What is a brand strategy and how do we get one?

With a clearly defined brand strategy in place you have a roadmap to developing internal buy-in, creating brand ambassadors, building awareness and enhancing the balance sheet value of your brand assets.

The brand as a tool

The brand is a modern management tool. Brands, if they are understood at all levels of the organisation, create a unity and common purpose. Businesses, to state the obvious, perform better when the whole team is pulling in the same direction. The brand strategy play a central role in creating and nurturing the understanding of the brand, its communication and its ongoing development. A brand strategy is far more than an enhanced set of brand guidelines. It is the plan of engagement in the battle to create awareness in the marketplace, the criteria for forming alliances with other brands and the road map toward acheiving the business objectives of the brand.

Developing brand strategy

Strategies are road maps for organisations and brands. To use a map effectively it is essential to know where you are right now – so it start with exactly that. An honest assessment of where the brand is at and how it is perceived within the business and outside. The next step is knowing where we want to end up – the definition of the destination and, logically, the steps along the way. But every journey has its barriers and usually rivals who what to get there first, so competitive analysis forms an essential part of strategy development as does understanding the means of travel – can you afford to travel first class and what’s the state of your equipment. You get the idea. You can muddle along without a strategy or you can be effective. Public Impact provides the framework and the critical friend who will challenge your thinking – and a real friend tells you what you need to hear, rather than what you want to hear.

Ownership – living the brand

To live the brand you have to understand the brand and an effective strategy will encompass the creation of that understanding. An ultimate aim adopted by the most effective organisations is to create in every member of the team an ambassador for the brand reflecting the values of  the organisation and practising its ethos in their daily rolls.

Building brand awareness

Creating and maintaining brand awareness is an essential marketing function of any organisation. Public Impact enables businesses to assess, measure and raise brand awareness through a combination of market research services and creative communications programmes. Objective setting, promotional programmes, advertising design, social media content and marketing programmes all contribute to the creative mix that helps improve brand awareness.

Brand strategy workshops

A workshop approach is a great way of achieving the internal buy-in vital to both rolling out a new brand and putting in place a strategy for existing brands. Depending on your organisation the process may require one or a series of workshops for different groups of staff, management or locations. In developing brands we work with the culture of your organisation – and a workshop approach doesn’t suit everyone, but it remains a proven way of promoting the ownership and understanding that underpins success.

Public Impact’s Strategy Workshops set out to develop the understanding of brand, examine the current state of your brand(s), test internal perceptions and ensure that leaders, managers and staff have direct input into a practical strategy for the brand going forward.

Auditing and evaluating the brand

Brand audits provide you with an in-the-round assessment of the effectiveness of your branding either on a corporate or product/service level. A Brand Audit is the first step toward getting a better return from your brand investment.

The brand audit examines the fundamentals of the brand, how it is communicated through words and pictures, internal and external perceptions and the cohesion of brand design with values and how the brand relates to products and services.

Brand audits provide you with professional brand consultant recommendations that enable you to make better informed decision on the direction of the brand and provides a road map for creative brand development through brand workshops, brand values, brand identity, logo design and brand management.

 

If you want to quantify the performance of your brands and maximise the brand assets of your organisation get in touch for an initial chat.