← DictionaryBrand Strategy
also called brand strategy document
The decisions that define who a brand is for, what it stands for, how it is different, and how it will behave.
The decisions made before anyone designs anything.
What It Is
You will find Brand Strategy in the Brand layer, alongside the rest of Brand Foundations. In practice it means this: the decisions that define who a brand is for, what it stands for, how it is different, and how it will behave.
It is a repeatable structure, which means it only pays off when it is actually followed through instead of quoted. Once it is defined that clearly, arguments about it usually stop.
How It's Used
You will usually meet Brand Strategy in positioning conversations, identity decisions and the language a business commits to. It normally appears alongside Positioning, Messaging and Brand Guidelines. The practical test is whether anyone can follow it without the person who wrote it in the room.
Why It Matters
Brand Strategy is cheap to get right early and awkward to fix late. When it is unclear, every later choice about message, design and channel is made on sand. Clarity here removes a surprising amount of downstream argument.
Picture flat-pack instructions. Boring, and much faster than improvising. The decisions made before anyone designs anything.
Termshift™
How the meaning shifts depending on who is using it, and where.
Professionally, Brand Strategy carries the narrow meaning: the decisions that define who a brand is for, what it stands for, how it is different, and how it will behave.
Explained to someone with no marketing background, Brand Strategy is the decisions made before anyone designs anything.
The Bottom Line
If you only keep one thing about Brand Strategy: the decisions made before anyone designs anything. Everything after that is detail.