Strategy is one of those words that gets thrown around a lot. Strategy this. Strategy that.
“It’s more than a plan. It’s a strategic plan.”
“It’s not just a brand, it’s a strategic brand.”
Would it surprise you to know that using strategy within a business context is actually historically quite novel. While it’s always been part and parcel of military movements, think Trojan Horse, it hasn’t always been used in the playing field we’re considering today.
I think part of the reason this is the case is that it very quickly became a default expectation. If you have options, one being strategic and the other not, the rational choice all things considered to opt for the pathway that creates the most value. So everyone decided that if they can add the strategic label, why wouldn’t they?
So, what’s the problem?
As it turns out most of what might be called brand strategy, doesn’t have all that much strategy. That’s not to say what’s typically passed off as strategy isn’t important, it totally is. It’s just not strategy.
Let me explain.
What isn’t Brand Strategy?
Starting, who wouldn’t state the importance of brand strategy? While this often seems to involve intersecting circles or pyramids being organised by some guiding principal there is a lot here that’s actually really helpful.
Typically, a brand strategy will feature the following.
- A Big Idea Mission
- Story
- Statement of Belief or Manifesto
- Purpose or North Star
- Personality & Characteristics
- Audience Segments & Personas
- Language & Messaging
- Tone of Voice
- Values
- Positioning
More or less, right? With that, much of what we call strategy is actually just descriptive. It’s a process of listening, framing and articulating this in a way that people will pay attention. And maybe that’s fine for you, we know that most businesses who want to grow need more than that.
Honestly, a lot of businesses just need help describing the situation and communicating it in an engaging and customer-oriented way. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. It’s needed.
One of the things this type of work does is that it creates clarity and focuses businesses in a direction. Instead of being unsure and uncertain they now have a guiding reference that can help inform business decisions.
Knowing your mission, why you exist, who you are here for, your values, these are all radically helpful things.
However helpful and required this might be, it isn’t strategy. Not in totality. It might just be part of it.
To get there we need to start from first principles. We need to define what a brand actually is and secondly what the heck is strategy if it’s not what we thought it was.
We’ll skip through the detail here but a brand is essentially the thoughts, feelings, actions and impulses that people have toward a given business. It’s definitely not a logo. We’ve done a whole breakdown on this, ‘What isn’t a brand?’, if you want to know more.
Next up strategy.
What really is Strategy?
Strategy is a plan to create value.
Or as strategy legend, Roger Martin says.
“Strategy is an integrative set of choices that positions you on a playing field of your choice in a way that you win.”
What’s the point?
As an example of contrast, understanding your purpose is crucially important. No one is going to argue with that. Knowing where you want to go and how you’ll actually get there are two different things.
The nuance is that this type of work creates value internally, in that it provides clarity and synthesises practices, cultures and vision. It just isn’t a integrated set of choices that helps you win. Unless you are your own customer, it doesn’t increase the value for your audience.
I think that is the key, what’s necessarily wanted by a business and it’s customers can be two very different things.
Understanding what game you’re playing is the first place to start. Are you playing the game of creating exceptional value for your customers or just trying to keep up and fit in with other businesses?
So, how do you win?
Fundamentally there are two ways to create value in a market.
- Be differentiated
- Be lowest-cost
Strategy then begs the question. How are you going to differentiated or how are you going to be lowest-cost?
It’s easy to get low-cost because it’s really easy to measure. You do it in dollars and cents right.
Differentiation is not as clear.
Unfortunately differentiation exists in the minds of customers, not on slide decks. While a business can believe they’re differentiated, if they’re not from a customers point of view, they’re not. Ouch.
The question that might be something like, how are you going to create value for customers by being the only business to create that type of value? (Curious? See our exploration on onlyness here.)
There is a temptation to believe because you have a nifty logo and a unique colour palette you’ve successfully differentiated. (Putting it less politely, you’ve added lipstick to a pig.) But at the core of differentiation is a question of unique value.
