Brand Strategy – Insight, Imagination, Clarity

Fundamental to our Strategic Marketing Planning Process is the distillation of key insights to then create a Core Proposition that will enable the brand to stand out in the marketplace. Expanding on the points that define the brand philosophy we further enhance the positioning and provide a framework from which not only the brand communications (messaging) can hang, but will inform the naming and visual identity process.

Customer Insight
This insight focuses on the core audience target for the business – what is it that the brand can leverage in that core audience. It distils specifically what we have identified about them. This will often be written as a clear problem that we are aiming to solve.

Business Insight
This insight captures the element that the business has identified as its area of focus in order to create a market and monetise the identified audience. It should fundamentally support the underlying commercial proposition.

Brand Insight
This insight distils what it is about the brand that means it is best placed for success within the marketplace. Something that the brand has identified, a new insight, often driven by the potential customer/prevailing culture.
We must demonstrate a Unique Selling Point (USP) that steers people toward favouring the your brand over the competition.

Core Proposition
In any given category, products and services tend to have very similar functional features and benefits, making it very hard to position and differentiate them on facts alone. This is why an effective Core Proposition appeals to the emotional side so well, and this can make all the difference between a consumer’s choice of brand, far more than quality, service and/or price alone. The new brand must offer a point of difference in order to cut-through the competition. Unique positioning gives the audience a reason to separate your brand from the others and a story that is memorable through the noise. It is also easier to own and defend than to compete on the common selling points of price and function. We want to arrive at a Core Proposition that no other brand can own.

The Core Proposition is derived from all of the insights and thinking that has come from our research, discussions and understanding of how to reach the hearts and minds of the target audience. The Core Proposition is not intended to be a customer-facing line, it is essentially an internal call-to-arms. Examples are Nike’s “We believe every body is an athlete’ or Starbucks’ “To inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighbourhood at a time.”

We underpin the Core Proposition with a number of Qualifying/Proof Points which demonstrate why the Core Proposition is true.

We expand out a Brand Philosophy which covers the Key Selling Points, Unique Selling Points, Personality, Positioning and Customer Experience to round out the Brand. We articulate the Brand’s Mission and Vision and build a ‘Brand Wheel’ to steer the brand across all marketing communications.