The Trees and the Forests

Why brand, why strategy and why work with us; some questions answered.

Why brand strategy...

Consider this definition of a brand; it’s our definition and the one we work to:

‘A brand is to a product, service or a destination, as personality is to a person’.

It’s a holistic view of a ‘brand’ and it’s a game changer as it allows us to consider how the brand ‘works’ at every point of interface or possible interface with its target markets.

Because powerful brands are built at every point of interface.

Your brand is in the experience of doing business with you, it’s how you look, feel and behave in the noise and clutter of the media landscape. It’s alive in your culture; it’s in how you answer the phone and the value you deliver to your consumers – and a whole lot more.

Add to this the complexity of what brands have to do in digital and social media and it’s pretty clear that a brand has to be a whole lot more than a logo, colour scheme, a few clever headlines and some rigid brand guidelines.

Your brand is in the relationship, the engagement and the conversation you have with your customers.

This holistic brand; from the logo, to the in-store experience, to the culture of your brand, is what our brand strategies deliver.

The value of brand...

We all know how valuable a brand can be, we don’t need to go there - there are books and thesis and articles and blogs and more written on the subject.

There is however one important thing that we can add to this wealth of information, something that’s not widely recognised and it’s this:

A function of the brand strategy is to crystallise the naturally held beliefs about the brand and resolve them to the needs of the market space and the competitive environment - it defines where you need to go; it gives you your ‘destination’.

A destination tells you where you’re going. When you know where you’re going, you can draw a map of how to get there.

And this is what we do with our brand strategy – we provide a simple, practical useful ‘map’, something that is ‘actionable’; something that gets you where you need to go.

Why are you?

A lot of brands can tell you (their consumers and their internal stakeholders) what they do and how they do it.

But these days consumers need something else – it’s called ‘the reason to believe’.

That reason to believe is not in what you do or how you do it – it’s in why you’re doing it.

Our strategies help crystallise and articulate your ‘why’.

We help give you something that is real, true, and authentic that consumers can believe in.

Change...

Maybe you’re launching a new product or developing a new market, maybe you’re changing your marketing focus to digital or social, or maybe just updating your brand to be relevant to the market as it exists today – whatever you do it’s going to involve internal change.

Developing a brand strategy can be a critical piece of the change management process.

The brand strategy process is collaborative and inclusive, it builds consensus, it gets all your internal stakeholders on the same page and moving in the same direction. It aligns every one with the same mission and purpose.

It makes ‘new’ or ‘different’ easier for you to ‘sell through’ internally.

This is where we begin our process; by understanding what you need to get out of it, what you need to ‘sell’ internally and who you need to take along for the journey. We establish those objectives which means you can evaluate our work against them. It can make life a lot easier.

It also means you get what you need - and what you expect.

The conversation...

Let’s look at one of the things that brand delivers – the ‘conversation’.

We know the value of deep engagement and social media. Again, many books have been written on this.

For a brand to ‘work’ it has to have that deep engagement with consumers - and you don’t get it by talking about yourself all the time. No one is interested in that.

A brand strategy allows you to identify the ‘natural’ conversations your brand can participate in – so instead of your engagement being all about your brand it becomes about the consumer and their life, their interests and the conversations they are already having with each other. From the consumer’s point of view, it’s a more interesting conversation to be having.

Again, this is something our strategies can deliver.

An actionable outcome...

A brand strategy is a useful thing.

When developing advertising, marketing, communications, design, copy or brand collateral the brand strategy document can be effectively used as a checklist.

For example, if producing copy, look at the copy that has been written and then look at the ‘attitude’ and ask the question “does this copy communicate a sense of the attitude you have?”

Used in this way it becomes a simple way to guide or inform all expressions of the brand.

It enables coherent, congruent, powerful effective and persuasive brand communication – and the benefit of this is measurable, there is a ROI.

While we’re new, our team has considerable experience. The companies above are just some of the brands that our individual team member’s have experience working with. Detailed case studies, a portfolio of work or briefings for individual team members experience on any of these brands is available on request.

Our experience...

Our team... Our strategy team is led by our Senior Strategist, Ravi Prasad. Ravi has worked for agencies including Sapient Nitro, Leo Burnett, FCB, Ogilvy and Mather, Wunderman, One Digital, Tribal DDB and John Singleton Advertising. He was former Head of Copy and Content for Euro RSCG Digital in Australia, former Senior Strategy Planner for Sapient Nitro in Australia and most recently a Senior Strategy Planner for Clemenger BBDO.

He has worked for some of the world’s and Australia’s most powerful and successful brands including Sony, Dell, Intel, Gatorade, Mercedes Benz, Tourism Australia, IBM, Acer Computer, HSBC, Westpac, Nike and Virgin.

Over the years he’s been a finalist in or won awards for his work including at AUS Trade, ADMA, APMA, W3, AIMIA, the Asia Pacific Advertising Festival and the LACP in Los Angeles.

Talk with us... If you’d like to find out more about us, our team and what we can do, please call our MD Kresant Mahiliall on 0410 502 829

Or, if you’re specifically interested in brand or strategy, you can contact Ullash Tiwari on 0433 785 846.

Thank you... www.thetreesandtheforests.com.au