How we think about… Brand

What is a brand?

Jeff Bezos defined brand as "what people say about you when you're not in the room."

We agree. But small businesses with big growth ambitions can't afford to worry about what everyone thinks. They need to obsess over their growth audience.

First, make sure you're being talked about when you are in the room.

Second, make sure what's being said catches the attention of the person next to them.

Being noticed is great. Being noticed for the right things is better.

Your obsession should be with your customer

Brand literature obsesses over mission and purpose right now. It feels like a tick box exercise every brand does to get started. Consumer concerns about sustainability, founding stories and social impact are fuelling this trend.

But, we disagree that brand starts with mission and purpose.

Not because we don't care about the planet. But because it inspires navel gazing and doesn't build clear commercial propositions.

A brand should start with a clear customer insight and never lose sight of it.

Mission-led businesses persevere with the wrong proposition too long. They fixate on what they want to sell and miss what the real opportunity is. 

Insight-led businesses pivot effectively. They stay on the front foot, adapt to trends while remaining consistent. They deliver more positive change because they grow and have impact at scale.

Ultimately if your customer doesn’t care about your mission, you can’t sustain your business and therefore fulfil your mission.

How we approach Brand Strategy

The best brand strategies are a few simple sentences. The irony is that the more time you spend and the more invested the business is, the fewer words you end up with.

Here’s our format to how we approach brand strategy:

1. The context and insights

A pithy synopsis of research and insight that pinpoints a true customer tension:

"[Target audience] want X, but struggle with Y."

2. We exist to…

Brands exist to solve problems and overcome tensions.

3. We sell…

You never sell just products.

Sometimes you sell dreams. Lottie's first job was selling Lacoste and Dolce & Gabbana fragrances. Not scented water in a bottle, but the promise you could be the person in the glamorous advert.

Sometimes you sell an experience. At PROPER popcorn, she wasn't selling low-calorie snacks but a solution to afternoon boredom.

4. Positioning

A positioning framework defines why a brand offers a credible benefit that customers actually want.

For [target audience] who  [need or believe X], [Brand] is the only  [category or solution] that [unique benefit], as proven by  [evidence].

Brands need positioning statements. So do categories.

For Freja bone broth, we first defined the category before positioning the brand within it:

For those looking to proactively tackle health problems, bone broth is the original superfood, with time-honoured evidence it supports gut health, boosts the immune system, nurtures joints, reduces inflammation and fires up metabolism.

5. Personality

Bring personality to life as an actual person. A character with a name, a job, a backstory.

This lets the team imagine what they would or wouldn't do or say. It's easier than thinking through tone of voice pillars.

There's often a huge disconnect between how founders describe their product and what customers would say. To resonate, talk in their language, not yours.

6. We stand against…

What would be on your placard if you went on a march? What change do you want to make?

The term "challenger brand" gets misused. It should be reserved for brands that know who they're fighting or have clear "monsters."

The monster might be an ideology, a competitor, or an issue like price, ethics or the environment. Eat Big Fish articulates this brilliantly.

7. Beyond visual identity

Brand strategy is worthless until it influences how you show up in the world.

Too often this starts and stops with design language and tone of voice. Your brand is way more than visual and written identity.

The "5 Ps" framework forces you to think about full application:

Product: Does it deliver our brand promise? Are we building or diluting distinctiveness?

Price: Does it reinforce our positioning? Does it reflect perceived value, not just cost or competition?

Promotion: Are we communicating in a way that builds brand, not just drives response?

Place: Are we available in the right places? Does distribution strengthen our positioning?

People: Do the people representing us embody the brand? Are we hiring and training accordingly?

Here is a worked example from Sula, an Indian wine brand.

Brand work can [and should] always be measured

“Brand building” is a dangerous phrase. It’s used too often by marketing teams to get finance teams off their backs: “you can’t interrogate the return of my work because I am brand building - it’s immeasurable magic”. Creativity does build brand, but it’s not an abstract process. 

We don’t believe in just “brand building” for the sake of it. Instead, the objective of building a brand needs to be specific:

Each of these objectives can be measured. 

Brand health tracking with a survey, focused on your growth audience, every 3-6 months can give you the headlines: 

In a given month you can track the leading metrics that will drive these changes. These KPIs will vary by business model, but crucially, there is no world where there aren’t any:

Every marketing team needs a Brand Voice

Brand management is the glue that brings all work back to the customer.

Not every team needs a brand manager, but someone needs to own implementation of brand strategy. Everyone should be accountable, but it helps to have an owner.

Without a Brand Voice, customers get lost in growth and social media marketing.

Good experimentation starts with the customer. Bad experimentation chases competitors and industry trends, pulling you further from what resonates.

The idea that "brand" can be owned by a "brand team" and "growth" by a "growth team" is nonsense.

Your customers don't distinguish who signed off what. They just see your business and make judgements, fast.

Brand strategy isn't one and done.

You start with customer insight. You build your strategy. You bring it to life across the 5 Ps. You measure the impact.

Then you loop back and talk to your customers again.

Your core brand strategy shouldn't swing wildly, but it will need to evolve. Customers aren't operating in a standing still world. Culture shifts how they use brands. Economic pressures change what they value. New competitors reshape what they expect.

Regular customer conversations aren't about validating what you've already decided. They're about understanding the changing context in which your target customers are actually using your product.

Brand strategy that sits on a shelf is worthless.

It needs to be used daily. Tested constantly. Evolved deliberately.

The brands that stay relevant keep listening.