Jargon and definitions can make marketing and branding feel impossible to learn.  I'm on a mission to make things clearer!  In this blog I clear up:

What is a marketing strategy?

What’s the difference between marketing strategy and brand strategy?

What’s the difference between brand strategy and business strategy?

And what’s the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything???  (Well, we know that’s 42.  Read on for the rest).

What is business strategy vs. brand strategy vs. marketing strategy?

Business strategy identifies where an organisation wants to go.
It usually includes a hard metric vision or goal like, 'to be a $10 billion business by 2025', or 'to grow by 35% in the next 5 years'.  It also includes the operational changes required to help to get there. 

Brand strategy is really about why people should care.  Because the only way an organisation can achieve their business strategy is through people – more people buying their product or service, a...

I was recently on a post where we all gave our recommendations on the best branding books to read. One book popped up a lot: 'Building A Story Brand', by Donald Miller.

It promises to help you ‘clarify your message so customers will listen.’

Since bringing clarity to brand strategy is a personal mission of mine, I gave it a read and found it really useful.  

Read on for the three big takeouts that can help you improve your brand strategy work.

How stories help brand strategy

Overall, the book is a great reminder to brand strategists and marketers of the core things that can make or break strategy and messaging.  

Miller’s point of view is that having a strategy, and then communicating this clearly, isn’t the cherry on the cake.  It’s just as important as having a great product or service in the first place.

“The reality is we aren’t just in a race to get our products to market; we’re also in a race to communicate why our customers need those products in their lives.  Even if w...

Being healthy.  Is there a better life goal than that one?

But how do you know how healthy you are?

Well, there are lots of things you can check and measure.

And the same applies to brands too.

So, how healthy are the brands you're working on? 

The five ways to measure your brand health

Measuring brand health sounds like a tricky topic so it’s easy to ignore it - to jump into tactics for growth rather than putting in benchmarks for health.  

But if you don’t know your starting point, how do you know if your tactics are the right ones?

Do this brand health check at least once a year then PLAN against the results and you’re more likely to see the progress you’re looking for.

It’s not as tricky as you’d think. 

Here’s the five things you need to cover, and you can do this in just 2 bits of research – one that’s customer-focused, and one that’s employee-focused.

1. Funnel health
2. Brand associations
3. Employee engagement
4. Net promoter score
5. Fit for purpose brand identity 

1. St...

Type ‘Brand Archetypes’ into Google and you’ll find countless articles and explanations of the usefulness of these 12 categories in defining your ‘brand personality’. 

If you’ve never seen this tool – it originated with Carl Jung’s four main human archetypes, which marketers expanded into 12, as this graphic from Iconic Fox shows.

But don’t get too excited.

It doesn’t work.

Why Brand Archetypes Don’t Work 

Where it all falls down is when you try and put it into practice.  What actually happens when you try and use it with a client is a conversation along the lines of, “Well, we’re partly a Sage, but we really offer freedom so I guess that means we’re an Explorer? But we’ve always been known for our humour – so then we’re a Jester too…???”

It forces you into a one-dimensional place, and that’s not a marker of a strong brand.  

Let’s look at some of the examples espoused to prove that this works. 

People will point you to memorable characters in films, and claim they are loved ...

I LOVE a new branding or business book.

(I warned you before – I truly am a Brand Strategy Geek).

If you’re the same, find my top 3 recommendations below. 

Best Brand Strategy Books 

1. GROW: How Ideals Power Growth and Profit At The World’s 50 Greatest Companies – Jim Stengel.

Puts stats behind the importance of brand strategy, includes big brand case studies (think Pampers, Discovery, Method) and tells you what it takes to implement a brand strategy successfully.

Here’s a few gems from this one:

“Maximum growth and high ideals are not incompatible. They’re inseparable.”

“The most powerful and profitable tools in business are ideals – ideas for improving people’s lives that speak directly to their instincts, emotions, hopes, dreams and values.” 

“The one sure mistake you can make is failing to aim high.  If you are not ambitious enough to want to make a positive difference in people’s lives, you won’t make a big positive difference in your business’s bottom line either.”...

