Four Fin submark

Brand Strategy Q&A with Hillery

Hillery Kemp Brand Strategy

Often, prospective clients ask us how we arrive at our design choices, or how are we able to create a full brand identity in just three weeks during Brand Sessions. The answer always comes back to brand strategy.

Hillery, Four Fin’s Brand Strategist, gives us a glimpse into its importance.

What’s the difference between a brand strategy and a marketing strategy?

This is a great question that similarly goes with the classic “what’s the difference between branding and marketing?” inquiry I receive when telling people what I do. We wrote a great little number on this a while back if you need a refresher.

The strategy of a brand is the map guiding foundationally how the brand needs to show up in the world, based more on emotions than logic. This strategy is utilized by those responsible for bringing the brand to life visually and verbally (e.g., designers, copywriters, agencies, etc.) or through action (e.g., company management, employees, etc.). It’s truly the DNA for a brand, and although the components vary, they will often include the: brand concept, brand positioning, brand values, brand pillars, and brand personality traits. 

A marketing strategy, on the other hand, is a map guiding functionally how and where the brand needs to show up in the world to effectively reach target audiences, based more on logic. It is utilized by those responsible for articulating the brand’s value to audiences (e.g., marketing managers, social media and other digital marketers/agencies, etc.). These strategies often contain customer segmentation, promotional tactics and timing, and evaluation. 

Marketing strategies exist to help companies promote products and services, and are ultimately informed by the strategy of the brand . 

What’s the risk of not having a strategy in place for your brand?

Imagine building a car without knowing what kind of engine will be in it. How would you design the body style? How big could it be? How would it perform? A basic metaphor to say that managing a brand without a clear strategy is a blinding endeavour. 

If there is no framework for consistently showing up, several things happen:

  • Audiences will have a harder time remembering your brand
  • Internal alignment for both branding AND marketing activities become impossible
  • More time and resources are wasted attempting to solve brand and marketing challenges every time they come up (which happens often)

How do you create a brand strategy?

In developing brand strategies, being an outside perspective for our clients is key. It provides us with 360 degrees of context without getting too deep into the weeds of their businesses. 

At a high level, we look at the client’s business, competition, industry, and (often most importantly) customers. We understand the important factors influencing each of these aspects of our client’s brand and work to uncover the authentic space they can/already own. Capturing this ownable space are the grounds for building out the components of the brand’s strategy. 

Have a strategy-related question or could your brand use an outside-in perspective? 

Reach out to us! 

Deep dive

We care deeply about sustainability branding, graphic design, industry trends, company culture, and more. Dive into the minds of our team on the Four Fin blog, The Deep End.

Let's make waves

Thanks for your interest in Four Fin! We love nothing more than helping good people make waves.
Let's Make Waves

Just say hi.

A great group of thoughtful, passionate creatives are on the other end of this form. Our branding agency would love to hear from you.
Turn the tide

Turn the Tide

Want to get involved? Let us know below:

Brand Splash

Ready to get your feet wet?

Brand Session

Ready to build your brand? Dip your toes in below:
Carly DeMento

Carly DeMento

Content Strategist + Copywriter

Wordsmith, strategist, and overall language ninja.

Enneagram:

5

Curious & Inventive
Theme song:

Americans

Janelle Monae
  • Give her a snack and she’ll love you forever. This is one extremely food motivated human. Tacos, cheese n crackers, and dark chocolate are all accepted forms of currency.
  • She once traveled around the world by herself in less than three months. Her favorite places on the planet (so far) are Chiapas and Sicily. 
  • Her first word was moon.

      LINKEDIN

Evan Shulman

Evan Shulman

Brand Strategist

In order to make big waves (and have fun riding them!), helps craft a solid, substantive, (super bad) soul of a brand.

Enneagram:

7

Fun-loving & versatile
Theme song:
Rüfüs du Sol (Lane 8 Remix)
  • Proud 90’s U.S. Space Camp Graduate where I got as close as I was gonna get to my kid aspirations of being an astronaut. Now super happy to be an Earthonaut (like you).
  • For fun I read wikipedia articles, watch youtube explainers, and look up the etymology of words, often leading to waaayyyy too many tabs open in my browser.
  • I’ve DJed on an art car at Burning Man. My “theme song” is what got the vibe going. 

      LINKEDIN