Strategy is not brand. It is not vision or goals. It is not execution. It is a high-level roadmap that takes a bird’s-eye view and looks at everything holistically, from the big picture overview through to the small details of execution.
The future belongs to the innovators.
Ideas are the currency of our times, and powerful creative is the strongest component of any corporate arsenal. Your brand personality is your core asset, and it is imperative that you correctly identify this and then permeate your marketing with it. But be careful… You must do it the right way if you want to cut through the clutter.
Why bother with strategy?
In a world where information and instant communication are relentless components of business and life, marketing is no longer an afterthought. It is now critical. To stay in the game, every company MUST become a marketing company. It is essential that your visual communication deliver maximum reach, maximum chatter, maximum retention, maximum value and maximum impact. In order to do this, you must stop and spend time on strategy so you are in a position to direct your future rather than drift aimlessly toward it.
Christine Clarke (consultant and founder of studio 55) says, “It is easy to output materials without strategy; however it is a waste of your time… Productivity that is not based in planning is pointless as it will not gain traction and will likely harm your brand rather than help it!”
So, what is strategy?
Strategy is an overarching game plan… an integrated set of smart decisions that will uniquely position your business or product in your marketplace. Strategy creates a sustainable advantage concerning your competition, your impact and your cut-through.
At Studio 55, we work on both competitive and organisational strategy. Competitive Strategy is about setting the plan for a product, campaign, brand or initiative, while Organisational Strategy is about setting the strategy for the company as a whole.
The process of developing a strategy is unique in each case and must be tailored to suit the respective requirements of each situation. There is no ‘one size fits all’.
