Creating a brand strategy to win

Creating a brand strategy is the foundation of everything we do. Our ability to build powerful, market share-expanding brands depends largely upon where we think brands live.

We explore possible places for brands to live when creating a brand strategy. And, show how one of these places is better than the other places. We have a deliberate process that allows us to find the highest emotional intensity, claim that position and build all of the brand’s elements from that single most important idea.

We all know we should try to be purposive in all activities. Being process-driven is a recipe for disaster. But, all strategy is a series of processes, not tactics. And we have a predictive brand strategy process that includes brand auditing, behavioral modeling, research, and competitive analyses. 

All of these prerequisites to developing a powerful brand strategy allow Stealing Share to create a strategy devoid of guesswork. As a result, not a drop of energy or money is wasted on missteps. 

Creating the brand strategy— questions

Most businesses believe brands live in the marketing department.

They think that brands live in the packaging, the advertising, the merchandising, the posters, the billboards, and on letterhead. That it lives in business cards, and other physical media that feature the brand signals of brand name and logo.

Some other marketing experts believe that brands live in the brand name and the logotype themselves.

After all, we trademark them and take great pains to make sure that they are treated with the utmost care and respect.

But we disagree, We reinvented brand strategy to become a persuasive instrument in your marketing arsenal. After all, who can afford to have an important element like BRAND underperform?

Branding Responsibility and Creating Brand Strategy

However, these are not the places we should think brands live. We should be thinking of brands as living in an entirely different kind of space. Not in any kind of physical or organizational or media space.

We should think of brands living exclusively in the psychological space of the minds of our prospects. (In addition, when we say prospects, we must understand that this also includes our existing customers, if only because they too are prospects for future purchases.)

When creating a brand strategy, psychological space is intangible. It is an invisible personal space that is occupied by entirely “a-physical” and abstract phenomena. Things such as memories, perceptions, and feelings.

Creating brand strategy. A brand’s residence

And why should we think that brands live in this psychological space?

Because brands are the cluster of conceptual memories, perceptions, and feelings. Feelings that prospects associate with the brand name and the brand logo.

And these memories, perceptions, and feelings are themselves the result of all the cumulative communications and experiences that relate to the brand name or the brand logo.

This is why we should think of psychological space as the place where brands live. This psychological space is the very space in which prospects’ preferences develop, and where their purchase decisions are made.

Business is the reason

Why is this so important to think this? It’s simple, really. Because this is the heart of your brand strategy implementation. This is the CRUX of the whole issue.

The most important function in business is the generation of revenue that comes from prospects’ purchase decisions.

So, what if brands live in the psychological space of people who can recognize the brand name and brand logotype?

Because once we know this and acknowledge this, we are ourselves in a better position to build a brand. Built around the very purpose for which brands exist. This is the WHY in creating a brand strategy.

Creating brand strategy in smart ways

Consider this for a moment. If we were to build a brand for a marketing department, how would we make the best decisions for building it?

If we were to build a brand for the logo and logotype that we use, how would we make the best decisions for building it?

We would be groping around a lot because there is no direct traction between these aspects of brands. Gaining preference and purchase decisions for our product.

However, if we built a brand for the prospects’ psychological space, we would know that the brand has to be built to own the highest value perception. The highest emotional intensity among all the choices available. 

A Different Perspective when Creating Brand Strategy

As a result, once we realize that brands live in the psychological space of prospects, we would have a much better chance to build a powerful brand that gains their preference, is persuasive (Read about brand persuasion here and how other brand agencies don’t think that is important), and ensures their continuing purchases.

Let us now redefine brand from this perspective.

A brand is the constellation of conceptual and emotional residue. The residue that results from the accumulation of experiences that prospects associate with the brand’s signals; its name or logo.

Our brands don’t live alone in our prospects’ psychological space.

Our competitors’ brands reside there as well. So our prospects’ psychological space is the arena where the crucial struggle for market share and revenue growth takes place. This is the key to creating a brand strategy. 

Three Things To Consider

This understanding of where brands live tells us three things we must be focusing on in order to make the most of this perspective:

We must always be striving to improve our prospects’ perceptions of our product. Relative to their perceptions of all the other products in the category that these prospects may choose to purchase.

The best way to accomplish this is to manage every experience that the prospect has. Everything that she or he might associate with our brand name, will establish, or reinforce the superiority of our product. Superiority over those of our competitors in their psychological space. Preferably in the way that is most relevant to them.

All the ways in which this sense of superiority is established or reinforced are accomplished in concert. Creating a brand strategy means working together consistently. Without confusion or contradictions among the residue left by different kinds of experiences.

The bottom line in creating a brand strategy. Know that brands live in prospects’ psychological space in the form of a residual constellation of memories, perceptions, and feelings. They must convey the product’s superiority both single-mindedly and consistently through a focused brand strategy implementation.