about Brand Strategy
I'm always amazed at how 'deep' - in the sales pitch and at the outset once hired - the new breed of leftbrain brand consultants (in the past 10-15 years) want to go in 'understanding the client's business' and in fact show it off. That's what you do in Business Strategy, Marketing Strategy, and Management Consulting -- in fact, if you don't know the client's business really well your recommendations will be weak at best or wholly uniformed at worse.
But that's NOT AT ALL the same in Brand Strategy. In fact, too in-depth business details are the enemy of foundational Brand Strategy - which must be free to think&imagine without the shackles of (too much) reality. That's the only way that one can see the core of a company's existence and the breadth of its possible future. The leftbrainers just don't get it, and never will.
And that's why the pure Brand Strategist does not exist anymore: as Brand Consulting has become dry-as-a-bone, the slack of the 'imaginative thinking' has fallen on the shoulders of implementers - from Identity Design to then ad agencies and the like; but ... it's not 'imaginative thinking' at all, it's merely an imaginative coating to the dry-as-a-bone 'brand strategy' recommendations.
And you know what's as bad? The fact that clients used to look up to Brand Strategists because they opened up possibilities they didn't and in fact couldn't see - business philosophers and oracles of sort; but now ... the conversations are between leftbrain-businesstalk with leftbrain businesstalk-infused-with-branding-terms. Pity -- Brand Consulting has become business-consulting-with-a-branding-process.
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I've channeled my inner Mark Ritson in writing this note, to steel myself against possible hatemail; and before I get that, let me say that ...:
- preface "by and large" to everything I said above; and
- once you get out of the foundational Brand Strategy, you better know the client business really well, otherwise your implementation will be superficially poor.
Pretty much agree with everything especially the way people confuse Identity Design with Branding and Brand Strategy. How I see it is simple. You need to understand your client's business so that you can make the correct recommendations. That business will have a view of the future so you need to understand the ideal or intended future state. These need to marry up so that the Brand, Marketing & Business Strategy are completely in sync so the future state can be met. The danger with focusing on the current business too much is that you become too scared to implement anything new because you are scared to let go of where you are today...end result is inertia. Kodak is a good example where the future state was known but the steady state was comfortable.
I help free you from drinking. Certified Alcohol-Free and Sobriety Coach. Founder, AF With A Twist. Certifications from This Naked Mind Institute and in Affective Liminal Psychology.
3yHi Q, William Woduschegg (He/Him/His)who co-leads InterbrandHealth with me, often says "If I wanted to get that deep in a client's business strategy, I'd should work for them!" We try to maintain the integrity of brand strategists and creativity in every thing we do. But many of your points resonate for sure.