Jargon and definitions can make marketing and branding feel impossible to learn. Â I'm on a mission to make things clearer! Â In this blog I clear up:
What is a marketing strategy?
Whatâs the difference between marketing strategy and brand strategy?
Whatâs the difference between brand strategy and business strategy?
And whatâs the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything???  (Well, we know thatâs 42. Read on for the rest).
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.Â
Brand strategy is really about why people should care. Because the only way an organisation can achieve their business strategy is through people â 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 âclarify your message so customers will listen.â
Since bringing clarity to brand strategy is a personal mission of mine, I gave it a read and found it really useful. Â
Read on for the three big takeouts that can help you improve your brand strategy work.
Overall, the book is a great reminder to brand strategists and marketers of the core things that can make or break strategy and messaging. Â
Millerâs point of view is that having a strategy, and then communicating this clearly, isnât the cherry on the cake. Itâs just as important as having a great product or service in the first place.
âThe reality is we arenât just in a race to get our products to market; weâre also in a race to communicate why our customers need those products in their lives. Even if w...
Being healthy. Â 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?Â
Measuring brand health sounds like a tricky topic so itâs easy to ignore it - to jump into tactics for growth rather than putting in benchmarks for health. Â
But if you donât 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 youâre more likely to see the progress youâre looking for.
Itâs not as tricky as youâd think.Â
Hereâs the five things you need to cover, and you can do this in just 2 bits of research â one thatâs customer-focused, and one thatâs employee-focused.
Type âBrand Archetypesâ into Google and youâll find countless articles and explanations of the usefulness of these 12 categories in defining your âbrand personalityâ.Â
If youâve never seen this tool â it originated with Carl Jungâs four main human archetypes, which marketers expanded into 12, as this graphic from Iconic Fox shows.
But donât get too excited.
It doesnât 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, âWell, weâre partly a Sage, but we really offer freedom so I guess that means weâre an Explorer? But weâve always been known for our humour â so then weâre a Jester tooâŚ???â
It forces you into a one-dimensional place, and thatâs not a marker of a strong brand. Â
Letâs look at some of the examples espoused to prove that this works.Â
People will point you to memorable characters in films, and claim they are loved ...
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I LOVE a new branding or business book.
(I warned you before â I truly am a Brand Strategy Geek).
If youâre the same, find my top 3 recommendations below.Â
1. GROW: How Ideals Power Growth and Profit At The Worldâs 50 Greatest Companies â 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.
Hereâs a few gems from this one:
âMaximum growth and high ideals are not incompatible. Theyâre inseparable.â
âThe most powerful and profitable tools in business are ideals â ideas for improving peopleâs lives that speak directly to their instincts, emotions, hopes, dreams and values.âÂ
âThe 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 peopleâs lives, you wonât make a big positive difference in your businessâs bottom line either.â...
"I'm not sure I'm smart enough to do brand strategy."
Do you know how often I hear that?
TOO OFTEN.
But whatâs 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. Â
Hereâs two things to solve this:
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:
Wherever you stand on the impending US election result, itâs likely that youâre emotionally invested in the outcome.Â
Thatâs partly because, when we vote for a particular person or party, weâre casting a vote for what we believe in. It can feel very personal â do they value what I value? Do they believe and stand for what I do?
And politicians know this:
âThe character of the country is on the ballot. Â Our character is on the ballot. Â Look at us closely,â said Joe Biden in the last Biden-Trump head-to-head debate.
It turns out that itâs not just our politiciansâ values that weâre looking at closely.Â
Increasingly, prospective employees and customers are scrutinising organisations to understand their values.
âCandidates 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.â Harvard Business Review, April 2020
In my Brand Strategy Academy course this week, weâve 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, âDIFFERENTIATE OR DIE!â, the reality is that itâs just not realistic to write a brand strategy where every single idea in it is different from your major competitorsâ.  This is particularly true when you get to writing WHO you are and HOW you do things â what companies often call their values, beliefs or behaviours.Â
Take Visa, Mastercard and American Express â 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:
And they all include the idea of succeeding through collaboration:
I'm in an accountability group with three amazing entrepreneurial women, who are all trying to create their websites. Â 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. Â
I suggested that perhaps it wasn't the designers' fault, and asked them what they'd put in their brief. Â
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. Â I wanted both sides of the story. Â
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 whoâve seen many good and bad briefs in their time.Â
The summary:
The Great British Bake Off returns to our screens this evening.
Iâm 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.Â
So hereâs the classic Victoria Sponge of the brand strategy world.
Start here â with this method and the 3 vital ingredients â then, by all means, add some of your individual flourish and flair.
But donât mess around with the recipe too much, or you may end up with something that doesnât fit the brief.Â
There are three key steps in the process, and three vital ingredients. Â Â