Your brand is not your logo

It’s what your audience say it is,
we help manage this meaning.

Your brand is all about perception

We define brand as the significance and meaning that your audience assigns to you and your offerings. The brand is ultimately in the hands of your audience, not the business itself.

Our role is to guide business leaders in strategically shaping these perceptions, leveraging the power of long-term brand thinking to manage and influence how their brand is perceived.

Define your brand and where you compete

Branding involves analyzing, planning, and implementing experiences specifically made to convey the desired message to the intended audience. To begin “managing meaning,” it’s essential to first define clearly what you want to convey, and to whom. 

This stage of defining is a crucial initial step that involves aligning the leadership team around  ‘big brand questions’ and having a clear direction on where to head towards. 

What do we do and how?

What is the offer, descriptor, proposition, or narrative of your product or service?

  • The precise make-up of our products and services.
  • Which channels we use to market ourselves.
  • How we resource, price or fund what we do.
  • How we approach research, development and innovation.

What do we value the most?

What are our guiding values? How do we prioritise decisions and actions?

  • How we behave as an organization/brand/company.
  • How we behave as individuals.
  • What the outcome of this behaviour wil be.
  • How employees view us and how future employees will view us.


In turn, this affects: 

  • How we work with our employees.
  • Our human resources approach and practice.

Who is our ideal customer?

Who is your ICP, what’s your value proposition, and how do you add value/make their lives better?

  • How we define and segment our key external target markets
  • How we define the key ‘stakeholders’ of our brand
  • How we rank these

In turn, this affects: 

  • Precise messaging and product offering for each segment
  • Tone of voice for each segment.

Why do we exist & what's our ambition?

What is your brand’s purpose, vision and mission? What drives you to make impact and what’s your future like?

  • Everything we do – how we think, talk and create.
  • Our strategy.
  • How we are percieved by our key audiences and stakeholders.

In turn, this affects: 

  • How we present ourselves.
  • Brand Identity.
  • Our approach to advertising, communications and PR.
  • How we shape our experiences.

What makes us different?

What are our unique qualities that distinguishes us from competitors?

  • How we match what we do (or what we do best) to our target audiences.
  • How we can position ourselves away from our competition.
  • How we can create a unique and ownable ‘space’ in a market where we can win.

What's our personality?

What are your brand’s values, personality and the way you carry yourself?

  • Our character – how we come across to audiences.
  • How we communicate.

In turn, this affects: 

  • Our messaging and our tone of voice.

Rally around your brand

Once defined, a brand’s principles should flow through the entire business, from the inside out. Viewing all business operations and strategy through the lens of brand strategy.

Brand-thinking acts as a bridge, connecting the tangible aspects of the business with strategic goals. This ensures that every business activity aligns with the intended perception leaders wish to associate with the brand, reinforcing values in every aspect.

Bridging the gap

The bridge between brand and business strategy lies in their interdependence and collaboration to achieve common goals. This relationship can be illustrated as follows:

Shared Vision and Objectives:

Both brand and business strategies are rooted in the organization’s core vision and goals. A clear, shared vision ensures that both marketing efforts and business operations work in the same direction to achieve the same end goal.

Brand as a Business Foundation:

The brand forms the foundation of the business strategy. Which determines how the company presents and differentiates itself in the marketplace, which directly influences sales strategies, customer relationships and product development.

Consistent Customer Experience:

A brand strategy ensures a consistent customer experience, which is a crucial aspect of business strategy. This includes consistency in communication, customer service and product quality, which contributes to customer loyalty and brand trust.

Competitive Advantage:

An effective brand strategy differentiates a company in a saturated market. This differentiation is then integrated into the business strategy to create and maintain a sustainable competitive advantage. Enforcing the unique attributes at every touchpoint.

Sustainable Growth & Scalability:

While the brand strategy works to build strong brand perception and customer loyalty, the business strategy strives for sustainable growth and scalability. Together they ensure balanced growth that increases both brand value and company profits.

Feedback Loops and Insights:

Brand strategies generate valuable customer feedback and market insights that can be used to drive business strategy. These insights help identify new market opportunities, adjust product offerings and improve customer service.

Embracing the pivot

An effective strategy is fluid and adaptable, seamlessly adjusting to insights gained in market and audience preferences over time. That informs and refines its course over time.

The key lies in fine-tuning the approach with each shift, not overhauling it entirely. And fostering innovation as a fundamental mindset, not confining it to a single department. 

Leadership putting things into action

Brand thinking should actively involve, inspire, and motivate both internal stakeholders and external customers. It should guide decision-making at both micro and macro levels, emphasizing intentional design and thoughtful execution.

This process calls for collaborative, engaged, and energized leadership. For effective brand strategy implementation, leadership teams must proficiently introduce the brand strategy internally and externally. This involves setting meaningful goals and diligently working toward the associated objectives.

You can apply brand thinking to shape meaningful experiences in various essential areas, such as:

Internal

Leadership & Culture:

Brand thinking is instrumental in aligning leadership, staff, HR, and shaping the overall workplace culture. It defines behaviors, team dynamics, and guides interactions within and outside of the organization.

This approach ensures that the principles of your brand are woven into the fabric of leadership decisions, employee routines, and the overall work environment.

`Employee Experience:

Encompassing HR, recruitment, routines, rewards, and the workplace environment. This involves defining a compelling Employee Value Proposition (EVP), and carefully crafting your Employer Brand.

By applying brand principles, you can articulate your purpose and values, subsequently designing the employee experience and internal communications to foster engagement.

Products, Services, and Innovation:

At their core, businesses serve customers, yet many fail to create products or services that really address customer goals and needs. The true essence of a brand lies in what it does and how it provides solutions.

Branding isn’t a last-minute paint job; it’s getting serious about shaking things up with innovation and customer-friendly product development. Creating services and products that are not just good but awesome.

External

Sales:

It’s about understanding your customers on a whole new level, anticipating their needs, and speaking their language. Your brand isn’t just a tagline in the sales script; it’s the essence of your sales strategy.

A sales cycle where every interaction is on-brand, every pitch tells a story with the prospect as the protagonist, and every deal strengthens your brand’s connection.

Customer Experience:

It’s crucial to have a well-defined customer journey that’s always getting better. Imagine having a system that not only enhances your brand but does it at every single step—now that’s a game-changer.

Dive into brand principles to stay ahead of the curve in understanding your customers’ ever-changing behaviors and desires. It’s all about empowering your customers, building unwavering loyalty.

Marketing and Communication:

How a business expresses itself and presents its image is vital for anchoring communications in its narrative and the enduring significance a brand aims for customers to embrace.

Creative and strategic design should encapsulate the personality, tone of voice, and style necessary to forge a recognizable and unique meaning for the audience. Communicating purpose, why and not just what.

What is your ambition?

Share your goals with us so we can join hands and get started.