: The distinctive sounds the brand becomes known for
• Generative AI principles: If and how the brand utilises AI for its imagery
• Brand architecture: Visual relationship between as brand’s different activities
• Visual hierarchy: How a brand organises information on its visual applications

Verbal identity: How the brand talks

• Brand messaging: What the brand says. The messages that bring your brand story to life. Detailing key the attributes and topics that the brand should highlight, varied by context or audience and backed up by tangible proof points.
• Brand personality: Who the brand is. The character that the brand embodies. Often defined as one (or more) of the twelve Jungian archetypes.
• Tone-of-voice (TOV): How the brand talks. The traits that define its written tonality. So that it can come across as one brand, rather than a collection of individuals. Bringing consistency to its character.
• Brand storytelling: How the brand tells stories. Making them clear and compelling. Introducing protagonists and antagonists. Setting goals and challenges. Unpacking plots to conclude in resolutions or failures.

Brand experience: How the brand feels

Guidance on how a brand comes to life within the specific audience touchpoint, relevant to the particular brand. These touchpoints may include Product, Digital (UX & UI), Video, Social, Spatial, Retail, Event, Influencer, PR, Community, Chatbot, (and on and on and on…)

Building a brand - a collaborative journey

Building a great brand is a team sport. At Design Bridge and Partners, our brand building process is highly collaborative. To ensure that we can get the absolute best out of our clients, and our clients can get the absolute best out of us.

Kick-off: Every brand building journey starts by agreeing on a clear set of shared objectives with our client. We get everyone on the same page as to what we are aiming to achieve, to make sure there are no unwanted surprises along the way.

This takes the client’s list of requested deliverables (e.g. a new brand positioning line, a new logo) that step further. Defining what impact those deliverables are intended to have on our client’s brand and business.

In addition, agreeing on ways-of-working, key stakeholder groups, timelines, key dates and deliverable lists, at this early stage are critical to commencing a well-run project.

Discovery: Arguably the most important stage of a project. In discovery, our teams immerse themselves in research. Developing a strong and nuanced understanding of the client’s business, the audiences’ needs and competitive landscape.

Each project will employ a different set of research methods and level of depth. These may include qualitative and quantitative research methods, such as: depth interviews, focus groups, social listening, data analysis and semiotic analysis.

Through this process, our teams build a strong understanding of the client’s problem and uncover insights that can inform its solution. Critically, our teams also learn about the nuance of the client’s organisation and internal dynamics, equipping them to facilitate consensus and drive confident decision making.

Definition: The insights gathered during discovery are then synthesised to inform the brand strategy solution. This will first be presented as ‘territories’. Broad conceptual ideas that can be compared, contrasted and refined, in collaboration with the client, to reach the strongest result.

Once agreed upon, the strategic idea can then be captured in a brand framework (the requirements of which will have been agreed upon during the kick-off phase).

Design: With the strategic idea in place, the design process can begin. This strategic foundation will be translated into a set of creative ‘concepts’, which seek to visually express the associations defined within the strategy.

Just as with strategic territories, these creative concepts will be compared, contrasted and refined, in collaboration with the client, to reach the strongest end result.

Once agreed upon, the detailed implications of this concept on how the brand will come to life will be designed and documented.

Implementation: A brand is only as good as how it is implemented. Through the development of guidelines, training materials and generative tools, a brand can empower its organisation and partners to bring the new brand strategy and identity to life, across all touch-points, as effectively as possible.

Brand Strategy case studies:

We worked with Shelter to evolve their brand from a charity to a national movement. Our strategy involved redefining their brand purpose, informing a brand identity that reflected their activist roots and their unwavering commitment to fighting for safe housing for everyone. This shift in purpose, combined with a powerful visual identity, empowered Shelter to mobilise supporters and amplify their message on a national scale.

We recently worked with Hellmann’s; they faced the challenge of competing in a market increasingly focused on “made versus mass-produced”. By reviving their deli origins and reinstating the iconic blue ribbon, we reconnected consumers to Hellmann's authentic quality and real ingredients. This revitalised their visual identity has helped to reinforce their position as the world’s number one mayonnaise.

Conclusion: Building a memorable brand

If you remember anything from this, it should be that great brands STAND FOR something motivating and STAND OUT in a way that makes them memorable.

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to effectively defining these two elements.

But we believe that working collaboratively and with a shared spirit of creative bravery, has the best chance of success.