A cure for Strategitis
Many businesses I’ve worked with have a bad case of Strategitis. They have a business strategy, a people strategy, and a marketing strategy. But they need a brand strategy. Oh, and a digital strategy, and a product/innovation strategy, and a sales strategy. And often they also need a creative and a campaign strategy. You get the picture.
Each one of these facets does need strategic direction: a defined purpose, shared principles, clear priorities, a sufficiently resourced plan. In the board room, it may all seem to hang together nicely. There may even be a programme officer charged with strategy co-ordination and marking up the RAG chart.
But at a practical and executional level, it can get very messy. How precisely do Vision and Mission relate to Brand Positioning? Which terminology is ‘back office only’, and which language is customer-facing? What is a brand essence? And is it a tagline, or just a ‘big idea’?
There are often simply “too many notes, dear Mozart”. The result is confusion, poor buy-in and a lack of concerted action.
And people within the branding and design community are especially prone to logorrhoea. We need to get better at showing how our strategies seamlessly align with others. And we must avoid arcane debate about hierarchies. (Do you really want to hear people arguing that marketing is a subset of brand and not the other way around?).
Design by Nic Renn Design
For example, our work with Diageo enabled us to find a common thread within the business, brand, and brand architecture strategies that could inspire and guide creative brand design. The notion of ‘alchemy’ spoke equally well to the organisational model and to the product portfolio. And it was used to inform a new look and feel for online and offline corporate brand communications.
The format of strategy on a page - SOAP for short – is a single document that literally shows the relationships between strategies. One ring to rule them all. One flag to salute.
Sadly, if I had a pound for every time a client has used their SOAP as the basis for curing strategitis... I’d have about £1.
Written by Alec Rattray
See how Chromatic has helped brands to develop clear strategies:
