Brand strategy: what is it and how do we work on it together?
We always refer back to the mighty brand strategy. It’s first on the checklist when building any brand. But what do we mean by brand strategy? What does a successful one look, feel and sound like? And how do we integrate design in it?
What is it?
Adobe defines brand strategy as the brand’s identity, in other words, that which differentiates it from its competitors. It starts by creating an image and brand messaging that resonates with customers, builds trust and loyalty, and drives brand recognition. In simpler words, brand strategy is the guiding framework that outlines how branding can be developed, communicated and managed over time to achieve a business’ long-term goals and objectives.
The brand strategy includes establishing key elements, such as visuals, brand personas, a positioning statement, messaging, and exploring ways to build a loyal customer base.
Adobe
Why do you need one?
Without a strategy, or at least a light brand concept that aligns to the brand’s goals and needs, we just play dress up with a brand. Strategy is a well-thought, holistic approach that informs all brand touchpoints. It forms the core and the heart, creating a starting point for design to follow on.
What can strategy help you achieve?
The main 4 reasons for brand strategy are:
Differentiate the brand from its competitors so it stands out in the market.
Builds trust and fosters loyalty.
Communicates the value of the product or service to the brand’s audience and customers.
Streamlines marketing efforts to help expand and scale up the brand more easily.
What does brand strategy include?
Let’s streamline this! What are the essential elements of strategy and when does it integrate with the other disciplines?
Purpose looks at how a brand’s mission aligns with its customers’ needs and aspirations and helps communicate the brand’s purpose accordingly.
Let’s now think of ways that a brand aligns with its customers. What’s important to them, and how do those things guide the brand’s behaviour? These will help inform a brand positioning statement to serve as a reminder to the brand and its customers of the brand values.
To communicate more easily with customers, a brand needs a brand story that expresses what makes it unlike any other. Experience and equity (how customers perceive your brand) are fundamental in writing the brand’s story. Storytelling is a powerful way to capture the audience’s attention and communicate complex ideas in simpler words.
Then we need a brand voice to communicate its overall personality, style, and character, consistently. (Tone is usually considered and refers to the subtle variations and nuances in messaging based on the context, such as marketing to different audiences, or writing an informative or less formal message.) This is where copywriters come in.
To create a consistent visual approach, every brand needs a visual identity and a set of guidelines (including but not limited to logo, brand colours, typography, and graphic elements that reflect its purpose and values) which is always done by the design team.
Design thinking vs traditional strategy
Some designers–and some clients–fail to see the value in strategy. They think the time spent researching the world a brand operates in is wasted. One of the worst habits associated with traditional strategy, especially in large corporations, is overthinking (aka death by overanalysing.) Design thinking, on the other hand, is viewed as an antidote to death by overanalysing. It stems from making, iterating and real-world learning, and often succeeds in unlocking innovative ideas.
That isn’t to say that strategy is not needed or that design thinking is better. In fact, many strategists are creative thinkers and apply design thinking to their work, and many designers are strategic thinkers who apply strategic thinking in their work. Strategy and design thinking should co-exist and ideate together.
What makes strategy successful is having the design team involved in building it alongside the strategy team, so the two are not only aligned but weaved together. By combining different ways of thinking together, the outcome is more considered, simplified and often more creative and unique. Strategy will avoid the dreaded under-thinking that can happen by designers alone, and designers will push strategy to remain robust and successfully comprehensive.
Good strategy is ultimately about a brand’s choices: it is as much about what not to do, as what to do. The fields of strategy and design can feed off of each other’s unique strengths. Design helps us look at new possibilities, while strategy helps us choose between them. When the two come together in harmony, they create a perfect balance that allows both to thrive.
