60-Minute Brand Strategist: The Essential Brand Book for Marketing Professionals

Chapter 07

Strategic Branding Process

Developing a Brand Strategy

Building a distinctive and high-performing brand has never been as difficult or resource-consuming as it is today. With the proliferation of technology and social media, the bar continues to rise, and customers are now exposed to ever increasing numbers and varieties of messages. In today’s environment, brand strategy can no longer be created and managed solely by marketing and brand managers. Go-it-alone brand efforts will likely fail. The whole organization must collaborate from strategy development to execution. This book provides a process for a cross-functional planning effort.

We must take a fundamentally new approach to brand building in order to close the gap. An integrated cross-functional approach to brand strategy development that fuses deep customer insights and segmentation, evolving business economics, and customer experience design capability is required. Companies must direct their resources to these efforts to win in these hyper-competitive markets.

Branding Is a Business Process

Branding is a business process—one that is planned, strategically focused, and integrated throughout the organization. Branding establishes the direction, leadership, clarity of purpose, inspiration, and energy for a company’s most important asset—its brand. Even the most powerful strategy will fail if not communicated ...