This surface-level approach is taken far too often and unfortunately the results are always consistent. Disappointing. In its isolation it is an attempt to get different results without different choices.
Brand and strategy should actually be self-reinforcing. Unified and complementary. Not isolated and disconnected. No more pigs wearing lipstick please.
We get what the objective of strategy is now but what actually makes up a strategy?
What are the elements of a strategy?
Richard Rumlet, author of Good Strategy Bad Strategy writes that a good strategy consists of three elements.
A Diagnosis
What’s really going on here? A diagnosis seeks to tell a simpler story and radically reduce the complexity of a given situation. Rumlet says it is ultimately “a judgement about the meaning of facts.” In addition, it provides a domain of action.
A Guiding Policy
Now you’ve got your diagnosis you need to decide how you are going to approach the given challenge or obstacles.
A Set of Actions
These are the specific steps and actions that are coordinated with one another to accomplish the guiding policy.
Now what?
If we refer back to our list of what most often constitutes a brand strategy where does that leave it if we run it through Rumlet’s grid?
A diagnosis? Not really.
Guiding policy? It has a direction or vision but nothing that’s grounded in competitive dynamics.
Set of actions? I mean we’ll get examples of communication but nothing that’s integration or actionable.
It’s a nothing-burger. Zero for three.
See it doesn’t ask, what’s really going on here? Genuinely. It doesn’t get under the hood and into the market. This requires a deep and tangible understanding of the problems you’re facing. Maybe you’re not growing? Maybe your message isn’t clear? Maybe you’re undifferentiated. Maybe you’re confusing. Maybe you’re a commodity. There are honestly all type of problems.
And if you have the wrong diagnosis, you’ll have the wrong outcomes and nothing of significance will shift. You might get a bump in the right direction but you’ll revert back to the mean.
As the saying goes, to a man with a hammer, everything is a nail.
Reiterating, what constitutes the status-quo of brand strategy is still incredibly valuable. It’s just not doing what a strategy by definition should. Let’s just call it what it is, brand guidelines.
What is a brand strategy? Bringing brand and strategy together
Here goes…
A brand strategy is a integrated set of choices that leads to specific actions across product and communication disciplines that creates unique value for customers and unique advantage for a business.
Let’s break this down.
Because of how we define brand as being the thoughts, feelings, actions and impulses, we think of it as much more than just a communication discipline.
Why? Because both the product/service side of a business, the real tangible stuff, and the communication side affects the thoughts, feelings, actions and impulses audiences have. People mentally don’t separate an iPhone from an ad about one. We intuitively know these are the same thing.
Makes sense right?
However the world however isn’t organised into neatly defined boxes. In reality it’s messy and there’s lots of overlap. Product strategy? Marketing strategy? Communication strategy? Distribution strategy? Design strategy?
All these disciplines see the world through their own lens. A lens that advocates for the importance of its own value.
This is where you need an overarching and integrating story, a narrative, a big idea. Something that unifies and aligns disciplines. You need something that asks you to imagine a different future and then asks you to imagine how you’ll build it.
This is what brand strategy is.
Reality Check?
It’s all well and good to be inspired and imagine a better tomorrow but unless it hits the nuts and bolts of our daily experience, it won’t unlock the potential it can. It means we need to avoid the type of planning that’s comfortable but isn’t what’s needed. What use will it be to invest time, resources and energy only to repeat the status quo or have a handful of exciting but conflicting decisions?
Honestly, real strategy will make you feel somewhat nervous. (That’s a good rule of thumb) You can’t prove in advance that your strategy will succeed. Good strategy will require you to choose a direction and make sacrifices. It’ll make you say no to good things in order to say yes to great things.
This can feel scary, you just need to accept that not knowing an outcome isn’t being a bad manager, it’s just being a great leader.
By stepping out you’re creating the possibility to do something great.
