A well-crafted strategy brief is the cornerstone of any successful partnership between a business and a branding agency over the course of a project. For us agencies, a detailed brief is not just a roadmap, it’s a vital tool that shapes the creative journey and aligns expectations, helping our team to make your vision and goals a reality.
At its core, a strategy brief serves as the foundation for understanding the essence of a brand currently, and the brand we want to create. It provides crucial insights into a company’s existing mission, values, and market positioning, along with your challenges and future ambitions, enabling us to develop a brand strategy that resonates with the target audience and stands out from the competition.
Without this essential document, we can be left navigating the complexities of a brand strategy process with limited direction, often leading to misaligned outcomes and missed opportunities.
In this blog we’ll be giving you the full rundown on how to craft your own brilliant strategy briefs, helping to clearly lay out project objectives, define the scope of work, and establish key deliverables. Whilst paving the way for a more efficient and focused creative process, allowing agencies to produce a final product that empowers your organisation.
Furthermore, if you’d like to define what sets your organisation apart and own that space, or just want some fresh perspective, you can get in touch with us to arrange a chat at: [email protected]
So without any further ado, here’s a structured approach to writing a comprehensive strategy brief:
1. Introduction
- Purpose: Explain the purpose of the brief and what you aim to achieve.
- Background: Provide a brief overview of your company, including history, industry, products or services and key milestones.
2. Company Overview
- Mission Statement: Describe your company’s mission and core values.
- Vision Statement: Outline the long-term vision and goals of your company.
- Current Brand Positioning: Explain how your brand is currently perceived in the market.
3. Project Overview
- Objective: Clearly state the main objective of the branding project. Is it a rebrand, brand refresh, or creating a new brand from scratch?
- Scope: Define the scope of the project (e.g., research needed, a full rebrand or strategy update, launch / rollout strategy)
- Deliverables: List expected deliverables from the agency (e.g., a brand strategy document containing a Brand Strapline with rationale, Market Positioning Statement, Brand Proposition, an updated Brand Mission, Vision, Purpose and Values, Tone of Voice guide, and key Brand Messages).
4. Target Audience
- Demographics: Describe the primary target audience (age, gender, location, income, etc.).
- Psychographics: Outline their interests, values, attitudes, and lifestyles.
- Behavioural Insights: Include any relevant information on customer behaviour, buying patterns, and brand interaction.
5. Market Analysis
Typically at Notepad we conduct our own extensive Brand Validation stage, consisting of a workshop, market research and if required, customer or internal interviews. Helping to form the basis for our strategic recommendations. However, a bit of background always helps!
- Competitive Landscape: Identify key competitors and their brand positioning.
- Market Trends: Highlight any relevant trends in your industry.
- SWOT Analysis: Provide a brief SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) of your brand.
6. Brand Positioning
We will help you to articulate this over the course of a project, and always draw our own conclusions about a brand’s greatest strengths, where opportunities lie and how it should be positioned using strategy, but again… a bit of background helps.
- Unique Selling Proposition (USP): Explain what sets your brand apart from competitors.
- Brand Personality: Describe the personality traits of your brand (e.g., innovative, trustworthy, friendly).
7. Brand Goals and KPIs
- Short-Term Goals: Outline immediate goals you aim to achieve with the branding project.
- Long-Term Goals: Describe long-term brand objectives.
- Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): Define how you will measure the success of the branding efforts (e.g., brand awareness, brand consistency, customer engagement, employee engagement, brand equity, sales growth).
Some of these metrics will not yield results immediately after a project and will take a bit longer to bear fruit
8. Budget and Timeline
- Budget: Provide an estimated budget for the project.
- Timeline: Outline key milestones and deadlines, including project start date and expected completion date.
9. Brand Assets and Inspiration
- Existing Assets: List any existing brand assets that should be considered. (e.g. the Brand Name, Mission, Values etc.) What’s up for grabs, what’s staying put and what’s somewhere in the middle, not every strategy project means a total rebrand
- Inspiration: Share examples of brands or designs that inspire you and align with your future vision.
10. Contact Information
- Primary Contact: Provide the contact details of the main point of contact for the project.
- Additional Contacts: Include any other relevant contacts (e.g., project managers, marketing team members).
We hope you’ve found this guide useful and will either inspire you to explore your brand strategy or provide direction on an upcoming project, we also have a downloadable template version on the link provided below:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1twYUb9lO5ymP2qf4K0yUmzsndjaAvRnl/view?usp=sharing
