Keep it simple st...rategists

The hardest part of brand strategy is not writing down all the good things about your organisation or product, it is crossing out the ones that aren't essential to achieving your goal. As Mark Riston, though he isn’t the first to say it, explains, ‘Strategy is choosing what you will not do’. For consumer brands this is especially important.

The first and most common reason for simple strategy is the consumer themselves. Nobody will believe that you can be good at everything and even if they would, consumers can only really hold 1 or 2 simple associations to a brand in their head. They don't memorise an essay of values and benefits for every brand of which they become aware. Consumers pick up from the semiotics of your design and tone of voice, along with other experiences they have of your brand, what kind of brand you are within that category, all held together on the notice board of their brain by the push pin of your distinctive assets. These semiotics and tone of voice elements that create your distinctive assets need to be shaped by a simple clear strategy.

The second and possibly even more important reason is that a complex brand with a twenty-page document explaining its purpose and value, its pillars, essence and multiple personality traits is impossible to bring to life as a brand concept. One past client received great kudos from their internal stakeholders upon presenting their sparkling new brand strategy, everyone loved it. I think it was because this client had covered every possible angle, ticked every box, claimed every benefit and value and included every personality suggestion that they had received into one big comprehensive ‘brand strategy’. Each stakeholder could see where their suggestion had been included and thought, ‘What a wonderful strategy, it captured everything’.

A success as a stakeholder management document, but the result was so complex and self contradictory that, once briefed to the agency, it took many rounds of concepts just to figure out which part of the strategy the client actually believed to be the essential core of the brand. An expensive process. A better way would have been to stop and ask why, and to work with the client to refine the strategy down to something that expressed the one clear idea that this brand needed to hold in the mind of the consumer and only then progress to bringing it to life.

'It takes many hard and sweaty hours to work out, but the subsequent strategy that emerges from this complex process should be so tight and easy to comprehend that it can be explained in one or two lines.’ Yes another Mark Ritson quote.

A brand can’t be both professional and trusted but also relaxed and down to earth, it can’t be modern and innovative but also traditional and established. Imagine you take a friend to a party and you quickly tell them about everyone in the room. ‘She’s the insecure talkative one, he’s the shy successful guy, they are the aloof intellectual etc.’ That’s pretty much the extent of what a brand personality can be if it is to be effectively communicated to the consumer. Perhaps then a brand strategy should be as simple as describing the type of party you are going to. It's a fancy cheese and wine thing, a bbq and piss up around the pool, or a nerdy board games night. Until it is brought to life it is just words on paper, a wish list of positionings and pillars, value attributes and benefits.

If you brief an agency with a complex strategy, the first concepts you see, will be them trying to figure out which part of the brand strategy you actually want them to focus on. The smoothest and most efficient and effective process I find is to never start design unless there is an upfront strategic stage where we work collaboratively with the client to refine the brand strategy into a realistic and deliverable plan based on insights from the market and a massive cull of everything that is not essential. Ideally, we create the strategy for them right from the start.

The brand strategy is the guiding light that creates the direction for this brand going forward. It should be based on the unique overlap of the company’s capabilities, the competitors’ positionings, a deep understanding of the category and the desires of the consumer. At the end of the day all you need are three clear reasons to believe, and an idea of what personality makes sense within the category. Any more starts to muddy the waters.

An effective brand comes from a strategy that delivers clarity. One that has a clear core positioning based on consumer insights, delivered through memorable distinctive assets.

?Phil