Brand Strategy — A Foundational Concept
Since 2019 when I had a hint of what brand strategy is, it has always fascinated me. Especially how the first thing I applied it to was myself — charting a course for how I wanted my life to be like and what I wanted to be known for. It’s still a work in progress, but, because I put together an earlier strategy to get to point B from point A, it is easier to optimize that plan each time I gain clarity on what a brand is and what a brand strategy is meant to achieve.
This is not an origin story; however, it might feature a bit out of what I believe is the beginning of my career as a brand communication strategist.
2019, I came across a notebook where my brother had put together a makeshift model of what I know today as brand strategy, detailing a SWOT analysis on himself.
As with every other thing I picked up from him, I read it through and through and decided to do the same to myself. However, before or after this time, I really can’t remember, I sat in an exam hall, having finished answering my questions in less time than allotted for the course, I turned over my question paper and started writing on it. I wrote everything I could think of myself:
- My skills (all I could think of at the time)
- What I could do
- I categorized my skills into those I believed I could monetize and others
- Skills I can improve on and possible roles I could occupy.
- For this one, I had a content creator, SM manager, writer, researcher, research analyst, poet, orator, public speaker, etc.
- I listed out possible difficulties, etc. on the list.
And I stared at that paper for a while, but that was a pivotal moment of my life, it was a defining moment inspired by a random note I picked up that belonged to Opeyemi Olugbemiro, and that was my entry point towards becoming a brand communication strategist.
What is brand strategy?
Brand strategy involves all the many pieces you put together to move from point A to point B.
This is how I define brand strategy on most days, because, that’s how it comes alive to me in my mind. And I say it this way because it is foundational, it’s on this very concept that I built my career.
When I work for my employer(s), whenever there is a need to move from point A to point B, I draw out a roadmap that carefully highlights pieces that we would intend to put together to get there. I also replicated the same for personal projects — Yosuru, The Tomato Factory, BCP, Random Conversations, etc.
This is why I believe brand strategy is foundational.
At this point in my career, having spent about 3 years actively designing brands across startups in different industries and also working in startups whose vision I bought into, I have seen, what I would call, the foundational concept of brand strategy, such that across timelines — past, present and future — industries, languages, beliefs, faiths, political ambition, I have been able to recognize brands being built systematically, which points to the implementation of brand strategy.
Why this article?
This article came to life as a means of giving form and shape to my scattered thoughts around brand strategy. It might be published and might stay a while as a draft, but whichever it turns out to be, we’d eventually get to see this.
PS: I am not editing the above line out, even in the published version.
It’s an eye-opener knowing and seeing a world filled with brands — living representations of our perceptions and beliefs about people, organizations, products or services.
The things that once seemed ordinary become light and unique perspectives on how best to interpret branding and explain it even to an audience oblivious to the fanciful term it has come to be known by.
In my article where’s Daddy’s plate? I shared insight into how the notion of Daddy’s plate was a mindset or perception carefully curated into our minds by consistent application of brand strategy components. Although done from a different standpoint and towards a simple result — recognition — we see the very essence of branding come alive in such a simple setting of a typical African home, modelled after my parent’s.
As an individual or a business, there are ways to level out the playing field or even start rightly by putting together a brand strategy. For expert insight into what a brand strategy is, you can check out Opeyemi Olugbemiro’s YouTube video explaining brand strategy to us.
As I draw near to a conclusion, I’d want to remind you that everyone has a brand — a perception people hold of them. People don’t need your permission to cast a projected image on you, they also don’t need your permission to conclude who you are to them.
In a world where you don’t have the right to people’s minds, finding a way to influence how people perceive you, and the conclusions they make of you is like finding a gold mine.
And what do you do with a gold mine? You get your tools and get to work — mining.
