I run a humble little brand consultancy.  Marketing consultancies and business consultancies are way more easily found if you Google them. Same if you search the topics on Amazon. But I chose to look at improved business metrics from the brand standpoint — ergo the “humble” reference. Not many in search of more revenue or margin are thinking brand.  For me, brand is the strategy — defined as “An organizing principle for product, experience and messaging.”

I find brand strategists to be divided among the most and least sophisticated people in the marketing business. Those who get it, can redistribute marketing wealth.  Those who don’t, sell you a new logo. Both types of brand strategist have frameworks for their output: qualitative and quantitative research as bedrock, a brief as the worksheet, and some type of presentation sizzle, to “get to yes.”

When I look at my business and the businesses of other brand strategists, what separates the good from the bad can be described in one word: Instinct.  What ideas, words, market positions and images are best suited to generate consumer fealty. It’s that simple. Framework easy. Instinct hard.

Peace.