Can we do the strategy ourselves? In defense of doing the whole shebang.

This is a question we get a lot. So often, in fact, that we're here to write a blog post about it, making this the first in our series: Good Questions.

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As a brand strategist, it’s easy to get defensive about this question. But I take it as a sign of good instincts. It comes from the desire to move fast, save money, and tap into the talent you have on your team. All good things. Plus, when I worked in house, I found myself asking this very question—along with the more existential pondering, what even is brand strategy anyway? So let’s start there.

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What is brand strategy?

If you’ve ever tried to answer the question, “who am I, really?” you know that putting your finger on what makes you, you isn’t easy. Brand strategy is how we do it. Long before we can talk about what your brand looks like or how it will sound, brand strategy gives us the language to say, this is who we are at our core and this is why that matters in an authentic and differentiated way.

And that last part is important. Because we all want our brand to be authentic, right? Brand strategy helps us decide whether we’re Billie-Eilish-authentic or Michelle-Obama-authentic. Whether we’re Adam-Sandler-authentic or Harry-Styles-authentic. There are a million different flavors of authentic out there— brand strategy helps you find yours. And once you do that, differentiation comes naturally.    

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What are the core elements of brand strategy?

There’s no right way to do strategy (although we’ve definitely seen some wrong ways). But everyone has their own output. Our approach at Goodside is heavily narrative-driven. We believe everything starts with the story you tell about yourselves and the business you’re building. Here are the core elements that make up our brand strategy.

Brand Narrative: Our narrative is the manifesto that sets the stage for the brand. It explains who we are, what we’re doing, and why that matters.

Brand Beliefs: Our beliefs are how we uniquely see the world. These are the core tenets around which our brand is built. Typically we have 3-4 of them.

Brand Purpose: Our brand purpose answers the fundamental question, “Why do we exist?”

Brand Idea: Our brand idea is the synthesis of our strategy into a short, memorable phrase. We’ll use it as shorthand for what we stand for and as the creative launch point for our explorations going forward.

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We’ve already done a lot of strategy work internally. Can you work with that?

Absolutely! We want to see your product strategy, your business strategy, your marketing strategy, and any other strategic soul searching you’ve done to date. The more inputs we have to understand you and your work, the better. Because you’re always going to be the experts in your business. Which brings us to our next point...

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The power of fresh eyes

Being outsiders is our superpower in this process. Having fresh eyes allows us to look at problems differently, see opportunities that might have been missed, and find new angles on your point of view.

For example, when we started working with HyperComply, they knew that they wanted to emphasize speed, because HyperComply helps teams complete security reviews faster. But to differentiate from their competitors and build brand love, we needed to push their story beyond the functional. During our discovery process, we uncovered how to do just that. We learned that forward-thinking security leaders didn’t see their role as preventing, protecting, or defending; they saw it as enabling. Our strategy for HyperComply was built around the idea that compliance shouldn’t be a deadbolt, it should be a key. One that unlocks the full potential of a team to move forward with confidence. By fundamentally reframing security and compliance as a strategic enabler, we gave HyperComply a new angle on speed that set them apart from their competition. And a fierce new identity along with it.

For another example—take Puck. Puck came to us with a clear vision in mind: to make hiring more human. At a time when the hiring industry seemed to be pushing toward one-click job applications and infinite-scroll job listings, they wanted to do things differently. And not just human-interest-piece different. So we asked around, interviewed people about their favorite jobs, and heard consistently what would become central to our approach: finding the right job for you isn’t about the job, really. It’s about you. This led us to our people-first brand strategy. Celebrating the teams and the teammates that make a good job great, we landed on our new brand idea, find your people.    

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Can we do lightweight brand strategy?

If you’ve gotten this far, hopefully you’re sold on the value of brand strategy. But maybe you’re thinking, can we speed it up? Is there a lighter weight way to get to the strategy?

Unfortunately, the answer is... not really. Because the purpose of strategy is to go deep and peel back the layers. The interviews, the research, the workshopping, it’s all in pursuit of the one nugget of goodness that makes you uniquely you.

While we can’t cut it down, we can get creative! For companies with a short timeline or tight budget, we’ve developed a process that merges brand strategy and brand identity into one phase. We call it the Vision share, an approach we learned from our friends at Upstatement. We’ll be writing more about the Vision share process very soon, but don’t hesitate to ask us about it if you’re interested.  

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What’s brand positioning and how does that relate to brand strategy?

Short answer—they’re one in the same. Brand strategy is a bit of a nothing-burger name and it’s easily confused with all of the other strategies out there (product, business, marketing), as we discussed earlier. We choose to call it brand positioning because we think it’s a bit more descriptive of the exercise—carving out a unique position for your brand. But they’re the same. Potato, potato.  

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How do I prepare for a successful brand strategy process?

We love this question, although we’ve only ever really been asked it once! But we’ll answer anyway. You don’t have to prepare much—just know yourself, and know your audience. If you’re considering doing a robust audience research project, go for it. Anything you can do to narrow down your target audience and learn what drives them will help us help you. Similarly, learn about yourselves. You don’t have to wait until your brand project to have those deep conversations about who you are, what you care about, and why you’re in this business. If you want to get a jump on it, we’re all for it!  Together, we’ll learn from the work you’ve done, challenge assumptions, explore possibilities, push for the best possible strategy, to support the best possible identity.