There are many triggers for evaluating when is the right time to revisit your brand strategy reevaluation. These can include:
- When there’s a shift in corporate strategy
- When it’s been a long time since you’ve evaluated your brand
- When you’re in the midst of a growth spurt
- When “what you’ve got won’t get you there”
Brand strategy can and usually does address many business problems that result when brand strategy is left “for later”. The brand becomes irrelevant and static, and this has a negative impact on the organization:
- Corporate and brand strategies become misaligned
- The organization loses its sense of purpose
- Employees disengage
- Merger or acquisition
- Culture wanes
- Innovation stalls
- The customer value proposition weakens
- Customers lose interest
- New CEO on board
Two further – and highly critical – brand strategy triggers to consider
Going beyond the when, there’s also the how. We believe there are two additional reasons to reevaluate your brand strategy:
- If your business strategy and brand strategy are misaligned strangers, they end up working against each other.
- If your brand strategy lacks a meaningful purpose and an emotional kick.
Clearly it makes sense to reevaluate your brand strategy; the real question is how best to do so
Before you rush off to rework your brand strategy, please take a moment to think about what didn’t work with what you have now. After all, there’s little point in going through the branding process only to end up in a similar place (a place that will prove vulnerable before you know it).
Align business and brand strategies for greater success
If your brand strategy isn’t developed with a clear understanding of your business strategy, product road-map, exit strategy and major shifts you are looking to make, it won’t be as supportive as it can be as you pursue those goals and objectives. Without a clear sense of the “there” you’re trying to reach, a misaligned brand strategy will never take you there.
Orientate your brand around meaningful outcomes
It’s better to invest time and energy in moving your brand-thinking into a new realm. More and more brands are making the move toward meaning and purpose. They are leaving behind the classical approach, and adopting a far more human-centric way of branding.
They are doing this because they recognize that connections built on meaning are stronger and more enduring, both internally and externally. As such, they view their brand through the lens of core human needs. They see how the meaningful outcomes of what their business activates impact the collective wellbeing. They then build a strategy that brings that meaning to life for all the people vital to the brand’s success.
Meaningful brands are built out of more than just brand communications
Another important approach to modern brand strategy is to see workplace behavior as a core pillar of the strategy platform. This means seeing how the attitudes and actions of your employees, and the policies and procedures of your organization, can be evolved to embody the meaningful principles and ambitions of the brand.
Often overlooked, such internal manifestation of the brand’s meaning is a powerful and enduring flame that not only turns the workplace into a more gratifying place, but also creates an appealing light that draws in customers and prospects. It creates an energy that flows through every interaction within the company, and with the outside world.
It’s time to reevaluate, align, and make your brand meaningful
Whatever cycle your business is in today, your brand will benefit from the injection of meaning, purpose, and behavior. Such a brand strategy can pull your business up when things are down, bring your business together when things are flying in all directions, or help your business go through a big change.
Our methodology is based on mapping brand strategy to business strategy, and then clearly understanding where the business is trying to go. We then add a welcome dose of energy to the process by injecting your organization with a meaningful purpose and ways to make people inside and outside your organization change the way they think, feel, and act with respect to your brand.
Don’t simply “redo” your brand strategy. Align it closely to your business strategy. Strive to make it meaningful. Focus on the behavior changes that will resonate internally and externally. Change the feeling that surrounds your brand. And win, not only today, but in the long-term too, with a robust, adaptable, and enduring meaningful brand strategy.
Emotive Brand is a San Francisco branding agency.
