“Decision making filter” are words Ana Andjelic uses to describe brand. I wonder if we are kin from another mother. When I read her newsletter post “Why VCs should pay attention to brands,” I felt a special kinship. My descriptor for brand strategy is “An organizing principle for product, experience and messaging.” And if you boil down my words or ladder them down, it yields decision-making filter. Take action based upon a strategy.
When we use words the brand rather than business, business people get uncomfortable. They think we’re talking brand ephemera: logo, color palette, tagline, voice, and such. HELL NO. We are talking strategy. Strategy that is bi-directional. Or full duplex. That means we are not just leveling a strategy at consumers, but we are bringing consumers into the strategy, so they can play it back to us. So they believe they are the participants and propagators of the mission.
Business strategy is one way. Brand strategy is two-way. Love can be unrequited, but it’s not fulsome love. Brand strategy is business strategy requited.
Why Ana’s post is important is VCs tend to stop at business strategy – at financial viability and ferocious growth. Branding is about completing the circle. Creating a fertile, long-term garden. One that fertilizes itself.
Peace.