Defining your brand can pose a significant strategic business challenge for organizations. This is particularly true when your organization is trying to work through defining your brand in a group setting. In these situations, there’s often a tendency among individuals who live "inside" the organization to suppose it can stand for everything a company desires. That is generally impractical and a recipe for failure when ultimately your customers and the marketplace are going to determine how your brand lives in their minds and fulfills their expectations.
Here’s an alternative strategic thinking exercise to employ.
Start by asking, “What doesn’t our brand stand for or represent?”
By beginning with defining your brand through a “not” definition, you may subsequently be able to more readily express a succinct, targeted brand definition.
The strategic thinking exercise works beyond business brand definition efforts. You can also use it when having trouble narrowing the number of strategic or creative concepts you’re trying to fit into other things you may be trying to articulate. While you want to know what you stand for, it's equally valuable to be able to say what you don't represent. - Mike Brown
The Brainzooming Group helps make smart organizations more successful by rapidly expanding their strategic options and creating innovative plans they can efficiently implement. We draw on our varied strategy experience in defining new brands, jump starting lagging ones, and rehabilitating battered brands. Email us at info@brainzooming.com or call us at 816-509-5320 to learn how we can help you enhance your strategy and implementation efforts.
