Brand Strategy 101 > Start Here
Start Your Brand Strategy Journey
Last updated on September 8, 2022 by Adam Charlton
Introduction to BrandWerks
Following a critical and strategic approach to brand strategy transformed our approach to branding and our agency business. We believe our approach can help other branding agencies and design professionals level up their design business.
We started BrandWerks to help designers and studios level up their branding engagements by providing resources and customizable, step-by-step actionable tools, founded in a commercial approach.
What is Brand Strategy?
A brand strategy is a long-term plan for how an organisation will build and grow its brand. Brand strategy is a roadmap for how a company will differentiate and position itself in the market and how it will communicate its purpose to its target audience.
The function of brand strategy is to uncover and communicate an organisation’s core purpose. To reach a unique and compelling purpose, the brand strategy process is a pragmatic approach, designed to help the organisation reveal its vision, core values, market differentiation, personality and mission statement.
A compelling brand strategy helps the organisation communicate their purpose to the market in order to build brand equity and market share. A strong brand strategy is the authentic, contextual, goal-oriented, and actionable plan, and acts as a foundation and design brief for the branding process.
Who is BrandWerks For?
BrandWerks was created for both design practitioners and internal teams. All of our tools are customisable and so are perfect for use by agencies, designers and brand strategists.
Key Benefits of Brand Strategy
A brand strategy helps an organization’s brand in a variety of ways. A brand strategy helps create a sustainable, future-proof brand, that has clear core values, messaging, tone of voice, brand promise, and mission.
Brand strategy helps to analyze and take advantage of market opportunities.
A strong, clear strategy helps the organizations align on a shared vision and goals, clarifies the organization's core values and differentiates the company as purpose-driven.
A differentiated brand defines a distinct visual identity and tone of voice that resonates honestly with its target audience.
Brand strategy helps define and communicate the brand’s promise and mission statement to its customers.
A brand strategy helps the internal team align with agencies and designers with a shared vision for the visual and verbal direction of the brand. Brand strategy helps empower the client, whilst also guiding the whole branding/ rebranding process.
The BrandWerks Framework
We developed our strategic framework after years of working with clients through branding and rebranding projects. We’ve worked with a vast array of clients from all industries, each time iterating and updating our framework and tools.
The brand strategy framework we share in our BrandWerks resources and brand strategy templates are the exact same frameworks and templates we use on each and every branding project in our branding agency, BrandCraft.
Our brand strategy framework covers areas including Brand Audit, Brand DNA, Positioning, Vision, Core Values, Brand Personality, and brings all of these together into the Mission Statement. We have developed unique tools that are throughout the framework.
Whether we're rebranding an existing organisation or building a brand from the ground up, our approach remains the same.
Resources & Tools
Thank you for your interest in BrandWerks. We sincerely hope you find our articles helpful in your brand strategy journey!
Resources:
Core Framework — Introduction to the BrandWerks approach
Our Blog — Level up your branding practice, with articles on brand strategy and the business of design
Discovery & Brand Strategy — Deep dive into how we work with our clients
Learn more about our tools:
About the author, Adam —
Adam is the founder of BrandCraft, a Hong Kong-based branding agency.
On top of our client-facing projects, our small team developed BrandWerks where we create brand strategy tools and templates to help you master brand strategy and the business of design.
Our actionable tools are fully editable and founded in a commercial approach that guides your clients through the brand strategy process.
Learn more —
Brand Strategy Templates & Toolkits
Our Journey with BrandWerks