Thinking
March 2024 · 3 min read
The Problem with Most Brand Strategies Isn't the Thinking. It's the Format.
Brand strategies fail in predictable ways.
Not usually because the thinking is wrong. The research was solid, the positioning is defensible, the values are appropriate. The problem is that the strategy lives in a 60-slide deck that nobody refers to after the presentation, and that no one in the business can explain from memory six weeks later.
A strategy that can't be communicated is a strategy that can't be implemented. It's a document, not a tool.
The format problem
Most brand strategy decks are structured to demonstrate rigour - to show the client that the thinking was thorough, the data was considered, and the methodology was sound. That's a reasonable thing to want to demonstrate. The problem is that it optimises for the presentation moment, not for the daily decisions the brand needs to make.
A brand manager on a Tuesday afternoon, deciding whether a piece of copy sounds right, doesn't have time to go back through 60 slides. They need something they can hold in their head.
The most useful brand strategy outputs we've produced are the short ones. A positioning statement that fits on a Post-it. A one-page summary that a new joiner can read in five minutes and understand what the brand is. An essence in two words or one clear sentence that becomes the lens every decision gets held against.
What changes when the format is right
When a brand strategy is expressed simply enough to be remembered, something practical shifts. The team stops having to ask what the brand would think about a given decision, because they already know. Briefing gets faster. Execution gets more consistent. The brand starts to feel coherent without anyone having to force it.
That coherence is what most brand exercises are actually trying to achieve. The mistake is thinking that more pages gets you closer to it.
The discipline is in the reduction. Writing one sentence that's true is harder than writing five paragraphs that are approximately true. But the sentence is the thing that works.