Brand Strategy

Internal communication brings the brand to life for employees before it ever reaches customers. It should:

• Explain the purpose and direction of the brand
• Build belief and pride among teams
• Equip staff to communicate and live the brand
• Reinforce brand values and behaviours
• Celebrate wins and role models.

Brand is everyone’s job, and the leaders and internal communications help bring it to life and make it real.

In complex organisations, consistency requires a structured yet flexible approach. Success factors:

• Develop a central brand strategy (e.g. Brand on a Page™)
• Create clear guidelines, templates, and toolkits
• Empower local adaptation without diluting core identity
• Appoint brand leads and create a brand council
• Provide training and ongoing support.

Strong alignment means the brand feels consistent but never rigid.

Implementation timelines vary, but brand strategy can be done within 3 months (fast but achievable with full engagement of the client team) to 9 months, depending on the size, scale and complexity of the project. A full brand rollout and implementation is likely to take 6-12 months, depending on complexity.

• Engagement and research phase 1-6 months
• Strategy development 3-6 months
• Brand Identity, TOV, messaging and guidelines 3-12 months
• Full cultural and operational alignment up to 12 months
• Governance and measurement are ongoing.

Brand strategy should be reviewed every 2-3 years, or in response to major change. Key triggers could be:

• Mergers, acquisitions, or leadership changes
• New markets, products, or service models
• Customer, employee, or stakeholder feedback
• Disruption or strategic realignment.

Desktop research and stakeholder diagnostics are a valuable tool to assess ongoing brand health.

Leading organisations demonstrate the power of clear, purpose-driven brand strategies:

• Apple - Simplicity and creativity at every touchpoint
• Patagonia - Environment-first, values-led, highly authentic
• Goodman Group purpose of “Making space for greatness” helps their brand stay focused on bold, innovative solutions for their clients.
• TWE - cultivating boldness, innovative, consumer led innovation, superior brands & products
• Atlassian - Open, honest, globally-minded - a clear tone and employee-led culture
• Aruma - emotionally engaging, authentic, and unique in its sector.

These strategies are integrated across brand, culture, and business.

Purpose is the foundation of modern brand strategy. It defines why you exist, beyond commercial goals, and shapes how you show up in the world. Purpose:

• Creates meaning and emotional connection
• Builds trust with customers, employees, and stakeholders
• Guides behaviour, communication, and innovation
• Anchors your brand in something bigger than profit.

Purpose-led brands grow faster, engage better, are more innovative, and navigate complexity with confidence.

Many organisations undervalue strategy or mistake branding for visual design. The most common pitfalls include:

• Jumping straight to logo or design without clarity of purpose
• Treating brand as only a marketing concern
• Copying competitors instead of identifying unique value
• Failing to align brand with culture and operations
• Not embedding the strategy across internal systems.

Brand is not what you say; it’s what people experience at every touchpoint. What tools are used to develop brand strategy? Experienced brand strategists use a combination of qualitative research, quantitative insights, and structured facilitation to build strategy from the inside out. Tools include:

• Stakeholder interviews and customer surveys
• Brand audits and competitor benchmarking
• Purpose, positioning, and proof workshops
• Messaging architecture and frameworks
• Brand archetype and tone of voice models.

Brand Council’s approach is always tailored and co-created.

Brand strategy creates the emotional and functional foundation for growth. It influences every customer and employee interaction and drives business performance. Benefits include:

• Emotional engagement and brand loyalty
• Increased market preference and pricing power
• Stronger talent attraction and retention
• Clearer decision-making and innovation
• Greater stakeholder trust and reputation
• Increased brand valuation and share of voice.

A strong corporate brand strategy can also enhance M&A outcomes by positioning the business as a ‘parent of choice.’

A strong brand strategy typically includes both foundational and applied elements. In addition to sound foundational research, desktop review of the 5C’s (Brand Council 5C - customer, category, company, community and culture) and stakeholder engagement. The Brand Council proprietary ‘Brand on a Page’ tool includes:

• Brand purpose and vision
• Brand values and behaviours
• Brand Personality and TOV
• Positioning and value proposition
• Proof pillars and proof points
• Brand Idea
• Visual identity and brand system.

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Yes. Every organisation, regardless of size, sector, or stage, needs a brand strategy to define who they are, why they matter, and how they grow.

