Brand strategy is the written decision about who a business sells to and why they should choose it over the alternatives, made before any artwork. It gives the identity, the website and the content one idea to follow, and a test every later piece has to pass. For a business opening in Dubai or anywhere in the UAE, it costs little to write and a lot to skip, because work designed without it is often designed twice.
What a brand strategy contains
A useful brand strategy fits on a few pages. It usually sets down:
- The audience: who the business sells to, described well enough that you could recognise them.
- The alternatives: what those people compare you with, including doing nothing.
- The position: where you stand against those alternatives, in one line.
- The idea: the single thought every piece of the brand comes back to.
- The voice: how the brand speaks, and what it never says.
- The job of each channel: what the website, the shop and the social feed are each for.
Brand positioning, a term you will hear alongside brand strategy, is the third item on that list: the line that says where you stand. It is part of the strategy, not a replacement for it.
Brand strategy, brand identity and marketing strategy
The three are often mixed up. They follow one another.
| Brand strategy | Brand identity | Marketing strategy | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it decides | Who it is for and why they should choose it | How the brand looks and sounds | Where, when and how much to spend reaching people |
| What it produces | A written plan, with the idea and the position | The logo, colours, type and guidelines | Channels, a calendar and a budget |
| When it is done | First, before any design | Second, drawn from the strategy | Third, once there is something to market |
The order matters. An identity drawn before the strategy is settled tends to be redrawn once it is, and a marketing plan without either has nothing to say.
A worked example: Lento
The insight
Lento is an all-day restaurant in Addis Ababa. The strategy started from one observation about the trade: every restaurant sells food and rents time.
The idea
From that observation came the idea: Lento sells the hour itself. It is a simple sentence, and that is its strength. A designer can hold a menu, a cup or a corner of the room against it and see at once whether it fits.
From the idea to the line
The idea became the line the client approved: *The hour is yours.* It is short enough to print on a cup.
What the strategy decided downstream
Because the idea is about time, the pictures lead with the table and the room. One line from the case page says it: "From half past five the light drops to pools. The pace does not change." The menu and the bag carry the line, so the idea leaves the building with the guest.
A second example: one job per channel
For Whispers of Alara, a fine jewellery brand, the strategy set who the jewellery is for and gave each channel one job: the website sells, social media tells the story.
That decision shaped both: the website could be designed to sell, and the feed to tell the story, without either trying to do the other's job.
How to build a brand strategy
The steps are the same for a café and for a property developer:
- Describe the buyer. Not a demographic, but a person at a moment: someone about to open, about to move, about to choose.
- List what they compare you with. Name the real alternatives, including the option of not buying at all.
- Find the insight. Look for something true about the trade or the buyer that the alternatives ignore. At Lento it was that every restaurant sells food and rents time.
- State the idea in one sentence. It should tell a designer what to do, not only how to feel.
- Test it on three pieces. Hold the idea against the menu, the website and the sign, or whatever your three most visible pieces are. If it tells you what to do with each, keep it.
- Give each channel one job. Write down what the website, the shop and the feed are each for.
How to tell a good brand strategy
You can test a brand strategy before any design starts. A good one:
- Fits in one sentence. If the idea needs a paragraph, it is not decided yet.
- Can be checked. A designer or a supplier can hold their work against it and get a clear yes or no.
- Rules things out. A strategy that allows every colour, every channel and every tone of voice has not made a decision.
If yours fails one of these tests, fix the strategy before you brief the identity. It is much cheaper to change a sentence than a sign.
When to write it
Write the brand strategy before money is spent on design: before the logo, before the website, before the first photoshoot. It is also the moment it is easiest to skip, because there is a date to hit and design feels like progress.
A brand strategy project with us starts with one conversation about who the business is for and what it competes with. Read more about brand strategy at our studio in Dubai.