Stef Hamerlinck - Mistakes in brand strategy

In this solo episode, I walk you through some of the biggest mistakes I've made or see other people make in brand strategy. How can we spot them, avoid them and create a better, more actionable brand strategy? Have fun! 

Here they are: 

1. Fluff: the words in the strategy are so 'floaty' that it's hard to see what you mean. Usually a lot of 'human-centered', authentic storytelling. A lot of 'purpose' driven brands are also bs

2. Magical unicorn thinking: because of our unique story, people will come.

3. Unrealistic: in strategy, finding the balance between 'challenging' the client and creating something that's possible for the company is hard.

   1. A lot of strategy looks amazing on paper or in a deck, but is not possible in real life. Recognizing the internal and external restrections of a company are crucial to developing a strateg

4. Not actionable: strategy should inspire action,

   1. it should be a platform, a guiding policy for change, so go through your deck, do you see obvious areas to improve, are their steps we can take?

   2. A lot of people confuse writing a vision statement with strategy, that's not enough, how will we get there?

   3. What hurdles do we need to cross?

5. Not validated: most of strategy is based on assumptions, actually a lot of times, your clients will have gotten where they are by assumping certain things. A startup is bascially an assumption. Yet strategy is about 'diagnose', about researching.

   1. Triangulating your data sources is key.

   2. Have a source list

6. Not aligned: in a lot of cases, a few people are 'on board' and other people aren't, don't just let them out of the process because your clients think there will be friction, embrace that friction

   1. pull all the stakeholders in, also the conservetaive ones

   2. a strategy will only be put in action if all objection are adressed, don't think one person will do it for you when you're gone

7. No clear challenge defined: just creating strategy for strategy's sake is not the right approach.

   1. Everyone needs a brand strategy: sure, but why are we adressing this now? At what stage is the company at? Why are we using an external agency? All of these things might hint at a clearer challenge

   2. if the answers are: it doesn't have to be now, it's not really that important then maybe it's not the time, because they don't actually want change, if things are going the way they should, you shouldn't be creating strategy just because you can

   3. try to write a strategy outline: the problem - the approach - the challenges - weakness & strengths - opportunities & threats

   4. of course this might change troughout the strategy, it's a starting hypothesis, like a scientist starting out with a belief about the world, the data and insights will either confirm, alter or deny the hypothesis

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