True brand strategy is about rewriting the rules. whose game are you playing?
1+ minute read
In essence, brand strategy is strategic planning, ensuring that your brand isn’t just playing by different rules but playing an entirely different game. This provides the opportunity to deliver value in new and unexpected ways—creating true competitive advantage.
Most companies fail at brand strategy because they mistake it for something it is not. Brand strategy functions as an organization’s operating system. While many programs run on top of this system, they are each bound to the system’s basic functions and specific rules. True brand strategy refines a company’s focus to deliver exceptional enduring value in a way that no other competitors can.
Think of it this way, “branding” is about managing expectations. Therefore, before you can surprise and delight consumers, you must first understand and communicate your place in the market and in the lives of those who you wish to call your customers. This way, your brand strategy will inform everything from your business strategy and product development to your purpose and personality.
Before brand strategy can work as the lens through which you are seen, it must first function as the lens through which you see the world.
At Blackcoffee, we help companies shift their perspective on how they deliver value through their brand and business. Ensuring that your brand strategy aligns promise and expectation, we allow your brand to grow beyond the constructs of category, and beyond the constraints of campaigns. This ensures that your brand functions as a foundation rather than a veneer.
At the end of the day, consumers vote with their wallets, and employees vote with their feet. If you want to attract and retain the best of both, you need to be crystal clear about what you do and what you don’t. That’s why we help companies to Clarify, Simplify, Amplify® what their brand stands for today and what it will represent tomorrow.
Here are a few of the methods we use to help define brands:
