What Brand Strategy Is Not

It bugs me when people draw fine distinctions between terms that essentially mean the same thing, such as: 

• brand values 
• brand purpose 
• the value proposition 
• brand DNA  
• core attributes 
• brand promise 
• brand personality 
• brand essence  

They're just synonyms. 

Unfortunately, there's a tendency in the branding industry to redefine words and obfuscate as a result.  

The other day, I spotted someone on LinkedIn arguing that you don’t really have a brand strategy unless you’re abnormally successful. This person had written a book about Brand Strategy so his post was getting a lot of attention.   

According to him, profitability relative to category norms is the ONLY true measure of strategy effectiveness. You only have an effective brand strategy if you're: 

• Noticeably more profitable than your competitors 
• AND know exactly WHY you are this way 

Just outperforming other businesses isn’t enough because if you don't know precisely why you're wildly profitable you won't know to deepen your position further and further until you own it.  

At the time I made a comment disagreeing with him, but didn't think of mentioning Amazon as an example of a brand that disproves his definition.

Amazon wasn't profitable for many years while it pursued its strategy of being 'the everything store'.  

Yet clearly Amazon's brand strategy was effective all those years during which this person's definition would have deemed its strategy ineffective!  

A definition of brand strategy that requires abnormal profitability is just plain wrong.  

Many brands that achieve huge levels of success have a patented innovation underpinning their strategy. The patent keeps competitors at bay long enough to enable the brand to become uniquely associated in consumers’ minds with its position in the market. Not every business has a patented innovation to support its position.  

Brand strategy is simply your plan to achieve your brand objectives.  

Say you want to achieve a 6, 7 or 8 figure revenue business. That’s not an objective you can build a strategy around. It's an outcome you want to achieve.   

Revenue targets are not specific enough to be effective brand objectives.  

Instead, we need to formulate our objectives in a way that gives us a lever to pull to increase revenues.   

So, perhaps the objective might be articulated as increasing the number of leads or newsletter signups by x%. Two or three objectives is plenty to formulate your brand strategy around.     

The brand strategy should then be supported with an appropriate marketing plan and budget. You would revisit it annually to measure its effectiveness. Then you decide whether to make any adjustments to it, and formulate your marketing plan and budget for the year ahead to achieve the objectives you set for the year.  

I'm looking forward to working on your brand strategy with those of you who sign up to the Brand Tuned-Up service. Here's the video explaining it and here's the offer page.  

There are only 10 spots available. Buy before close of business Friday 26 January to get a visual identity design included as a Bonus.