"I'm not sure I'm smart enough to do brand strategy."

Do you know how often I hear that?

TOO OFTEN.

But what’s really behind this?

Firstly - the jargon and unnecessary complexity that can make the whole area feel inaccessible.

Secondly - a case of brand strategy imposter syndrome that occurs, even among strategists with YEARS of experience, because they feel they don't really know what to do or exactly how to do it.  

Here’s two things to solve this:

1. The 4 best brand strategy courses to give you that necessary clarity and confidence.
2. The 5 essential skills you need. It’s not about being ‘smart’ but you do need to like doing these 5 things.

The skills you need to do brand strategy

Let's start with the skills, since if these don't feel like you - or don't feel like things you want to be good at  - you won't want to go any further.

From my 20+ years experience, and a ton of interviews with other brand strategists, there are 5 of them you need to have:

1. Curiosity
2. Active L...

Wherever you stand on the impending US election result, it’s likely that you’re emotionally invested in the outcome. 

That’s partly because, when we vote for a particular person or party, we’re casting a vote for what we believe in.  It can feel very personal – do they value what I value? Do they believe and stand for what I do?

And politicians know this:

“The character of the country is on the ballot.  Our character is on the ballot.  Look at us closely,” said Joe Biden in the last Biden-Trump head-to-head debate.

It turns out that it’s not just our politicians’ values that we’re looking at closely. 

Increasingly, prospective employees and customers are scrutinising organisations to understand their values.

“Candidates are seeking workplaces where they can intertwine their beliefs with those of the company, and work together on a common vision of purpose and success.” Harvard Business Review, April 2020

In my Brand Strategy Academy course this week, we’ve been talking about how to do competitor research, in order to ensure that your brand strategy is sufficiently differentiated.

I choose these words carefully, because despite the old adage of, “DIFFERENTIATE OR DIE!”, the reality is that it’s just not realistic to write a brand strategy where every single idea in it is different from your major competitors’.  This is particularly true when you get to writing WHO you are and HOW you do things – what companies often call their values, beliefs or behaviours. 

Take Visa, Mastercard and American Express – 3 of the 35 most valuable brands in the world.

If you look at WHO they are and HOW they say they do things, all three talk about integrity:

• WE DO WHAT’S RIGHT - Amex
• We act with integrity and respect – Mastercard
• Doing well by doing right – VISA

And they all include the idea of succeeding through collaboration:

• WE WIN AS A TEAM – Amex
• PARTNERSHIP: We work as one team to the...

I'm in an accountability group with three amazing entrepreneurial women, who are all trying to create their websites.  When we chatted last week, they were bemoaning the fact that they'd been given "bad logos" from the designers they'd hired to help them.  

I suggested that perhaps it wasn't the designers' fault, and asked them what they'd put in their brief.  
There was a shifty silence...

So I wrote them a guide that I shared in my blog last week, then asked for feedback on it from the amazing design talent I know.  I wanted both sides of the story.  

So here's the ultimate guide - from my perspective, having briefed hundreds of design projects over the years, and from the perspective of talented designers who’ve seen many good and bad briefs in their time. 

The summary:

There are four significant success factors in briefing a designer, and managing the design process.

1. Choosing wisely.
2. Making sure you tell them the right things about you.
3. Making sure you ask for the right th...

The Great British Bake Off returns to our screens this evening.

I’m no master-baker, but I would like to think of myself as a master-brander. So it got me thinking about a fool-proof brand strategy recipe. 

So here’s the classic Victoria Sponge of the brand strategy world.

Start here – with this method and the 3 vital ingredients – then, by all means, add some of your individual flourish and flair.

But don’t mess around with the recipe too much, or you may end up with something that doesn’t fit the brief. 

How To Create A Brand Strategy: Method & Ingredients 

There are three key steps in the process, and three vital ingredients.   

1. First, you need to gather your 3 essential ingredients: Customer Insight, Competitor Insight and Company Insight.
2. Then you need to sift these insights to get to the ones that are most authentic, relevant and different – the insights that you know must play a role in shaping how you answer your brand strategy questions.
3. Then you craft your final br
...