• Start-ups use brand strategy to establish credibility and attract investment
• Scale-ups need it to differentiate and expand
• Enterprises rely on it to drive consistency across complex operations
• NFPs and B Corps need it to connect with community and purpose.

Without strategy, you risk noise, not impact.

A good brand strategy is more than a plan, it’s a unifying idea that drives consistency, clarity, conviction, and growth. It must be:

• Anchored in purpose, delivering to the vision, and supported by research
• Relevant to customers, employees, and stakeholders
• Differentiated in a way that breaks category convention, better executed, or builds a more emotional engagement
• Actionable across all touchpoints (not just marketing)
• Embedded into systems, culture, and decision-making.

A great strategy is both inspiring and usable.

Brand strategy must be driven by leadership. It’s not just a marketing initiative, it’s a strategic imperative that touches every part of the organisation. Ownership and sponsorship should include:

• CEO, Chief Brand Officer or CMO - to champion the process and signal strategic priority
• Corporate Strategy or Brand teams - to lead day-to-day development
• Board and ELT - to review and endorse direction
• Cross-functional stakeholders - to ensure whole-of-business alignment.

In some progressive organisations, a Chief Brand Officer or Chief Purpose Officer owns long-term brand value and cultural alignment.

The best brand strategy firms bring strategic rigour, sector experience, creativity, and a human-centred approach. They go beyond design to uncover what a brand truly stands for and how it delivers value. Look for:

• Experience and expertise - ideally at least 15 years of brand strategy expertise
• Strong case studies and proven results
• Proven frameworks and strong strategic thinking
• Sector-specific insight and stakeholder expertise
• Emphasis on purpose and achieving the vision, not just short-term promotion.

Brand Council - B Corp certified, experts in purpose-led transformation and brand strategy.

Developing a brand strategy requires deep insight, rigorous thinking, and strong stakeholder engagement. Brand Council follows a proven process grounded in research, human insight, and strategy alignment. Key stages include:

• 5C Review: Deep dive into Customer, Category, Company, Culture, and Community
• Stakeholder diagnostics: Interviews, surveys, and qualitative research
• Strategy definition: Purpose, positioning, personality, values, proof points, brand idea
• Stakeholder engagement: Workshops with internal teams to build brand from inside out
• Creative articulation: Tone of voice, messaging frameworks, and brand identity system
• Internal alignment: Executive engagement and governance planning.

The result is a brand strategy that is credible, actionable, and tailored to achieve your desired vision and results, plus bring the organisational purpose to life.

Brand strategy provides a central organising idea that aligns the business internally and expresses itself meaningfully in the market. Without it, brand activity becomes fragmented, inconsistent, or inauthentic. The benefits of brand strategy include:

• Increased brand relevance with stakeholders
• Improved consistency across all channels
• Higher marketing efficiency and ROI
• Greater differentiation and competitive advantage
• Stronger emotional connection with customers and employees
• Clearer decision-making and strategic focus.

A purposeful, well-defined brand strategy turns the brand into a growth engine.

Corporate brand strategy focuses on the overarching identity and positioning of the parent brand, particularly in multi-brand or complex organisations. It defines how the corporate brand relates to sub-brands, business units, and stakeholders, ensuring clarity and coherence at the highest level. Corporate brand strategy:

• Establishes the role and identity of the parent or holding company
• Aligns messaging across diverse divisions or markets
• Enhances reputation, trust, and stakeholder confidence
• Supports mergers, acquisitions, and investor relationships
• Positions the company as a ‘parent of choice’ in the marketplace.

This strategy becomes particularly powerful in organisations where the parent brand must represent a group purpose or vision beyond the individual product or service brands. This is particularly relevant in global companies, those planning to become global or holding companies.

Brand strategy is the long-term plan for building a strong, differentiated, and meaningful brand in the minds of your customers and stakeholders. It guides what a brand stands for, how a brand behaves, and how it communicates, and grows. Brand strategy brings to life the ‘who’ you are as a brand or organisation (in the case of corporate brand)

• Defines what your brand stands for and how it's perceived
• Provides clarity on the personality and way in which you show up to your stakeholders
• Aligns internal culture and external messaging
• Helps differentiate from competitors
• Informs decisions across marketing, communications, and customer experience

It can inform the type of products and services you develop and how you deliver them. At Brand Council, we believe brand strategy is business strategy - expressed through purpose, culture, communication, product and services, and the experience.