Strategy and Context
Strategic theories found in every brand manager's toolkit are listed in this chapter. As you read, add the ten key terms to your key terms glossary and organize them by strategy, execution, or collateral. Then look at the Brand Pyramid Template, start this analysis with the Brand Essence, then choose a brand you are loyal to and examine how each engages you in the loyalty loop. Next, choose a close competitor to your brand, and run the same examination. The Brand Pyramid Template strategy is often used for evaluating brand initiatives that align with the commitment to ethical practices. Use the work you started in the activity above and choose a brand that has been certified for its commitment to societal business practices (https://www.bcorporation.net/en-us/find-a-b-corp). Again, look at the Brand Pyramid Template, and examine how the B Corp brand compares with a similar competitive B Corp brand. You can search the category to find the competitive brand. Use your notebook to create 2-3 sentence answers to the challenge questions for both exercises. This time, in this exercise, substitute the B Corp brand and focus on which ethical practices create the best strategic competitive advantage.
Summary
Strategy is the essential first step in positioning your brand within the market and creating a roadmap for achieving your business goals. While there are many different paths one can take, there is a clear process for understanding where you are, where you need to be and how you will get there. It all starts with understanding the business challenges that your brand faces. From there, an effective marketing strategy looks at the market context, weighs the available options and makes important choices, based on solid research and data. Digital adds a layer of technology, engagement and iterative optimisation into the strategic process. The wide variety of tools and tactics offered by the digital medium should inform your strategic choices.
Digital can make marketing strategy highly empirical and your strategic thinking should be mindful of ROI and how it can be measured. This will allow you to optimise your tactics and performance in order to create a valuable brand story, an excellent user experience, the most optimised conversion funnels and the highest ROI.