A brand strategy is a long-term plan designed to raise a brand’s value by differentiating it from its competition and influencing public perception of that brand.
— Miles FryerMF Miles Fryer , howtobuildabrand.org
Defining a brand’s identity is an essential first step to building a brand, but anchoring that identity in the minds of customers is a more significant challenge. The Brand Identity can be thought of as an aspiration or a target state. By contrast, Brand Strategy is a long-term plan required to achieve the desired perception of the brand in the market. It is vital because brands seldom operate in a vacuum, other market players and competitors, in particular, are always doing things that can get in the way of achieving this goal.
A good strategy is one that identifies the most promising market opportunity. It defines a clear objective to exploit that opportunity, specifically excluding other potentially promising opportunities. Finally, it creates a coherent plan for achieving the objective or goal by defining specific actions that the organization should take.
So a good brand strategy must have the following characteristics:
- A good understanding of the target customers as well as the competitors and their position in the market relative to the brand’s position
- It must clearly define a goal or objective, which makes it easy to evaluate if actions are appropriate or should be excluded from the plan
- It must define a plan with clear actions for achieving the goal
