“Brand strategy” is one of those phrases that has been repeated so often it has stopped meaning anything specific. Studios use it on their websites. Marketing managers use it in pitch decks. Founders use it when they want to sound serious about their business. Most of the time, nobody using the phrase is referring to the same thing.
This piece sets out what brand strategy actually is – the practical kind, not the consulting kind – why we do it before every project, and what it looks like when it is working.
A working definition
Brand strategy is the written argument that decides what every subsequent creative decision has to solve.
It is not a logo brief. It is not a moodboard. It is not a positioning statement on a slide. It is a document – usually six to twenty pages – that captures the business’s specific point of view on:
- Who the customer is and what they actually want
- What the business does that nobody else does as well
- How the business behaves, talks, and shows up
- What success looks like, measurably, over a defined horizon
- What the brand will not do, even when asked
Done well, this document becomes the reference point for every future decision. When a designer asks “should the colour palette be warmer or cooler?”, the answer is in the strategy. When a copywriter asks “should we sound more formal or more playful?”, the answer is in the strategy. When the founder asks “should we sponsor that event?”, the answer is in the strategy.
Without it, every one of those decisions becomes a matter of taste, and the brand drifts every time someone with taste makes one.
What strategy is not
A few things people often call strategy that aren’t:
- A moodboard. Useful for visual direction, but it is a downstream artifact, not strategy.
- A SWOT analysis. Useful as input, but a list of strengths and weaknesses is not an argument.
- A positioning statement. “We are the X for Y” is one sentence in a strategy. It is not the strategy.
- A workshop output. Strategy gets refined in workshops, but a workshop is a process, not a product. If the only deliverable from a strategy phase is sticky notes, you did not get strategy.
- A list of values. Useful for culture, less useful for creative briefs. “Bold, human, considered” tells a designer almost nothing actionable.
The test: can a fresh designer or copywriter who has never met the client read the document and produce work that hits the brief? If yes, it is strategy. If no, it is something else.
What good strategy actually includes
A strategy document we would consider fit for purpose covers, at minimum:
1. The customer, in writing, not in slides
Real audience definition is not “millennials” or “B2B decision-makers”. It is a written description of the person you are trying to reach – their job, their day, the problems that wake them up, the language they use, what they have tried before, what they are actually willing to pay for.
We usually write two or three audience profiles per project. Each is one page. They reference real quotes from real conversations with real customers, not made-up personas with names and stock photos.
2. The competitive landscape, with a point of view
Not a list of competitors. An argument about where the market is going and where the business is going to sit inside it. Which competitors are doing what well, which are getting it wrong, which segments are crowded, which are open. The point is to name the position you want to own, not catalogue everyone else’s.
3. The proposition, in plain language
What does this business do that nobody else does as well, said in a way a customer would actually agree with? Most positioning statements fail this test – they are full of language the customer would never use about themselves. (“A trusted partner enabling holistic transformation.”) If you cannot read the proposition out loud without flinching, it is not done yet.
4. The voice, with examples
Not “bold, human, considered”. Specific rules with examples. “We use contractions. We start sentences with And or But. We never say ‘cutting-edge’ or ‘best-in-class’. When we describe results we use numbers. When we describe people we use first names.” With examples of on-voice and off-voice copy.
5. The behaviour
The decisions the brand commits to making, and the ones it commits to not making. What it sponsors, what it refuses to sponsor. Which partnerships it pursues, which it walks away from. How it responds to a crisis. How it treats competitors. How it talks about price.
6. The measurement
How will we know in twelve months whether the strategy worked? What are the leading indicators (brand awareness, share of search, sales pipeline), and what are the lagging ones (revenue, retention, NPS)? Without measurement the strategy cannot be defended or refined.
Why every brief should start here
The case for doing strategy first is not philosophical. It is economic.
When a project starts without strategy, the work proceeds on assumption. Designers guess at what the brand stands for. Copywriters guess at what tone to use. The client reviews work against their personal preferences because there is no other reference point. Revisions multiply. Timelines stretch. The end result is a compromise between the strongest opinions in the room, not a coherent execution of a clear point of view.
When the project starts with strategy, the work proceeds on a shared reference. Disagreements are easier to resolve – we point at the document and ask which direction better solves the strategic problem. Revisions decrease. Timelines hold. The end result is coherent because every decision answered to the same brief.
In our experience, projects that include a proper strategy phase take roughly the same total time as projects that don’t, but the work that ships is dramatically better and the relationship is dramatically less painful. The strategy is not added cost; it is redirected cost. You either pay for it upfront in writing or you pay for it later in revisions.
How much strategy a project actually needs
Not every project needs a full strategic rebrand. The scope of strategy should match the scope of the work.
- A logo refresh needs about half a day of strategic conversation. Just enough to make sure the new mark is solving the right problem.
- A working identity needs a positioning audit – usually two to three days of work and a five to eight page document.
- A full identity or rebrand needs proper brand strategy – two to four weeks of work and a 15 to 25 page document.
- A repositioning needs full strategy plus stakeholder research – four to eight weeks of work and an extensive document that becomes the master brief for everything downstream.
Most of the projects we see go wrong are ones where the scope of strategy was mismatched to the scope of the work. Either the strategy was too thin to support the deliverables, or it was so heavy that it stalled the project before any actual making got done.
What to push back on
If a studio quotes you for strategy, ask three things:
- What will the deliverable be? Not “strategic alignment” – a specific document or set of documents.
- Who will be involved? Strategy interviews should include customers, not just internal stakeholders.
- How will the strategy inform the design? If the answer is vague, the strategy will be vague. The strategy and the design need to be tied together, not parallel workstreams.
If a studio says they don’t do strategy and want to go straight to design, that is a fine answer for some scopes – but make sure you understand what brief you are actually giving them. If you cannot write down what the brand stands for in plain language before the design starts, the design is going to be based on someone’s guess.
Doing strategy without an external partner
You don’t necessarily need a studio to do strategy. For smaller businesses with a clear founder vision, a competent internal team can produce a usable strategy document with a few weeks of focused work.
The minimum viable version is one page. Who you sell to. What they want. What you offer. Why you are the right choice. How you talk. What you will and will not do. If you cannot write that one page, you do not yet have a strategy – and no amount of design is going to fix that.
If you are about to start a brand or website project and aren’t sure if you have enough strategic clarity to brief it well, send a short message. We do short strategic audits for businesses thinking about a project – sometimes the right next step is a tighter brief, not a bigger one.