How to build a rock solid brand strategy with KANVAS by KAN
The essential basics for a successful brand & design strategy
The essential basics for a successful brand & design strategy
Our KANVAS framework is a holistic model that ensures accurate project scoping and provides step-by-step-guidance in building a unique brand strategy, without losing the big picture. It is built on our belief that only great brands succeed in creating a unique & consistent experience through their products, services and all other touchpoints. When applied properly, KANVAS will enable you to:
Our KANVAS framework is a holistic model that ensures accurate project scoping and provides step-by-step-guidance in building a unique brand strategy, without losing the big picture. It is built on our belief that only great brands succeed in creating a unique & consistent experience through their products, services and all other touchpoints. When applied properly, KANVAS will enable you to:
• Create alignment in brand vision on board level
• Keep a helicopter view on your brand and its applications
• Provide clear briefings for your design and communication partners
• Combine the inside-out (you) and the outside-in view (your stakeholders)
• Help you extend your brand into relevant touchpoints, products and services
• Create engagement amongst your co-workers
Although our KANVAS also treats with the actual design of a brand, its experience & activation and digital brand management, we will only touch the strategic components in this article.
Start by defining a clear purpose, the brand’s core reason for existing (besides making money). This is also known as your Why. Reflect on why the founder once started the company, what’s the greater good you want to contribute to, or which role can you play in people’s lives? This is the foundation on which your organisation is built and should be the north star that guides your business decision-making.
Your brand's personality is what makes you unique. The last step is defining your actual personality with which you communicate. Imagine your brand would star in a movie, which character would it play? How would you describe it? Think about character traits, but also what your brand’s style is. Having all of this clearly defined will help keep your communication steady and create a consistent brand experience.
Know your strenghts, look for all the elements that embody your purpose or that help you to be able to achieve it. The easiest way to find these things is by thinking about what makes you proud within your organisation or consider your biggest strengths. More often than not, this is linked to your product, your people, or your processes and work method. These elements are the glue that holds together your entire organisation so it’s important to know who or what you can always count on or fall back to.
Understand your playfield. Start at the beginning, check out the field and all the other players in it. Don’t just limit yourself to your immediate competitors, also look into possible substitutes, and don’t forget potential partners.
After that, make sure to dive into the long-and-short term market trends as well. Taking time to do this ensures you understand how others have positioned themselves (and how you shouldn’t), and what’s going on in the market that you could benefit from or should be careful with.
Identify your stakeholder personas. The next step should be diving into your audience and stakeholders. define the different target groups based on their specific demographics and behaviour.
For each group separately, take a look at the habits and anxieties that shape their behaviour, figure out what the advantages or disadvantages are of using your product or service for them, and most importantly what their underlying goal is for using it.
What value will your brand deliver to your stakeholders? As soon as we have an inventory of specific value propositions per stakeholder persona, we will try to find overarching value pillars across propositions and across personas, and plot them in what we call a value matrix. This matrix can be used as overall guiding priciples for general communication, but will also include specific hooks for each stakeholder (e.g. employer branding). They are the foundation for your brand promise.
Now that you identified all internal and external factors influencing your brand, you have enough information for the final step: your Brand Passport. This is a strategic, moodboard-style document, that illustrates how you will position yourself into the hearts and minds of your stakeholders.
We hope these first six strategic stepping stones may be of help in in preparing yourself for your future branding ventures.
The KANVAS framework is licensed under Creative Commons CC BY 4.0
