Why You Don't Need A 'Brand Vision' Statement

As brand strategists the last thing we want to do is create confusion. We want to create clarity to help a client move forward. So avoid creating a standalone brand vision statement. Instead, embed visionary thinking into the Why (purpose/mission) statement to avoid internal confusion.

Here's why:

1. Clients often already have a vision statement:

   • It is usually for internal and shareholder use and is profit/revenue-focused (e.g. 'grow 25% by 2030', 'become a $3bn business in the next 5 years', 'become the market leader').

   • So introducing a new "vision” creates confusion—especially in internal communications.

2. Lack of clear definition:

   • "Vision" has no universally accepted meaning in brand strategy.

   • It is often used interchangeably with “mission,” “purpose,” etc.

3. Best brands don’t use the term:

   • Most top global brands (e.g., Apple, Microsoft, Intel) express visionary aspirations in their brand strategy—but label them as “mission” or “purpose.”

   • Vision is present in spirit, but not in the label.

   • I know this because I studied all the brand strategies of the 181 world's most valuable brands. This is not guesswork - it's data.

4. Vision should be within your answer to 'Why does the brand exist':

   • There are four questions you need to answer in your brand strategy. (Learn all about them here). Why do we exist is one of them. A strong Why statement should naturally be visionary and future-focused.

   • If your brand strategy framework seems to lack “vision,” it's often because the Why isn’t aspirational enough—not because a separate vision is missing.

5. Label confusion hurts clarity:

   • Terms like “vision,” “mission,” and “purpose” are often used inconsistently, even within the same organization. Check what your client uses - not just in their brand strategy but in their business strategy.

   • Creating overlapping labels leads to unnecessary complexity and distracts from strategic clarity. Ditch the vision label. but not the visionary intent.

Best Practice:

• Avoid the “Brand Vision” label entirely.

• Instead, focus on creating a Why statement that is:

  • Aspirational

  • Forward-looking

  • Anchored in the brand’s role for people (employees, customers)

• Labels are secondary; clarity and alignment are the priority.

Here's the full transcript:

Why you don't need a brand vision statement in your brand strategy framework 

So I do not suggest you create a brand vision. There are five reasons I don't, so let me share them with you. So often, often, often, you will walk into a client and they already have a vision statement, and it's used typically at the top of their business strategy, they say, vision. We want to become a $5 billion company by 2030 or vision, our vision is to become the most respected brand in telecommunications or we want to grow 25% year on year, and it's usually a very internally directed statement that's about a financial or reputational goal and is not anything about the people who will actually make a difference to their business -  the customers and employees.

So the first reason I don't go anywhere near the word vision in this work is because they often have one. And the worst thing you can do is say you need a different type of vision, because for internal comms it's awful... because they're like, which is this vision? Why have we got two visions? Which is the other vision? You know, you get into all of these awful conversations and it's confusing, and the last thing we want to do is create confusion. We want to create clarity to help them move forward.

So they usually have one, and it's usually not the sort of thing we want to be writing into a brand strategy, because it's not about the brand or the people we're serving. It's about the business and revenue and profit or reputation.

So the second reason is that there is no agreed definition of what a brand vision is. So I don't use the label. I don't say, let's create a why, what, who, how, and vision, because vision is just another label, and it's been made worse recently, actually -  not in a deliberate way, but David Aaker, who's one of the gurus of writing brand textbooks, he's just decided that his model for brand strategy is going to be called the brand vision model. And it's not one thing. It's the name for all of it. So you put the values under there, he puts brand essence under there, so he's confused it with creating it as like a header for all this stuff that we do, like a header for all of the answers to the questions. And then you see other things, like on HubSpot I was looking today, it said "a vision statement is a brand looking toward the future and saying what it hopes to achieve through its mission". So a lot of time, people are using vision and mission interchangeably all the time.

Brands do it, corporations do it. Again, the word is confusing. It doesn't have a defined meaning. So I don't go with the label. And the other big reason is that the most valuable brands in the world - those 34 - they don't have one. You don't see brand vision statements in hardly any of them, and I'll show you some so you see an example. But they do have a visionary perspective on their brand, and this is the really different thing. They have a very big aspiration for what they want their brand to achieve. But it's not called a vision. It's the answer to why. And I think if you're getting into a little bit of a sticky situation where clients are suggesting that your framework isn't visionary enough, or there's no vision in it - I think that means when you look at your why statement, I don't think you've gone big enough with it. That's really the issue. And I'll show you some examples.

Examples of brands writing visionary brand strategies

So all of the world's best brands are visionary in the way that they define their brand and why they exist. So there is vision in the statement, but they don't call it a vision. So Apple say, you know, they want to build the best products in the world. That's very visionary, right? That's a big vision. That's their mission. It's their answer to why they exist, right?

Microsoft say that, you know, we're here to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. That's why they exist. That is very visionary, right? That's a visionary, but it's not called a vision. It's called a mission.

IKEA actually do call it a vision. They're the only brand I've found recently that define why they exist, and call it a vision - to create a better everyday life for the many people. But they did this in 1976 and at that point they weren't talking even about mission statements, never mind purpose statements, and all these other labels, right?

So there's a reason it was called a vision, because it was their label for answering why do we exist?

Intel say we want to create world changing technology that improves the life of every person on the planet.  Is there vision in that statement? For sure, right? Touching every person on the planet, but they call it a purpose.

Accenture want to deliver on the promise of human ingenuity. Again, massive visionary statement, but they call it a purpose. And so I don't create a separate vision statement, because I believe that your why statements should have vision within them and a visionary approach within them. You see it again with the BBC right? To be the most creative organization in the world.nNow that's really visionary again, but it's not called a vision or a brand vision. It's just called a mission.

And I was looking at the most recent brands that appeared literally this morning in BRANDZ's top 100 so I was thinking, okay, maybe this vision terminology is with the newer, fresher brands, and it's not. They're still calling it a mission, but they are answering it in a visionary way.

Shein are saying we want to serve as a leader in the industry. And Tiktok say they want to inspire creativity and bring joy and but they call it a mission. So I don't promote brand vision because I'm not trying to promote any labels because of the chaos it causes. I am promoting answering a why statement with a lot of future focus, and we talk about that in the course and future focus and aspiration, pushing the client and being visionary and aspirational in the statement, but not calling it a vision.

And I thought, maybe a brand vision is for non-profit clients. Maybe that's the place where vision lives. But again, it's usually called a mission when they define why they exist, and you can see here the WWF, they just use these two things interchangeably, our vision is to build a future, and then later on, they say "to deliver this mission" ...so again, these terms get used interchangeably, which is why I just park the terms and focus on answering the questions.

So you can call it whatever you want. You know, if it's easier for you to sell the label to why as a vision, you know, that's your call. It's not for me to tell you what to do with your business, but I don't suggest you create another level of stuff beyond the four questions - another statement that's called a brand vision, because you will get your knickers in a twist, as we say in the UK.  You will start to get confused about, oh, well, my vision statement is this. So what does the Why statement do? And there'll be overlap, because the Why should have some aspiration in it.

I hope that helps!

This was a video recorded as part of the Live Q&A sessions in Brand Strategy Academy. Everyone in Brand Strategy Academy has access to 21 weeks a year of Live Q&A Coaching from Sarah to answer any questions they might have as they learn and begin to sell brand strategy to their clients.